From teaching photo workshops in the frozen Yellowstone National Park to the sunny skies of Mexico, and even in her own backyard on the Buffalo River in Island Park, a communication faculty member, Caryn Esplin has allowed her art to take her on many adventures.
Esplin owned a graphic design business and authored Visual Focus, a textbook now used by a handful of universities. But many of her clients asked for photography. She converted her design knowledge to the camera in order to communicate a different visual story.
“The more I got into photography, the more I loved it,” Esplin said. “It’s endless, how much you can learn and it’s so enjoyable to be out shooting instead of spending all your time behind a computer. It allows you to travel and study fascinating things in-depth. So I love teaching how to use a camera and edit images to tell a visual story and the endless learning that comes with photography.”
Most people don’t know how important education is to Esplin. Through studying educational technology in school, Esplin is able to use that knowledge to help her understand how her students learn and become better teacher.
Diving in and experiencing culture is one of Esplin’s specialties. When BYU-Idaho sent her on the Enlighten Tour to photograph and video the landscapes, people and their culture, she agreed in a heartbeat. Esplin attributes trips like these to sharpening her skills and progression of her self-education.
For those who wish to follow along her journey across Europe and Asia, Esplin created a website to display her photography and experiences in these new lands. She even includes photo tips on her process for many of her photos on her Instagram account.
If students take one word of advice from Esplin, it would be to be versatile. Esplin understands the importance of branching out to avoid having too narrow of a skill set.
“You want to have a good variety of skills so that it opens up the doors to a lot more job opportunities,” Esplin said. “With the visual communication emphasis, you can end up getting a lot of different jobs, and then get more in-depth training on the job. Having versatile skills can open a lot of doors.”
