#ritpj

I’ve been home from D.C. for a couple days now, and I’ve been able to reflect on the experience, both with my peers, and on my own. First, I have to say I think I would’ve had a bit of a different experience had I not interned in the city this summer.  Being there for two months helped me realize that everything there really does come back to politics, potentially not the straight coverage of such, like we saw at the AP and Reuters, but also the repercussions and ripple effects covered by places like Vox, AARP, NPR, and others.

The variety of places we were able to visit also reflected just the tip of the iceberg for our potential future. From classic Newspaper reporting at USA Today, wire services at AP, explaining the news at Vox, data driven reporting with supporting visuals at Pew, and more, we were able to sample the types of jobs that will be available to us after graduation.

For myself, this week taught me that I have options. I don’t feel that I need to call myself a still shooter or a videographer or editor; at least not yet. There is so much more out there than just newspapers, and I hope that the educational institutions feeding this industry quickly come to realize that. I’ve been able to look at myself, my skills and shortcomings, and see endless possibilities that may await; aerial photography, underwater work, video editing, multimedia producing, stills, and more. There’s no reason to shove myself into a box and say “I am this____.” I don’t think it will be easy, and I definitely do not think jobs are going to be given away like prizes on Oprah, but I do think that with the immense need for visual content today, photojournalists aren’t going anywhere. My father always said “the only thing that’s permanent is change” and I cannot think of a better way to describe this industry and where it is going, and I’m so excited to be a part of it.  

Day five of the D.C. trip took us to our final stops: Smithsonian and Pew Research Center. Both places had surprises for us, and were two of the few places that mentioned everyone’s capstones! It was humbling to know that editors at these prestigious places were taking interest at what we, seniors in college, were producing.

We started the day at Pew with Bronwen Latimer. She had been at Pew for about a year, and was able to show us the huge strides she had already made in terms of pairing the data driven work of Pew with enticing visuals to further explain and examine.  As someone interested in nonprofit work, Bronwen’s explanation of how she, a visual communicator, discusses the need for visuals to those who may not consider it otherwise. She noted that she has to “convince people that there’s a wider world out there” rather than just presenting people with written information and data, and how including images can improve engagement and action.  

Bronwen also offered some important advice that I don’t think we had heard earlier in the week; “find 10-12 people who you want to with, for the rest of your life...in order to meet those 10-12 people, you’ll have to meet 500 people...you are looking for a spark.” I think so often we are told to reach out to editors, and stay in touch, and this and that, but in this effort I think we forget the kind of intimacy that comes from working with editors. Often, editors see your biggest successes, but also your biggest mistakes, failures, and missed moments, and for someone who makes their living and bases their life on the work they create, this is an extremely vulnerable place to put yourself.  Bronwen’s advice reflects that relationship, and understands that not every editor will like/work well with every photographer, and vise versa, and that that’s okay. As young, soon to be graduated and job hunting photojournalists, this may have been the most important thing we heard all week.

After leaving Pew we headed to Smithsonian to meet with alumni Donny Bajohr, Chief Photography Editor Quentin A. Nardi, and photo editor Jeff Campagna. Much like our meeting with Pew, we spent a lot of time discussing how to keep in contact with editors, how often you should reach out, and what work you should be showing them. Quentin noted that you should show editors your personal work, because it shows what you are passionate about, and gives editors a sense of what you can do, aside from “bread and butter” assignments.  Above the relationship with editors, all three noted the importance of being a researcher and a journalist, not just a photographer. As we had heard earlier in the week, it’s easy to take pretty pictures, but hard to tell a story. “The best thing you can be is a journalist.”

Day four of the RIT PJ trip was a day split between two great publications, National Geographic and The Washington Post. We were also able to explore Nick Nichols’ exhibit at the Nat Geo museum, get lunch with editors from Nat Geo, and sit in on the 4 p.m. news meeting at WaPo.

During our meeting with National Geographic, we were able to meet and discuss what we can do as young photojournalists and editors with Mallory Benedict, Vaughn Wallace, Sara Leen, Mary Beth McAndrews, Eli Walker, and Jeff Heimsath. The one thing everyone kept coming back to was the ability to be a storyteller- not a photographer, an editor, a writer- a storyteller.  Along with this, Vaughn encouraged learning about other topics that you are interested in or aspire to work with, because the added knowledge will only allow you to better tell the story.

Sarah Leen, who I was incredibly excited to meet, discussed what she looks for in her interns, including “impeccable taste”, research ability, a personality that you can work it, and the flexibility to work in print as well as digital.  Thankfully, I was able to connect with her after the meeting to discuss my interest in underwater photographer in a young female photojournalist.

Before leaving we were able to stop at Nick Nichols’ exhibit “Wild” in which I able to learn about trigger traps and the amount of work that goes into this type of photography.  The amount of planning, trial and error, engineering, and research that goes into these cameras was unreal and astounding.

Washington Post with Chloe Coleman was and MaryAnne Golon was a great contrast to the what we saw at National Geographic, which obviously focuses on the long term feature stories while WaPo is still very much a current and breaking news organization. Overall, while it was definitely a fast-paced news organization, I admired the focus on in-depth storytelling as well, such as the coverage of Barbuda by Salwan Georges.

Day three of the D.C. trip brought us to USA Today, Vox, and AARP, where I was this past summer a photo editing intern. The first trip of the day brought us out to Virginia to meet with Andy Scott at USA Today, in which we discussed how the company sees itself moving forward as technology advances, brand recognition, serving your audience, and making a profit. Because this publication is not only its own newspaper, but a network of papers across the country and syndicates information to distribute to others, there are many considerations that may not have been present for some of the previous places we’ve visited. Overall, I think the most interesting part of the lecture was actually a personal project one of the photographers/videographers, Jack Gruber, who is working on a personal project that will allow visual communicators to document one location over the course of numerous years through fellowship programs. The idea that you can help not only photographers, but audiences understand and study an area through numerous years of coverage, but is also supportive of young professionals in the industry.

