Faces Profile : Greta Rybus

By Justin Woodburn

Nonprofits are struggling in the current economic crisis but grim Wall Street reports haven’t slowed Greta Rybus down in her drive to organize a community darkroom in downtown Missoula.

Rybus, a junior photo major—together with former photo grad-student Rebecca Stumpf and local photographer Michael Schweizer—knows what she wants the View Finder Community Photography Center to offer, she’s just not sure where the nonprofit should be located.

“We want to create a big community of people interested in exploring photographic art who have never been involved with it before,” Rybus said.

Many of the details, including the darkroom’s location and size, depend on how much funding is available for the project. The plan is to construct a small, wet darkroom for black and white film processing, plus a modest digital lab modeled after the J-School facility. Rybus wants to provide large-screen Apple computers loaded with Photoshop and Lightroom and connected to a high quality Epson Printer. A camera library will also be included, providing digital and film cameras for the public to use.

“I feel like the biggest portion of the project is not about the things, but the classes offered,” Rybus said. “I don’t feel like photography should be about having a lot of money for fancy equipment.”

Grants from private, state and national donors will pay for the equipment and daily operation of the center. If all goes as planned the funding packet for the project will be sent off within the next week and the center could be ready to go in two to three months. Many materials and film cameras for the center have already been donated.

Rybus hopes the center will fill an unmet need in Missoula, where none of the local high school or middle schools offer photography programs.

With sufficient funding Rybus hopes the center will expand each year. As graduation looms she isn’t sure what her role with the center will be in the future. She has wanted to be a photojournalist since she was 15 but has become increasingly interested in community photography in the last few years.

She was recently involved in a program that supplied a camera to local people for 48 hours. Participants were instructed to photograph what was important to them. One lady came back with pictures of her beets and explained how she had started looking for beauty in the world over the weekend. The statement bolstered Rybus’s belief in the need for a community photo center.

Over the summer Rybus taught a photography class to kids ranging in age from 8 to 18.

“It was cool hearing kids talk about high and low angles,” Rybus said. “I think a camera can help you look differently at the world.”