After 30 years, Mississippi State University’s longtime photographer Russ Houston will hang up his camera and retire from the university on June 1.
A Starkville native, Houston started at MSU in 1988 after a two-year run shooting for The Commercial Dispatch. He currently serves as the university’s photographic coordinator, and has captured pivotal moments in the university’s history both on and off the athletic field. He graduated from MSU in 1985 with a degree in broadcasting.
“It was a good time,” Houston said. “I’ve done this for 32 years, two years at The Commercial Dispatch newspaper before I came here. It seemed like it was the right time. Things were getting busier and busier, and I’m not quite as energetic as I used to be."
In recognition of Houston’s retirement an exhibition of his work spanning his entire career will hang in the Colvard StudentUnion art gallery, with a reception scheduled for Tuesday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. He said he could not pick any favorite pieces in the exhibition, but said he enjoyed getting a photo of fitness instructor and kinesiology lecturer Holly Wiley in the outdoor pool formerly located on campus. He also discussed a photo taken during President George H.W. Bush’s visit to MSU in 1989.
“I guess it got me my first cover shot on the Alumnus Magazine,” Houston said.
He also said the Bush photo was the only outside graduation he remembered the university holding.
He said the biggest change he saw in his time at MSU was moving from film to digital photography.
“It kind of excited me, because it was something totally new, so I kind of delved into that, and did a lot of research on that,” Houston said. “I did a lot of research on how digital would work with our environment, so that was kind of fun. The first two (digital) cameras that we had were pretty bad. It made you look like a pretty bad photographer, even though you could take a good picture of that using the film camera. They were kind of rough.”
Even though Houston said he enjoyed his job and working with the MSU community, he still emphasized it being work, with demanding hours and many challenges.
“It was a job,” Houston said. “It becomes work. It becomes burdensome. You get kind of tired of the night and the weekend work at times, so while it was fun, it was also a job.”
MSU Chief Communications Officer Sid Salter said a wealth of institutional knowledge would leave with Houston.
“His talent as a photographer is evident and undeniable, but only those of us who worked with him know the depth of his love for MSU and the extraordinary lengths Russ goes – literally and figuratively – to capture the university in the most favorable light,” Salter said.
The exhibit remains open through Friday.