In this podcast Ohio University alumnus Robert Caplin chats with the director of Ohio University's School of Visual Communication, Terry Eiler, who recently announced his retirement as director after over 35 years at the school.
We discuss:
- How Terry got into photography and began his career shooting for local papers in high school.
- His beginnings as an intern at National Geographic and his intense interview with legendary Geographic director Robert Gilka.
- Marrying his wife Lyntha and their fun career shooting projects together for magazines.
- Terry's transition into teaching at Ohio University in the 1970s.
- How he and his father-in-law Chuck Scott, together founded the renowned School of Visual Communications at Ohio University.
- Learn what students go through at OU's VisCom and how their education is shaped, undergraduate sequences, and mid-career graduate sequences.
- Information Design, interactive multimedia, commercial photography, documentary photojournalism.
- Knight Fellowship in Newsroom Graphics Management and scholarship support.
- Learn about Terry's toughest course, his Magazine class.
- Learn about Terry's 28 years of bringing OU students to Scotland for his annual Scotland Field School.
- The importants of internships, workshops, conferences, and building portfolios with versatility, talent, and skill.
- Importance of surrounding yourself with good people.
- Working with people who are better than you, everyday.
- Sharing your knowledge as you get older with people that are younger than you. Pay it forward.
- Learning the unpredictability of photography.
- Learning the business of photography.
- Understanding marketing value, profit-loss statements, and licensing as a freelance photographer.
- Importance of contributing to your retirement funds early as a freelancer and treating your archive and stock photography income as icing on the cake.
- Terry's plans after his retirement: fly fishing. more assignments, visiting past projects.
