Three visual journalism students founded the WWU Photo Video Club in Fall quarter, 2025. 

Co-lead officers, Janessa Bates, Dylan Taasan and Lynn Piefer, started the club after taking Joe Gosen’s photojournalism course. They were eager to continue to grow their photo and video skills beyond the class. Gosen signed on as the faculty advisor and the club took off from there. 

“It was a little slow going at first, but we had a pretty good turnout for our first couple of meetings,” Taasan said. 

The club initially started with five visual journalism students but members soon expanded across many disciplines. The club tabled at Western’s info fair, which garnered a lot of attention and new members, especially first year students, Piefer said. 

“Most people have experience with some kind of photography or videography but there’s also a couple of people who are just shooting on their iPhone,” Bates said. 

Meetings structure around a workshop format that one of the co-lead officers hosts. After, members go outside to shoot and implement what they learned in the meeting. hey initially held a critique session in person to show the photos everyone took, but later moved the critique format  onto their Discord server to allow more discussions over time, Bates said. 

Twice a week the club gets away from campus and goes on “outings” in the Bellingham area. Outings have included downtown Bellingham and Fairhaven, the Northern State Hospital in Sedro-Woolley and Teddy Bear Cove on Chuckanut Drive, Piefer said.

“My favorite was probably Teddy Bear Cove,” Piefer added. “The colors were just phenomenal.”

The most recent meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 10 Bates led a workshop on dramatic lighting. First, she described what this looks like and how to use the technique and then club members traveled to the Mark di Suervo, For Handel, statue in the performing arts plaza at sunset to shoot photos. 

So far, the club has focused more on photography rather than videography, Piefer said, because she is the only one who has taken a video course within the visual journalism sequence. Piefer is going to teach a video workshop in the coming weeks. 

“We have some big projects planned. This year has kind of been our starting year, so a bigger project will be happening next quarter where we’ll be building toward a theme. Then, we’ll have some kind of showcase at the end of the quarter to celebrate all that we’ve done,” said Bates. 

Any Western student with an interest in photography and videography can join – follow the club on Instagram @wwuphotovideoclub to learn more.