Emery wins photography contest

Thursday, August 22, 2013
Jon Emery's winning photo, "Breach of Time," will air on a national commerical in September. Photo by Jon Emery

Nevada Daily Mail

Jon Emery, 27, started learning photography on his father's old Pentax K-1000.

After graduating from the University of Missouri Columbia with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography and sculpture, he kept snapping photos as a hobby and exhibited his work on fineartamer-ica.com, a site with more than 95,000 photographers and fine artists offering 2 million images for sale.

Jon Emery's "Hidden Spectrum" made the second round of voting in the fineartamerica.com contest. Photo by Jon Emery.

Along with more than 10,000 submissions, Emery entered the site's contest for photographs to be included in its nationwide commercial. Emery's "Breach of Time" made the top five photographs and will get 5 seconds of air time starting in September. Another photograph he entered, "Hidden Spectrum," reached the second round of voting, which included 150 photographs.

"It was pretty incredible," Emery said. "I mostly do landscapes and macro shots."

"Breach of Time" features the inner workings of an old clock.

Jon Emery poses at an airport in Ukraine before delivering English textbooks to help the Peace Core mission to improve education. Submitted photo.

"The clock belonged to my grandmother, and no longer was functioning," Emery said. "She gave me a box of stuff she thought I might like to have. I pulled it apart, just sat it out, did some macro work with it, and it just turned out beautifully."

Emery explained macro work is taking a different, closer look at objects. "It's kind of like getting in and moving past the everyday views of things," he said.

"Hidden Spectrum" is a landscape of the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park.

"It's one of the most colorful places that you'll ever see," he said. "My wife and I went into the spring area at the right time of day where there was just clouds. So with the angle of the sun and the clouds, you couldn't see any of the color of this incredible, gorgeous giant hot pool that's just Technicolor on most days. I took this shot as we were walking around the boardwalk. Most people think it's in black and white, but it's a color shot."

Emery said what he loves most about photography is it allows him to show his world to others.

"I love the outdoors, I love hiking, I love exploring the back country, and road trips," he said. "It's fun for me to take the camera and bring those places to my family and friends who will never go there."

Emery has traveled extensively; he's been to several state parks, studied abroad in New Zealand while at Mizzou, visited central Europe and worked for the Peace Core in Ukraine right after graduating.

"Ukraine is a really interesting country," he said. "I think it's off the radar for most people, but it's landmass is about the size of Texas. It's the largest country in Europe if you don't count Russia, which is also in Asia. Politically, it's in sort of a pivotal point right now. For the last 10 or 15 years they're in this transition phase between aligning with Russia and aligning with the western bloc and joining the EU."

While in Ukraine he said he taught English as a foreign language.

"When you learn English there, your ability to get a job skyrockets. They had me out in far eastern Ukraine. I went to a little town called Gorlovka," he said. "I had an apartment that didn't have hot water, sometimes didn't have running water or electricity, and you couldn't adjust the heat. It was just sort of on. Most times my apartment was about 60 degrees. It was a good experience."

He said a death in the family brought him back to the U.S., and he started working for the Upward Bound program at Crowder in Neosho.

Upward Bound, a U.S. Department of Education program, provides support to high school students from low-income families, in which neither parent holds a bachelor's degree, in their preparation for college entrance.

"I was actually a student in this program in Nevada," he said. "It changed my life and my outlook on education and how it can open doors."

After four years at Crowder, Emery moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho, to work in the program with Idaho State University.

"The coolest thing about the program for me is these students have a thirst for education, but they don't have the inspiration or motivation to do it. A lot of times, no one's ever told them that they could," he said. "Seeing them go through it and making a degree a reality, seeing that flame catch on in their family is pretty cool."

He said even with his love for education, he is looking to photography as more than a hobby and a second income.

He said he expects to show some of his work in a gallery in Geneseo, Ill., at the end of the year.

"I have such a deep passion for photography," he said. "My dad, who passed away, was in photography back in the day. I have this feeling it brings me closer to him."

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