Education

B.J., Journalism, University of Missouri
M.M.C., University of South Carolina

Background/Experience

Renée Ittner-McManus is the owner/photographer of RIM Photography. She spent the majority of her career as a staff photographer for The State, covering a variety of assignments from news, features and photo stories to Division 1 sports for the 145,000 circulation daily newspaper. She proposed and implemented the newspaper's first photo column, writing and photographing the biweekly "Slice of Life," celebrating special moments in everyday life.

Awards

Ittner-McManus was named South Carolina Clip Photographer of the Year, runner-up South Carolina News Photographer of the Year, and Region Six (Southeast) Clip Photographer of the Year. She garnered numerous annual awards in the South Carolina News Photographers Association and South Carolina Press Association's annual competitions, including the distinction as the only full time staff photographer to receive a top award for humor writing.

As a graduate assistant in SJMC's visual communications sequence, her graduate project, "A Second Chance: A Photo Documentation of Shock Incarceration" received first place in the South Carolina News Photographers Association's Pictures of the Year. 

Her photography was recognized at the nationally competitive Southern Photographer of the Year and Atlanta Photojournalism Annual Competition. She received a Nikon International Award for feature photography and was a juried exhibitor in the National Press Photographers Association's Women in Photojournalism traveling exhibit. Other juried exhibits include Southern Visions, sponsored by the South Carolina State Museum, and What We've Discovered: Images of our Cultural Identities, in the Artists' Alliance exhibit sponsored by the National Endowment of the Arts. 

Teaching

Ittner-McManus, recently recognized as SJMC's Adjunct Instructor of the Year, is passionate about sharing her love of photography, particularly photojournalism, with emerging visual journalists at the school. She combines lectures with hands-on coaching to build the basic photography and videography skills of visual communications majors.

After serving several years as a volunteer photo coach and mentor at SJMC's Talmadge Moore LeGrand Photojournalism Workshop, Ittner-McManus took the reins of "A Photojournalism Adventure at the Carolina Cup: The Thrill of the Chase." This course gave students real-time photojournalistic experience culminating in producing professional level story-telling images under deadline pressure in an unprecedented 40 image photo gallery in The State newspaper.