July 7, 2025
Contact: Janese Heavin, heavinj@missouri.edu
Photos by Abbie Lankitus, Gretta Cohoon and Nicholas Andrusisian
Summer is winding down. With a focus on gorgeous campus views, Summer Welcome for incoming students and nonstop research, University of Missouri photographer Abbie Lankitus shares her favorite photos capturing the season’s final stretch.
I’ve taken a particular notice in the last year that we didn't have many fireworks photos on or near campus. As the Fourth of July crept closer, I decided to change that.
Guessing where the fireworks would end up was more of a challenge than I thought. First was getting on Google maps and lining up the view from the firing zone at Stephens Lake Park with campus. Then there was the trouble of figuring out where I could physically be that lined up with that trajectory.
Turns out there’s not a direct lineup. The closest I could find was the northwest corner of the Turner parking garage. Still, I was guessing where the fireworks would go off and how big they’d be.
I set up two cameras on tripods with different focal length lenses. The fireworks appeared much bigger in the sky than I anticipated. After some quick adjusting and giving my husband directions on timing the fireworks appropriately with firing off the camera, I got a drone up in the air.
The results were much better than I anticipated, as this was an experimental year. This photo is from one of the stationary cameras on a tripod. The other camera’s images all came out blurry. The drone had great shots, but by the time the finale came around, it was telling me it only had enough battery to come home and land. You win some, you lose some. Needless to say, I have a lot of ideas for next year.
I love it when photos give you a vibe instead of just showing you what’s going on. Here, photographer Gretta Cohoon used an external flash and slow shutter to do exactly that.
Slow shutter speeds create a “ghosting” effect, but a flash will freeze an object where the light caught it, thus creating the combined effect in this photo.
I love it so much because of the movement and the moment. It definitely feels like a core memory image of meeting your forever friends before you step onto campus in the fall as a Mizzou Tiger.
When you were deciding where to go to college, was there a photo that made you think “I want to do that”?
That’s the goal of many of our marketing images. This photo of staff member Mariden Albrecht sitting for a research study in Ashley Groh’s lab within the Department of Psychological Sciences aims to get incoming and current students excited about the prospect of doing psych science research, or any kind of research, at Mizzou. (Because where else would you want to do it?)
For the particular look of this photo though, I brought in a small flash with a gold gel taped to the front of it. I wanted to create more dramatic lighting and get that little pop of Mizzou gold for extra measure. I just love how it came out. Her eyes are so rich in color and there’s clear detail of the electrodes on her face and in the EEG cap. It makes me, and hopefully others, ask “What cool thing is happening here?”
For our second campus beauty photo of the month, we have this gorgeous drone photo by campus videographer Nicholas Andrusisian. I, for one, am not a morning person. So, I’m incredibly thankful when others on our team are or at least can get themselves up in time for a sunrise.
This photo is only possible from a drone. How else could someone get that perfect halo of light around the dome? The illuminant golden light streaming through the windows?
You can even see sunrays extend through the sky almost if the spire of the dome was creating them itself.
I’ve been at Mizzou for three years this week, and each year I love this campus more and more. Photos such as this one are a big reason why.
I had a hard time choosing between this photo or the close-up photo of a lone star tick as my favorite photo from this shoot for a story on Show Me Mizzou.
This one won out because it’s rare. Labs across most college campuses are full of equipment and materials needed to complete the important work that they do. But they can be hard to photograph without looking busy.
The angle at which I’m shooting is looking through a tiny window between desks. There’s usually too much equipment to get a clear view, and even then, how it looks on the other side may not be best for a photo.
It was here, though. Not only was there a “window” in between the desks to shoot through, but it was lined up with the case that houses the lone star ticks that Professor Roman Ganta and his team are so thoroughly studying for diseases to be treated.
Having doctoral student Jonathan Ferm lift up the cup of ticks, I got a great (and clear) view of both Ganta and Ferm studying the parasites. Perfect for telling the story of their research.
If you’ve never been in MizzouRec, you may not know there’s a climbing wall there. Photos such as these are for that purpose — educating students or those with MizzouRec passes what features are at their disposal.
Photographer Gretta Cohoon was near the top of a 20-foot ladder to get this shot. She backlit the student with a flash, gelled with that lovely Mizzou gold color, and then had another flash on her camera to light the foreground.
What I love about this is the angle of the photo. To get interesting looks, you have to be in interesting places. Sometimes it’s a 20-foot ladder. Sometimes the top of a parking garage. Other times it’s on the ground in a corn field (watch for that photo next month).
Either way, creative photos need creative solutions. On a campus full of creative researchers, storytellers, journalists, health care providers, engineers, entrepreneurs and artists (to name a few), we’re simply matching the standard.
Our final campus beauty image is a stunner. No, this isn’t Photoshop. Nor artificial intelligence.
Gretta did a cool trick in-camera that many have the option to do, but few put into practice. This image is a double exposure.
First, Gretta took a photo of the Columns and then a photo of Jesse Hall. The camera remembers the first image and overlays it in the screen, allowing you to line up the second image how you’d like. Double exposures in camera are not foolproof. This is such a technically excellent photo that my jaw dropped when she shared it with me.
While we obviously have some incredible architecture for beautiful campus photos, there’s nothing quite like capturing students on this stunning campus. I look forward to the end of August, when we can welcome back the life and breath of Mizzou!
