Vaughn Wascovich, assistant professor of art, won the Photo Society Award presented by the Society of Photographic Education (SPE).
Wascovich grew up in Youngstown, OH. While in high school Wascovich jokes that he became interested in photography to meet girls.
After graduation, Wascovich went on to Youngstown State to earn his bachelor degree. Once he had his degree, he moved to Chicago where he did commercial work, his biggest client being Goodyear Tire.
After working for a few years, he decided to go back to school to work towards his masters. While in graduate school he started to teach part time. Since he loved it so much, once he was done, he decided to continue teaching full time. His first full time teaching job was at the University of Missouri.
“I didn’t like it there much because it seemed as though the faculty was always arguing,” said Wascovich.
Wascovich came to Texas A&M University-Commerce in the Fall of 2007, and is currently in his third semester here.
“I like it here because everyone gets along, and I know the deans of the colleges, and the President, and the provost. It wasn’t like that at Missouri, I like the small town,” said Wascovich.
Wascovich stumbled upon the contest on the SPE Web site where they asked for participants to submit proposals. He took the chance and submitted one. For years Wascovich has been photographing an area in Oklahoma called Tar Creek. It’s an area that Indians own, but the government is trying to buy up because of all of the pollution in the area. The area is about forty square miles of lead and heavy metal. Tar Creek is the proposal that was submitted. He started photographing this area because it reminded him of his childhood home.
Wascovich will be speaking at “Sprawl” the convention that is being held in Dallas for national conference. The event will take place at the Fairmont Hotel March 26-29, but Wascovich does not quite know when he will speak. The show portion will take place at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Since 2000 Wascovich has been in more then 70 shows, so it’s no wonder that he was able to catch the eyes of the judges.