Communiqué
WOUB Senior Spotlight: Walker Smith
< < Back toBy Kae Walther
ATHENS, OH – Walker Smith, a graduate student studying photojournalism, says he wants to pursue a documentary-style photography career. But his first stop after graduation this May will be Charleston, South Carolina. Smith has an internship with the Post and Courier.
“Long term, I hope to keep working on projects I care about, whether that’s applying for grants or finding a way to do it through a newspaper.”
Smith says his time working for WOUB has been “great practice,” and he has had some wonderful experiences working on WOUB TV’s high school football program, Gridiron Glory, and high school basketball program, Hardwood Heroes.
Smith acknowledges that he does not consider himself a sports photographer, but he took time before WOUB sports assignments to explore the various towns that WOUB covers.
“I would often go to games a couple hours before and photograph around the town. I would look for feature moments,” said Smith. “For these small towns, the games are community events.”
As part of WOUB, Smith says he participated in many alumni activities. It was the alumni that have come out of the photojournalism program that attracted him to the graduate program at Ohio University.
“Some legends have come through here,” said Smith. “So many of my favorite photographers came through [Ohio University] and I didn’t even know.”
Smith says he is appreciative of WOUB News Editor-in-Chief Atish Baidya for teaching him patience and how to further his craft, as well as WOUB News Assignment Editor David Forster for challenging him on ways to convey a story through photography.
“I’ve grown a lot as a photographer from being here.”
Outside of WOUB and Ohio University, Smith says he likes to explore West Virginia in his free time.