Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityOhio University students hike above the clouds during their last day backpacking a section of the Appalachian Trail in the Nantahala National Forest near Franklin, North Carolina.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityEqvtime Baramidze, an amateur mixed martial arts fighter, kisses Brianna Hensley, his girlfriend of seven months, before leaving for training in Loveland.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversitySnow falls on Ohio University’s campus in Athens,.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityHolly McClintock walks on the edge of a canyon in Roppel Cave. The cave, which McClintock, the President of the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition, calls her “project cave,” is a 97 mile section of the 426-mile long Mammoth Cave System that when connected to Mammoth Cave 50 years ago, made the Mammoth Cave System the longest cave in the world. Year round, volunteers with the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition, Cave Research Foundation and National Park System work together to survey the full undiscovered length of the cave, which is estimated to be up to 1,000 miles.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityStephen Bishop, Holly McClintock, Matt Mezydlo and Kelly McDermott take a break to check on a frog Matt is carrying in a makeshift water bottle. The group cut open the water bottle to use as a rescue container after discovering the animal in a pool of water. The group suspected that the frog was washed into the cave from the surface during a recent storm, and said that if not returned to the surface, it would die in the cave.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityHolly McClintock twists her neoprene socks to release the cold water while taking a break from surveying. The Mammoth Cave System maintains a temperature of around 50 degrees, allowing cavers to go on trips year round, but due to sections of the cave that force the cavers to wade or crawl through water, they wear neoprene clothing which uses body heat to maintain warmth.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityStephen Bishop walks sideways through a tight passageway in Roppel Cave. Due to many of the passages in Roppel Cave resembling the tight size of this one, the survey trips often take about 16 hours to complete.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityCave pearls, which are small balls of calcite that formed over a span of hundreds of years, lay in a pool of water in Roppel Cave. Cave pearls, gypsum flower, stalactites, and stalagmites are just a few of the different types of formations the cavers encounter and work to preserve while surveying new sections of the cave.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityMatt Mezydlo pours M&M’s into McClintock’s hand as the group of cavers take a snack and water break.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityKelly McDermott crawls through a previously undiscovered passageway in Roppel Cave. “It gets bigger!” McDermott said after each 20 foot-long survey point. Along with Brad Graf and Stephanie Stoops, McDermott surveyed about 400 feet of new passageway. “This passage is now called chocolate milk and it’s served with a swirly red and white straw,” McDermott said.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityHolly McClintock smiles while looking at the gypsum flowers in a section of Roppel Cave that she discovered she named the Eros Trail after the Greek God of love and desire. According to McClintock, less people have walked in the Eros Trail than have walked on the Moon. “I feel very proud of this… the first trip I came here, nobody had been here for 20 years.” After five previous trips to this area, McClintock expanded a golf ball sized hole and discovered over 2,000 feet of passageway and at least seven new leads to return to.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityHolly McClintock (right) sits with her surveying book while waiting for Matt Mezydlo and Stephen Bishop to communicate the numbers of the width, length, and height of the cave passage they’re documenting. “We discover new leads on every single trip to Roppel,” McClintock said. In total, nearly 800 feet were added onto Mammoth Cave’s record length during this survey trip.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityThe group of cavers walk past a waterfall in Roppel Cave while making their way out of the cave.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityHolly McClintock lays alongside a burning wax candle for warmth while taking a break from surveying in Roppel Cave.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityAbby Spears, of New Boston, the Coordinator of Injury Prevention at the Portsmouth City Health Dept., smokes a cigarette after stepping out from the syringe exchange to see why the police were outside. According to Spears, some of the people who visit the exchange are on probation, parole, or have active warrants. Spears said that the Ohio Revised Code includes a rule of anonymity built into the syringe exchange which means that police are not allowed to approach people within a 1,000 foot perimeter of the event.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityHopeann Lovinroff-Moran rests her hand on her OhioCAN banner, a non-profit that she extended into her hometown of Youngstown. This banner includes close to 5,000 people who have passed away to the drug epidemic. “We just keep making it larger but now we're to the point where we're probably going to have to you know make two… we started out with two little poster size banners.” Lovinroff-Moran, who lost her step-daughter, Jody, to an overdose in 2018, knew multiple faces on the banner but wasn’t able to point them all out because she couldn’t find them. In 2021, fentanyl was the No. 1 cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityA man most likely high on a stimulant and a depressant, called speedballing, passes out due to the strength of his high, only to wake up moments later. The Scioto County Sheriff’s Office jail refused to accept the man because of “poor condition,” leading the EMS crew to transport him to the hospital, which later released him without arrest after the man’s high wore off. According to Officer Spriggs, the arresting officer who responded to the intial 911 call, this cycle happens all of the time.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityThe sun rises over Portsmouth as the U.S. Grant Bridge connects Portsmouth, Ohio, to South Portsmouth, Kentucky. Since 2010, Ohio’s overdose rate has been above average compared to the United States, according to the CDC, but according to provisional data from the CDC, Ohio is one of eight states that has a declining number of overdose deaths in the past 12 months compared to the rest of the country. “Others are still at these high numbers that aren't showing the decrease in the same way that Ohio is. So we know that our work is having a positive impact,” Lori Criss, Director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services said. “But we have to do more because the numbers are still at record rates. And they're not numbers… It's lives lost… Friends, family, sisters, brothers, parents, these are these are unacceptable deaths. They're preventable. And we're going to continue to keep working everyday to end that.”