The second visit of the day was with Kainaz Amaria at Vox, which was vastly different from the previous location, but also extremely engaging.  Because Vox is a media company, they are on the front lines of new technology, but unlike so many other news and storytelling organizations they invest the effort to research if the platform will work for their voice and output, or if resources can be better allocated. I really admired this since so many visits we had been on already, and even last year in NYC, everyone just told us to jump on new technology and learn it and master it since “it will be important.” However, hearing someone finally say that it’s only important if it works for you and your publication, and then you should invest the time and energy into learning it and moulding it for your voice, was refreshing. It’s hard being a generation that grew up constantly adapting to new technology, and being used to things coming and going while listening to the older generations still reminiscence about the old days of film nostalgically while claiming we must be the jack of all trades in any new platform, device, technique, etc., that comes out.  Finally hearing and seeing someone use storytelling techniques in various ways to cater to the need of both the audience and the story was refreshing, and something I hope I see more in the future.

The last stop of the day was, for me, back at home at AARP. Seeing my summer colleagues and catching up with everyone was incredible, and I was excited to have my classmates hear about the opportunities presented by AARP. Something I hadn’t thought about before was the idea that so many people have preconceived notions of what AARP is and does, that not many pitch stories to them, and therefore if you have a great story that applies to their mission, brand, and fits somewhere in their various publications, it’s likely that Michael will either take that chance on you or direct you to someone he knows that might also be interested. Overall, it reaffirmed in my head how great it was to work there and with that team.

Day two of the D.C. trip brought more insights and information from the photojournalism community in Washington D.C.  We began the day at ESPN The Undefeated, one of the place I was most excited to visit while in D.C. The online publication focuses on the intersection of sports, race, and culture, and hearing Brent Lewis talk on these topics was extremely encouraging. He was one of the editors we’ve met with who believes journalism, photojournalism in particular, is not dying.  When asked where The Undefeated will be in five years, his answer was “[we] will still be telling stories that matter.”  Brent’s commitment to storytelling images, rather than just ‘beautiful’ images was extremely important to me as a photographer, athlete, and woman. 

The second stop was with alumni Jordan Roth at the Pulitzer Center, during which we spoke about the work Jordan does within Pulitzer Center, but also the grant application process.  The most surprising thing, for me, was the amount of grants that are given out versus the amount of applications received, shocking me in a pleasant way. While the visit felt short, visiting with a grant organization was incredibly helpful for a soon-to-be grad who is interested in international stories. 

McClatchy was our third stop of the day, in which we met with members of their social video team, breaking news, and the video lab west. Here, the most shocking information came from Ben at Video Lab West, which is essentially a team that tests and explores new video platforms and outlets. Their blog, http://sandbox.video/blog/, was very engaging because it outlined their video tests, the successes, and the issues they’ve found with various platforms. I was most impressed with the fact that a publishing company is actively investing in improving their own skills, while also sharing their findings with anyone willing to learn about it through their blog. 

Today was the first day of our professional development senior photojournalism trip to Washington D.C. We had the pleasure of beginning the day at the Newseum to explore the Pulitzer Prize Gallery, the 9/11 Gallery, and Creating Camelot. Creating Camelot was a new exhibit I hadn’t seen the last time I was in the Newseum, and the images by Jacques Lowe were stunning. I tend to react and remember exhibits, in any type of museum, if they combine information I hadn’t previously known with interesting, visual content. While I expected there to be strong imagery in this exhibit, I was also impressed by the plethora of information I learned walking through the space. For instance, I hadn’t know that the original negatives, except for 10 which were on loan, were lost in the 9/11 attacks.  The Newseum has never let me down with their up-to-date content and classic exhibits, and this trip surely didn’t disappoint.

The second location for the day was the Associated Press office for D.C.  David Ake began the day with some words of wisdom; “We try to be all things to all people and we often fail at that.”  While he was talking about the organization, this can extend to photographers and editors across the industry. So often we as photojournalists want to be everything for our subjects, we want to bring their triumph to others, receive justice, or to educate the populace about an underreported issue, but also so often we fail. It’s not just on our own accord, or for lack of effort, but for lack of outlets willing to publish or failure to push work to get it out there, so many stories go unseen. It very much reminded me of a conversation I had with Andrea Bruce about a year ago, regarding work and if you ever feel like you’ve truly done your subjects justice. I will never forget her saying that she still doesn’t feel that way.  The conversation between both Andrea and David was a pleasant reminder to be humble and tenacious in order to make it, both in the industry, and to make a difference.

After AP we made our way to NPR, one of the places I was most excited to visit while in D.C.  We were able to meet with two alumni, both successful women, which was important to me in light of recent events in the industry, and the push to include women in more awards, publications, assignments, etc. Emily Bogle, a photo editor, perfectly described what it is like to be a photographer or photo editor; “suddenly you care so much about this thing you’ve never heard of.” I’ve never heard anything more true. So much of what photojournalists, including myself, strive to do is educate and make people care about something they potentially never interacted with before.  Our whole industry is intrinsic upon creating an image, images, video, or an edit that captivates and motivates people to understand or respond to an issue.  We must ask ourselves “How can I do this story justice?” which is clearly in conflict with the previously made statements about being unable to feel that we’ve done so. However, I think I’ve begun to understand that, in this industry where compassion and ethics are even more important than taking the image, we may never feel we did the story justice, and that is when you are probably succeeding, as both a person and a photojournalist.  Humbling oneself to always see where your work can improve and better advocate and/or educate will allow you to do just that.