1st and 2nd Day

Day 1: June 1, 2010
I left home with 25,900 miles on my car, a full tank of gas, and a stomach full of nerves. I won't be returning home until Thanksgiving and that's makes me anxious and excited all at once. Saying goodbye to friends, family, and loved ones is hard. I think it was harder than when I said goodbye the summer after I graduated high school. It probably is because these internships are one more step to becoming a bona fide adult. The water works happened and passed, hopefully, and I’ve made to Erie, PA. I’m currently residing at a good friend’s house Sarah Priestap. Sadly I only got to see her briefly before she set out to Harrisburg Pennsylvania for her summer internship. My first day started at 9:00am, I was able to meet my editor and got to shadow him for the first part of the day. Then around 2:15pm, Chris(my editor) told me that I had an assignment. I was to shoot a memorial for recently deceased high school football coach. I set out for Girard, PA. I remember thinking that I need to impress Chris. All I could think while I was driving was: remember to meter, get correctly spelled names, get a good white balance, and finally last but not least moments (thank you William Snyder).
Pulling into the empty high school parking lot was like feeling my stomach drop out of my body. Chris said he wanted the images to convey a sense of the amount of people that cared about this coach. An empty parking conveys the exact opposite. I didn’t want to return empty handed so I started to think of what I could do, and as I photographed a few people came by and hung flowers or cards on the fence. This fence was covered with flowers and I was so relieved that people had come. Then I was worried about intruding on grief, but then remembered that it was my job to show how much people cared. It was an odd revelation and I worked myself up so that I could approach the situation, luckily it didn’t really present itself. I got back 40 minutes late and was preparing myself for the lecture of lifetime or at least a very red faced editor but Chris didn’t yell or scream just plopped down at a computer and began to look through my photos with me. I couldn’t believe it, the last thing I expected was for him go through my photos with me. Then to stun me even more, he told me how to improve them! How great is that? In an age where interns are absolutely the body of the pole/food chain, my editor was sitting there talking about my photos!






















Day 2: June 2, 2010
I started this day earlier and was determined to stay within my allotted time frame for shooting, which I did. I got to shadow another photographer from the newspaper. We went on two assignments, the first was a portrait of two men in charge of a museum, and the second was a city council meeting. Of the two, the city council meeting was the better by far. You wouldn’t believe the characters that come out of the woodwork to lecture to the city council. They were more animated which inherently made them easier to photograph. While at the meeting I tried to stay out of the Jack’s (staff photographer) way and decided to photograph the people sitting in the back of the room. There were these two men, one older and one younger who I photographed. I was using a 35-17mm and was at about 28ish and decided to get closer. I later found out from Jack that the older man was the former president of Mercy Hurst College and was accused of pedophila a few years ago. He was trying to stay out of the media spotlight and greatly disliked the newspaper that I worked for. Not being an Erie resident, I had no clue and kept photographing. Jack thought it was hilarious that I had no idea and one of the investigative reporters cracked up too. Good thing I didn’t have the curse of knowledge.
I later was assigned to photograph the Rib Festival and luckily I didn’t shoot over my time frame, but I still seem to have problems with getting all of the work done. I think that when I edit my photographs I don’t do it as quickly and that will definitely be something I’ve got to work on this summer.
Here’s hoping I can improve all around with my photography and time management! Oh and that I can find a paying job….papa needs a new pair of shoes and then some.