As graduate student Kelsey Gossett sits quietly in her office, she begins her day by sifting through various photographs.

The portfolio she’s examining is for an upcoming conference in Chicago. Surrounding her are dozens of photos, lining the walls of the small studio in McKnight Art Center. An array of photographs of a previous semester of her students showed some of their faces contorted in wide eyed, frantic expressions, while others looked goofy and grinned as she took their pictures.

A graduate student in photography, Gossett dedicates much of her day to the pursuit of her field.

Gossett is about halfway through her day on campus at WSU. If she had not done it the night before, she often begins by tidying her studio from the previous night’s photo shoot. She returns her student’s emails.

In her time before teaching, Gossett starts her photo shoot, or begins preparations for the next one: buying props and creating a backdrop. In the afternoon, she teaches introduction to photography and occasionally a design class on campus. Gossett is also active in the local student photography guild Aperture.

“Teaching, shooting, and editing,” Gossett succinctly summarized much of her day.

Gossett is from small town Kansas, she said, and graduated from high school in Pratt. She has displays at the Wichita Art Museum and a show at CityArts.

“The show is an exploration of identity, femininity and family,” Gossett said.

After her class is out of session at 5 p.m., Gossett remains to help students with projects in the dark room or print. After that she returns to her own projects, and often spends much of the rest of the day’s time working on them.