By BETHANY SHERROW
Features Editor

(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) — As a teenager in 1975, Robert Breshears went to the Grand Canyon and took photos with his new camera.

“I didn’t develop the film for three months,” Breshears said. “Then when we saw the pictures, it was like being there all over again.”

He said that was the experience that made him fall in love with photography.

“I think it’s capturing a moment and being able to revisit it,” Breshears said. “That’s the aspect I really like. It captures history.”

Forty-one years later, Breshears is a full time photography instructor at UCM and has visited 24 countries with his camera in hand.

However, Breshears said he never pictured himself as a teacher.

“I was an air traffic controller for 25 years, 20 years in the Air Force active duty and then five years with the Department of Defense,” he said.

After leaving the military, Breshears got his degree from UCM.

“I actually am a graduate from here,” he said. “I got my bachelor’s in professional photography in 2006 and then my master’s degree in mass communications in 2012.”

Breshears said he enjoys his job because it gives him the freedom to photograph often.

“When I’m not here, like on the weekends, I’ll go into Knob Noster State Park early before sunrise and take pictures of deer,” he said. “At nighttime, I go shoot the stars. Anytime I get a chance to go shoot, I’ll be shooting. It’s kind of a therapy. It’s very relaxing, but it’s also challenging trying to capture a moment, capture the light and see unique things that most people don’t get to see very often.”

He backpacks every summer, usually once with his wife and once with a group of friends.

“This spring break, we’re thinking about taking a backpacking trip to the Pacific Northwest and doing so, backpacking in the rainforest of Washington along the coast, so I’m excited about planning that,” he said.

Breshears has been to many destinations in the U.S. He said he especially enjoyed visiting Jackson, Wyoming, with the Grand Teton Mountains, and he thinks Glacier National Park in Montana, is one of the most beautiful areas to photograph in the lower 48 states.

Breshears said the Grand Canyon remains a favorite of his since his first experience in 1975.

“I’ve been there five times since then,” he said. “The first four times I visited, I was up on the rim, and it’s really majestic and it’s beautiful with all the colors. But, the last trip we took, we actually spent five days backpacking inside the Grand Canyon. It’s a whole different world when you get to the bottom. That’s someplace I’ll probably go again.”

Internationally, Breshears said it is difficult to pick a favorite place he’s traveled.

“I lived for seven months in Ciro, Egypt. I lived for six months in Zagreb, Croatia. My last deployment (in the Air Force) was in the Middle East and in four months time, I flew 48,000 miles going to Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Uzbekistan, doing inspections in those areas. Then, on my own time, that was when I did my wild life safari to Africa. I’ve travelled through Europe, France, Italy, Geramany while I was in the military. Austria, Lichtenstein, and then I spent a year in Alaska while I was in the military,” he said.

If he could go back to photograph anywhere though, Breshears said it would be Tanzania.

“That’s the number one place I’d like to go back and take my wife there, I went when I was single.”

He’d also like to take students there a wild life safari photography session.

“I design travel photography trips and last year we did one in the southwest,” Breshears said. “This next summer we’re going to Yellowstone (National Park) with the wildlife photography. My goal is to develop these trips to the point where we can go overseas. My ultimate goal is to take students to Tanzania on a wildlife safari.”

Breshears said his biggest goal right now is developing international trips for photography students.

“My whole goal with taking pictures is for people to look at them and want to know the story behind them,” Breshears said. “Like, ‘Wow, where is that? I want to go there.’ So, my whole drive with taking pictures is to get people to travel and inspire them to go explore. I try to do that in my lessons by showing them examples and relaying stories of where I’ve been. And, also developing the travel trips, getting them excited about travelling and eventually traveling internationally with the students.”

Personally, he has one major backpacking goal.

“The number one thing on my bucket list is backpacking on the Great Wall of China,” he said. “Spending a couple weeks just photographing and living along the great wall.”

Breshears said he has learned many lessons about life and people through his years of travel and photography.

“I think living in the U.S., we’re so absorbed with our life over here, we don’t realize that different isn’t bad, different isn’t wrong,” Breshears said. “I think traveling and seeing diversity through my camera lens—and celebrating that—helps you realize that people in other countries, they have needs just like we do. They have desires, joys and sorrows, just like we do. They just speak a different language and live in a different place.”