Nevada High School graduate wins two international photography awards

Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Jennifer Mosbrucker

COLUMBIA – Jennifer Mosbrucker, a graduate of Nevada High School, earned two Awards of Excellence in the College Photographer of the Year international competition.

One of her winning photographs placed in the General News category and was of a princess and prince waiting for the homecoming parade to start in Columbus, Mississippi. The other won in the Portrait category and pictured Kim Carroll and the grandson she is raising.

After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in journalism in 2019 from the Missouri School of Journalism at Mizzou, Mosbrucker moved to Columbus, Mississippi, to work at the Commercial Dispatch. She spent the year visually exploring rural health care and hospital closures with the support of the O.O. McIntyre Fellowship, the School’s most prestigious postgraduate award.

Jennifer Mosbrucker's photo "Amazing Grace" won an Award of Excellence in the portrait category of the College Photographer of the Year international contest.

Mosbrucker credits her introduction to photojournalism from a book of images by Gordon Parks used in an English class taught by Carol MacArthur. Parks, a prominent Black photojournalist in the 1940s through 1970s, documented issues of civil rights, poverty and African Americans, among other topics. It was through studying Parks’ Farm Security Administration work that Mosbrucker said she learned the profound role photographs play in altering perspectives and documenting history.

“Nevada is just 15 miles from Parks’ hometown of Fort Scott, Kansas,” Mosbrucker said. “I thought perhaps I, too, could pick up a camera and tell stories.”

Mosbrucker is now a freelance photojournalist and picture editor in Eastern Washington state. As a student at the Missouri School of Journalism, Mosbrucker worked as a staff photographer at the Columbia Missourian, a digital-first community newspaper that is supervised by professional editors and staffed by Missouri journalism students.

"Southern Homecoming" earned Jennifer Mosbrucker an Award of Excellence in the general news category of the College Photographer of the Year international competition.

CPOY judges viewed nearly 10,000 images and multimedia projects submitted by over 550 students from 129 colleges and institutions in 29 countries. Award-winning photojournalists from National Geographic, Washington Post, TIME magazine, among other leading publications, served as judges.

Information about the Missouri School of Journalism is available online at journalism.missouri.edu.

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