2014 ONPA workshop faculty
Sue Ogrocki has more than three decades experience as a wire service photographer, spending the last 10 years with the Associated Press in Oklahoma City.
Her job has taken her from the scenes of natural disasters and presidential debates to the sidelines of major professional, collegiate and amateur sporting events. These range from the Olympics in Seoul, Atlanta, Salt Lake City and Athens to 21 Kentucky Derby races. In addition, she has photographed college bowl games, NCAA Final Fours, NBA Finals, Super Bowls, World Series, All-Star Games, the Stanley Cup Finals, the Pan Am Games, World Cup Soccer and World Gymnastic and Figure Skating Championships. She was also dispatched to New Zealand, where she covered the celebrations and the first dawn of the new millennium.
Ogrocki was one of the first photographers on the scene of the devastating May 20, 2013, tornado that ravaged Moore, Okla., killing 24 people, including seven school children. Her gripping photos were used around the world and as the lead picture in more than 200 newspapers. A cum laude graduate of Kent State University, she has shot for UPI in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio and for Reuters in Chicago.
Readers have seen Ogrocki’s work in: Life; Newsweek; Time; Sports Illustrated; People; Inside Sports; ESPN Magazine; National Geographic World; USA Today; the New York Times; the Washington Post; the Los Angeles Times; the Chicago Tribune; and The Miami Herald.
In her spare time, Ogrocki travels, bikes and sails. Her most recent international trip took her to Africa, where she photographed the mountain gorillas in Uganda.
Dave Weatherwax is the Chief Photographer at The Herald in Jasper, Ind. A small, family-owned newspaper, The Herald is honored annually for its community journalism and use of photography in covering Dubois County. Dave has thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to document the life and culture in southern Indiana for the last few years. He greatly values the relationships he forms with the subjects he documents for The Saturday Feature, a weekly photo column.
Before coming to Jasper, he was a staff photographer and videographer for The Jackson Citizen Patriot in Jackson, Mich. Dave is a graduate of the School of Journalism at Michigan State University.
In Jasper, Dave has contributed to a picture editing team that has earned several editing and best use awards in both Pictures of the Year International and the National Press Photographers Association’s Best of Photojournalism. His story work for The Saturday Feature has also been honored in both competitions. His work documenting Dubois County has earned him third place POYi Photographer of the Year in 2013 and NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism Photojournalist of the Year (Smaller Markets) in both 2012 and 2013.
David Larson began his career as an editor at WBOC-TV in Salisbury, Md. shortly after graduating from York College of Pennsylvania. Here, Larson learned the value of smooth edits, the importance of pacing and how to put together tight sequences. He spent two years at WBOC-TV working on his craft, before moving to Harrisburg, PA to work at WHTM-TV. He learned from great storytellers such as Doug Legore, Bryan Barr and Keith Blaisdell while working there and found tremendous growth in his craft. After two and half years at WHTM and a year traveling the world, Larson applied for a position at WBFF-TV in Baltimore, Md., where he still works today.
Throughout his career, David Larson has earned over a dozen Emmy Awards recognizing his storytelling and photography talents. He has also amassed a collection of Associated Press Awards, Edward R. Murrow awards, and NPPA Best of Photojournalism awards. He was named 2011 NPPA Top West Regional Photographer of the Year and helped WBFF win NPPA Station of the Year in 2011.
David Stephenson, 42, is a freelance photojournalist and the Photojournalism Adviser for the University of Kentucky’s student newspaper, the Kentucky Kernel. David returned to his native Lexington and joined the staff of the Herald-Leader in 1997 and left to join the Kernel in 2009.
He is a four-time recipient of the Kentucky News Photographers Association’s Photographer of the Year Award and has been named Sports Photographer of the Year three times. He won the National Press Photographers Association Region 4 Photographer of the Year twice.
Stephenson, a 1992 WKU graduate, recently completed a four-year project, “A New Dawn?”, following a young mother addicted to pain pills through a local Drug Court Program. His multimedia piece for this series was awarded the Best Multimedia Project in the 65th POYi competition. A story about a Garrard County tobacco cutting competition was awarded First Place Multimedia News Story by POYi in 2010.
In 2005, David created heraldleaderphoto.com, a place for staff photographers to publish multimedia and slideshows. The site recently won a Media Eclipse Award for 2007 Kentucky Derby Coverage online. He also created a site specifically for one of his favorite series of stories on oddly name towns in Kentucky, Project Dateline. David led the staff’s charge into multimedia and has produced videos and multimedia projects which have won awards in the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, POYi, NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism, and The Southern Short Course.
In addition to advising at the Kentucky Kernel, David has entered the freelance market as a photographer and multimedia journalist serving Lexington, Kentucky, and just about anywhere else. He specializes in news, editorial, equine and sports photography.