"Colorado Connection" photo exhibit hits home

Dean Paul Voakes addresses a crowd at Macky during the exhibit opening.

Colorado Connection," a special exhibit of images with links to the state made by prominent photographers, was installed on the first floor of the Armory in early January. The collection was presented to the School of Journalism and Mass Communication in this fall by Rich Clarkson, an internationally acclaimed photographer, and John E. Holden ('48).

The exhibit was unveiled at a September reception at the Andrew J. Macky Gallery in Macky Auditorium with several of the famous photographers in attendance.

"Storytelling pictures capture moments of history, beauty and insight," Clarkson said. "This cross-section of memorable photographs features famous images made in the state as well as the work of notable photographers who have called Colorado home."

Both Holden and Clarkson are members of the School's advisory board. The collection includes 14 notable photographs including six that won the Pulitzer Prize. Dean Paul Voakes said the collection will serve as an inspiration to the school's students, especially its photojournalism students, for years to come.

"On behalf of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the university, we gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Rick Clarkson and John Holden, which made this exhibit possible," Voakes said.

Clarkson personally selected, secured and oversaw the preparation of the photographs. Holden's generous donation supported the production and finishing costs of the photos, as well as improvements for the Armory building, where the photos are permanently housed.

Following are details of this unique set of photographs.

• Neal Ulevich, retired Associated Press photographer, is still active and freelancing from his Denver home. His pictures made in 1976 of rioting and executions in Thailand won the Pulitzer Prize in 1977.

• Larry C. Price, now assistant managing editor for photography at The Denver Post, was working for the Fort Worth Star Telegram in 1980 when he went to cover the plight of Baptist missionaries in Liberia. He found himself in the midst of an uprising with sudden executions of members of the Cabinet of President William Tolbert. The pictures were selected for the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.

• Robert Jackson, semi-retired in Colorado Springs but still taking photographs for The Gazette, was a staff photographer for the Dallas Times-Herald in 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. The next day, he photographed the exact instant that Jack Ruby shot and killed suspect Lee Harvey Oswald. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964. See photo

• George Kochaniec Jr., a staff photographer of the Rocky Mountain News, was one of the first photographers to arrive at Columbine High School after the 1999 shootings. His picture of shocked students was the anchor image of the newspaper's portfolio of pictures that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000.

• Matt Inden was a student studying photography when he photographed one of the slurry bombers fighting the Colorado forest fires during the summer of 2002. He was making pictures when a slurry bomber broke apart and crashed. His remarkable picture of the airplane crash was first published by the Rocky Mountain News and was part of its Pulitzer Prize portfolio.

• Barry Guiterrez, a staff photographer at the Rocky Mountain News, was photographing the fast-moving fires near Durango in the summer of 2002 when new fires broke out, menacing homes near Missionary Ridge. The pall of orange light painted a strange look in this picture, part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning pictures in 2003. See photo

• Duane Howell, a longtime Denver Post photographer now retired, was among the first to arrive at the scene of the crash northeast of the Loveland Basin Ski area of a charter plane carrying the Wichita State football team to a game in Salt Lake City in 1970 when it failed to clear mountains in a canyon too narrow to turn back. See photo

• Dave Black has become one of the nation's premier sports photographers, covering Olympic athletes and games principally for Newsweek magazine. A longtime resident of Colorado Springs, Black was once a gymnast, then a gymnastic coach and now an accomplished photographer. His picture of Sarah Hughes is from her gold medal figure skating performance at the Salt Lake City winter games.

• James Balog is a Boulder photographer who has become one of the nation's leading photographers, combining storytelling images with innovative artistry. His photographs have appeared on the walls of museums, the pages of books and cover stories in National Geographic magazine. One of his most famous pictures from "Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife" appears in the exhibition.

• Kevin Moloney is a contributing photographer for The New York Times who regularly covers the mountain West. In addition, he teaches the photojournalism classes at the School. This photograph was shot during a rodeo weekend in Brodus, Montana. See photo

• Dean Conger was a longtime staff photographer at National Geographic magazine, now retired and living in Durango. He was one of a few photographers granted unlimited access to the former Soviet Union in the 1960s, and his pictures for National Geographic also were made into a book. His photograph of a small girl waving became one of the most popular pictures ever published in the Geographic. Conger was a three-time national Newspaper Photographer of the Year when working at The Denver Post. When he joined the Geographic staff, he was also named Magazine Photographer of the Year. See photo

• Rich Clarkson is now a Denver resident where he owns a photography and publishing company. He had been a senior assistant editor and director of photography of the National Geographic Society and assistant managing editor/graphics at The Denver Post. For many years, he was a contributing photographer to Sports Illustrated magazine with more than 70 covers. His photograph in the exhibition is of American miler Jim Ryun training for the Mexico City Olympic Games in the high-altitude Great Sand Dunes northeast of Alamosa). See photo

• Ansel Adams is an icon of American photography whose pictures captured the beauty of the American West. Though he lived in California, he made many trips into Colorado, and his pictures touched on the beauty of the Rockies, including the one of aspen trees in autumn in Dolores River Canyon. Adams died in 1984. Today, his original prints are among the most collectable and sought-after photographs in the world.

• W. Eugene Smith virtually invented the picture essay in the early days of Life magazine, and his incisive photographs from Spain to Mimamata, Japan, to Africa define documentary photography today. His photographs in 1948 of Dr. Ernest Ceriana in Kremmling stand today as one of the classic picture stories of all time. The lead picture of "Country Doctor" is included in the exhibition. Smith died in 1978.