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityJayson Jarvis, of Portsmouth, carries containers each filled with up to 3,000 used syringes into his home next door to the syringe exchange. Jarvis works the syringe exchange alongside Abby Spears every week, and the pair have known each other for their entire lives. According to Spears, the syringe exchange is up to about 2,900 unique participants since it first started. “We are providing services across roughly 16 zip codes between five states,” Spears said.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityTyler Paul, of Columbus, works alongside people in recovery at The Counseling Center Garage in Portsmouth, Ohio. The Counseling Center Garage is a recovery opportunity where people in recovery can relearn life skills such as mechanics. Tyler and his older brother, Dave, grew up using drugs together before moving to Portsmouth from Columbus for treatment and ultimately working at The Counseling Center Garage where they help people who were once in their shoes make it through recovery.“It’s hard being The Counseling Center Garage because there’s always those people who are like ‘Them are addicts…’ it can be hard to stray away from that stigma,” Paul said.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityDr. Rick Ryan stands in the hallways of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where he works as a professor and vice chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine. According to Dr. Ryan, he is 12 years in recovery from cough syrup, which led him to initiate research on opioid use disorder at UC Health, which he now focuses about 70% of his time on. Dr. Ryan collaborates with people working on the front lines of the overdose epidemic across the state on a $60 million dollar grant-based study called HEALing Communities, which collects overdose data from people such as Abby Spears at the Portsmouth City Health Department and Captain Josh Sherman at the Portsmouth Fire Department, which according to the study’s website, “will inform how to support local efforts to reduce opioid misuse and overdose deaths.” “We're working with everybody from families to EMS providers, to physician extenders and providers to really push and destigmatize this disease,” Dr. Ryan said.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityPortsmouth Police Department officers place a homeless man under arrest for an outstanding warrant after responding to an emergency 911 call of a possible overdose and finding him laying on the sidewalk. According to officers at the Portsmouth Police Department, this man had been clean off drugs and in treatment for a few months about a year earlier.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityA billboard alongside US-52 heading west from New Boston to Portsmouth reads, “You can be a hero! You can save a life! Carry Naloxone! Laypersons in Scioto County performed 1617 Naloxone reversals in 2021.” The billboard is sponsored by Scioto Connect, a non-profit organization in Scioto County.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityCaptain Josh Sherman stands atop the Portsmouth Fire Department for a portrait. Captain Sherman helped develop and facilitate the quick response team with The Counseling Center about a year ago after having trouble decompressing following runs due to the high amount of overdoses. “We elicited the help of counselors, drug abuse counselors from the Counseling Center, and they formed a group of people that now respond to opioid related incidents or or drug related incidents and they provide resources. They provide immediate transport, comfort care, medications, medical assisted therapies for people who are in an act of addiction at that moment, providing alternatives to taking them to the hospital or taking them to jail,” Sherman said. “It gave us a second to take a breath and to understand the situation to understand the addict or the person with the substance abuse disorder. And to kind of see how the QRT interacts with those people and to see their empathy and to see their compassion for people that we just never considered to even have that for. To me, that was a big hurdle and once we kind of cleared that hurdle, we were able to function a little better.”
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityAn American Flag waves across the street from the Athens County Courthouse on Election Day in Athens.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityWorshippers celebrate Ethiopian Constitution Day at Holy Trinity Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in Columbus, Ohio. “We commemorate this day because God reveals himself to the sons of man, but we also commemorate this day as a reminder of what it means to be faithful even in the harshest of circumstances,” head pastor Dr. Moses Haregewoyn said during his sermon in reference to the ongoing civil war in Ethiopia.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversityEmmett Covington, 25, of Athens prepares to land a tatted up eggplant trick during Skate Jam’s deep end bowl competition in Athens. Covington started skating in Athens at age seven and went on to win one of Skate Jam’s top prizes for the deep end bowl competition.
Student Photographer of the Year - Second Place, Joe Timmerman / Ohio UniversitySouthern Ohio Copperheads right fielder Trey Rucker (3) high fives teammates during a Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League game against the Sandusky Ice Haulers.
