How do two photographers capture the essence of the more than 30,000 people at Northeastern? With panache. For their boundary-pushing images, university photographers Matthew Modoono and Adam Glanzman recently won six awards at the annual symposium for the University Photographers’ Association of America.

The symposium brings together more than 100 university photographers from across the country to highlight their work and explore new ways to tell stories with a camera.

Modoono and Glanzman attended lectures hosted by renowned photographers—including Joe McNally, Carol Guzy, and Sam Abell—shared their work with their peers, and competed for awards based on photographs they had submitted in advance.

This year, Modoono won the top award, Best in Show, for his photo essay of the hobby farm run by Ted Moss, an associate teaching professor at Northeastern. Glanzman placed first in the campus environment category for his photograph of the spiral staircase in the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Complex.

Glanzman also collected three third place awards for his photos of associate professor David Budil playing violin, assistant professor James Monaghan’s axotlotl salamander, and the men’s and women’s crew teams preparing for the Head of the Charles Regatta. He earned an honorable mention for his photo of head track and field coach Tramaine Shaw.

“We feel lucky to work in an environment where we’re encouraged to take risks and push ourselves creatively,” Modoono said.

Their work wasn’t just noticed by judges at the conference. Both photographers said they were approached by other university photographers who were inspired by their approach to portraiture.

“The lighting sets we use, the way we shoot portraits with so much color—a lot of other photographers stopped us to say they liked what we’re doing at Northeastern,” Glanzman said.