MPPA News

The MPPA annual seminar and POY judging will take place the weekend of Feb 27, 28 and March 1 at the Sheraton Hotel in Lansing. Judges this year are: Denny Simmons, staff photographer at the Evansville Press and Courier, Emily Rasinski, staff photographer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Tim Rasmussen, deputy managing editor at the Denver Post. Please download the seminar registration form to sign up for the seminar and to see the schedule of events.

Denny Simmons

Denny Simmons knew he wanted to be a newspaper photographer as far back as second grade. It wasn’t until he finally got through high school and six years of fixing missile radars for the U.S. Navy that he learned the correct terminology was “photojournalist.” It took five years of delivering pizzas at Shakespeare’s; shooting lots and lots of bad pictures (with free film) for the Savitar and The Maneater and some “party-pic” company; and moving on to The Missourian before finally getting a photojournalism degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

During that time Simmons did a short “unofficial” internship with the Joplin (Mo.) Globe and a really short fill-in gig at the Chanute (Kan.) Tribune. It was during this 10-day job Simmons channeled some of the residual mojo of past Tribune photojournalist Dave LaBelle. After graduation, Simmons headed to Washington, D.C., to intern with National Geographic Magazine (and learned how to shoot lots and lots of chrome) before arriving at his first real photojournalism job at the Jacksonville (Ill.) Journal-Courier.

From there Simmons traveled to St. Joseph, Mo., to work for the News-Press as a picture editor/photographer. Excited about the prospect of working for Copley’s Chicago newspapers, he took a job as picture editor with the News Sun (Waukegan, Ill.) and was able to work alongside an extremely talented assortment of editors and photographers that included Kathy and Brian Plonka, Rob Finch, Scott Strazzante, Jon Lowenstein, Todd Heisler, etc., etc. The Copley Nation was about as close to a photojournalism Nirvana as one could ever hope to get. However, all good things come to an end and in order to get back into making pictures, instead of editing them, Simmons took a position as a staff photographer at the Evansville Courier & Press in 1999. He continues to work with yet another great staff of photojournalists which have included gurus J. Bruce Baumann and Bryan Moss.

Simmons is lucky to have a wife, Penny, who understands his need to make pictures and even encourages him (although its never easy being married to a photojournalist). The couple made a deal many years ago… Simmons would be a photojournalist and Penny would make all the other decisions. So far, after two kids, Ben, 12, and Hannah, 10, things are working out just fine.

Simmons has served in various positions with the NPPA, presently National Clip Chair, and has won various awards in POYi; named College POY 1993; Region 4 POY twice; Indiana POY; and most recently, NPPA Best of Photojournalism POY (Smaller Markets).

Emily Rasinski

Emily Rasinski is an award winning photojournalist based in St. Louis Missouri. Rasinski discovered her passion for photography at Kent State University where she graduated with degrees in both photojournalism and Spanish.

Since then, her curiosity and love of storytelling has led her to work at a variety of different newpapers of varied circulations and demographics. Currently she is a staff photographer at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 2007 she was also selected to attend the prestigious Eddie Adams Workshop. Her photography and multimedia projects have been honored in competitions at the state, regional, and national levels including awards from the National Press Photographers Association’s Best of Photojournalism competition, The Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, The Southern Short Course in News Photography and more.

Tim Rasmussen

Tim Rasmussen is the AME of photography at The Denver Post, a 600,000 circulation newspaper in Denver, Co., where he leads a staff of photojournalists, picture editors, multi-media journalists and editors. Before joining the Post, Tim was the Director of Photography of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Tim started his photo editing career as Visuals Editor at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia where the paper was awarded Best Use of Pictures from Pictures of the Year in 2002.

He worked his way through college at The Herald Journal in Logan, Utah and in 1988 he was accepted to the first Eddie Adams Workshop where he received one of ten awards given. In 1989 he moved to the east coast and for the next ten years worked as a freelance photographer, with the Hartford Courant and in New York City with Sygma photo agency. His work was published in American and international Magazines and Newspapers including the cover of the New York Times Sunday Magazine.