Interview edited for clarity and time.
MATTHEW WITT: Hello, I'm Matthew Witt, and on this episode of Crimson and Gold Connection, we're talking with Samuel Clausen, who is the creative media specialist here at Pittsburg State University. Hello, Sam.
SAM CLAUSEN: Hello, Matthew. How are you?
MATTHEW: All right. Can you tell us a little bit about your background?
SAM: Certainly, certainly. I grew up in Cherokee, Kansas, but I was adopted from Taiwan at a young age into a small family in Southeast Kansas. I attended Southeast High School in Oakland, Cherokee, and then graduated from Pittsburg State from 2010 to 2014. So, I got to see some national championships and stuff like that.
MATT: Sure. And I'm wondering, like, okay, so growing up, so you're growing up in Southeast Kansas. How did you become interested in artistic pursuits or photography?
SAM: Yeah. I developed an interest in photography back in high school. A friend of mine didn't even know photography was a career path, but a friend of mine had asked me to hold a reflector for her during one of her photo shoots, a senior shoot. And I was watching her work, and I was watching her work with the subject, and I was like, well, this is pretty cool. And I was like, you know what, maybe I should look into this. And we had a journalism track for a journalism program at Southeast, and I did that. And did all the photography stuff in college here at Pittsburg State, and found myself with a camera, just throughout my high school into my college years.
MATT: I was thinking, so back when you started developing this interest, were there still dark rooms back then?
SAM: It was right up the transition from film to digital, actually. So I had some of the later, like film cameras, or no, the early digital cameras. super weird designs. They were low megapixels, and our phones do way better nowadays. Luckily, I didn't have to make that transition. I just had to start with very, very medieval digital cameras.
MATT: Okay. So, and so, how long have you had the position here at PSU?
SAM: I think this is my 9th going into 10th year, maybe. I think this is my 10th year.
MATT: Okay.
SAM: So yeah.
MATT: And what are some of your current duties as the creative media specialist?
SAM: Capture everything that goes on at the campus, or try to anyway. The campus is very big and expansive. We have so many people doing great things on campus that it's hard to be everywhere at one time, but I try to be. And whether it's on campus or through the community, through our donors, through our alumni, through our student body, staff, faculty, I mean, you name it. Anything with Pittsburg State, I'm usually there.
Matt: Okay. And let's see, could you say something about your predecessor, Malcolm?
Sam: Certainly. Yes, Malcolm. He. What was his full name? Malcolm Turner.
He stopped by the studio maybe a month ago and said hi to a couple of us. But no, I think he had left the office a couple of years before I got there. So there's a little bit of a gap there, but he was there for 30 plus years.
MATT: Yes.
SAM: Back in the dark room times, the whole thing. And he's seen every corner of this campus.
MATT: Yes, okay. Well, we're talking about the passage of time and technology, of course, changing. I'm wondering about, and you mentioned digital photography. Is everything digital now that you work with, the cameras and so forth?
MATT: Actually, it's a little bit of both. So when I came to Pittsburg State, they taught me about film cameras. And I was like, well, why should I need a film camera when it's all digital? But they started us on film cameras so we could learn the basics of photography, go back to the bare minimum shutter speed, ISO, and aperture. And so right now I shoot everything digitally for the university and then for my own photography, my side photography, I do a lot of film actually.
MATT: Oh, okay. I seem to recall maybe about a decade ago or more that. This was something maybe even in the national news about, I think maybe it was over in Parsons. They still had one of the last few remaining Kodak developers in the country.
SAM: Dwayne's photo. It's a little lab over there.
MATT: They were the last lab to develop Kodachrome, if I remember right.
SAM: Yes. But I still throw some orders down there every now and then. They still have a lab. It's not as big. but it's still a functioning lab.
MATT: Well, that's good. And indeed, one of the last in the country, if none.
SAM: Yeah, that, well, they, there's lots of actually, there's lots of film labs that have popped up now. They still don't develop Kodachrome, but there's actually a good amount of film labs that have popped up. over time. So I think it's the younger generations that are getting back into that old analog style.
MATT: Really.
SAM: Yeah, they just love it.
MATT: That sounds like a kind of resurgence of long-playing records. Yeah, I thought they were gone for good, but no, they came back. Okay, well, I wonder about the future of photography, especially now that we're in the AI realm. What are the future possibilities?
SAM: Certainly. Something in our office, especially in marketing here on campus, we try to stay ahead with AI just because it's one of those things that you're going to have to adapt to at some point, and all that stuff. AI to us is not necessarily one that will make photographs for us, but it'll help our workflow. And so we're trying to use it so that we can work better, faster, and more efficiently. Instead of producing, because producing fake stuff, that's usually what AI does.
MATT: Yes. I've seen some, what seemed to me like really good-looking AI versions of, I'll say, famous movies, but kind of done in the old 1950s, super Technicolor style, very, very colorful.
SAM: Yeah, very colorful. This animated art style, that's, you know, very modern now. And it can get wild. It can get, it can give you exactly what you want. It can give you more than what you want. But it's definitely something that has changed the photography realm.
MATT: All right. Well, thank you, Sam. We've been talking to Samuel Claussen, the creative media specialist. I'd say maybe the chief specialist here at Pittsburg State University, and he's doing a great job of visually documenting the life and the ongoing experience of Pittsburg State University.
This has been the Crimson and Gold Connection. I'm Matthew Witt. Thanks for joining us.
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