Week 1 - Internship - Loyalty and Not my job!

Let the fun begin - final full practice before the Season starts.

So first of all I can truly say I survived week 1 of my internship! It was a bit of an unexpected bumpy first week caused by rain and a few unexpected twists within in the team this week.  I'll be first to say if there hadn't been unexpected twists I might get bored. I love the unexpected challenges that drive other people crazy.  I love impossible odds and embrace change! Yes..you can think it that girl is CRAZY! I think that often it is surviving that fire of any unexpected challenge is what makes us stronger photographers! It teaches you to think on your feet!  Which leads me to this week's post.

The first two days I expected to shoot - weather got in my way! I had hoped to not shoot at the Sunday practice simply because I had plans to shoot a fun horse event up in Cleveland.  However, it didn't work out that way so I shot at practice on Sunday.  

Our practice field was taken so the team had to play someplace where the grass was more than a little bit too long.  I won't lie I loved it! (Sorry guys - I know it was hard to play in).  It made for fun creative shots that I won't have a chance to shoot again.  I won't lie I had a lot of fun looking for some fun angles that made it look worse like the one below.

Making the best of an unexpected playing field trying to not get lost in the grass.

These weren't ideal shooting or playing conditions but sometimes you have to go with the flow and make the best of the situation.  In my case I had fun shooting funny shots like this one.

The biggest issues of the week involved the loss of   some team members and fundraising.  I actually almost spent more time this week trying to brainstorm fundraisers because of deficits that our unexpectedly small team has caused. While trying to make sure our team has the best year and best field possible we realized we would need to do some fundraising to help our goals.

The question that might come to mind is why as a photographer is it my job to help with that? I did my job I showed up. I took pictures. 

I have yet to ever work with any client where the job was clear cut like that! When you shoot weddings you play wedding planner helping keep the bride from being stressed out.  You are sometimes the shoulder to cry on if something doesn't go right.  In fashion you might be making clothing work with pins, clips, whatever you can find!  The point is your job isn't just to hold a camera and you need to  be prepare to embrace that as an intern.  Your main focus will be to use your camera in most jobs that you do but that doesn't mean you won't be wearing multiple hats too.

I am supposed to be on vacation in June.  I have the privilege of helping to shoot a very important to me cake smash session.  I agreed to help my other friend who is a make up artist / hair stylist with a shoot or two while I was in town.  I loaned out my daughter as a model.  Even though I am acting as a photographer while on vacation when I realized she also needed another model, I agreed to step in.  You never know what will be asked of you when you are "just shooting".  You have to be ready to forget the words even mentally "that's not my job". Your job is anything that makes it easier for you when it is time to pick up your camera.

As I though over the loss of a few of our players this week it brought me to the other thing I learned this week - loyalty. There will always be something out there that looks better on paper than what you have.  If you are a music photographer that might be wanting to shoot the big shows. So it can look good when you have a chance to help assist another photographer at a big show.  However, if you are contracted already to shoot some local bands what does that really say about you if you go shoot the big show.  Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture. The choices that we make in our careers will stay with us for life.  Sometimes it is best to earn your place in your given genre.  Start out shooting the smaller venues and move up to bigger venues as your skills grow.  When the bigger venues look back they will notice if you are a team player and how loyal you were to the the last person you worked for.  They will notice if you do choose to leave and move on to a better situation   how you ended your relationship with your last client or employer.  Did you leave the right way?  No one may comment at the time, but that doesn't mean they will not notice and not hire you if they are afraid you will leave the next time something better comes along.

If you commit to something commit to it 100%.  Even if you see it won't work out to be the perfect situation you had hoped for you will be able to have pride in yourself for seeing your commitment til the end.  As an intern this is an important lesson to learn before you do have something better offered to you and you have to make a snap decision.

So in closing I just wish our leaving team members well on their new teams and wish them a great season this year! It was great to get to be part of your careers.  I do truly hope to see each of you reach your true potential.  It has been nice to see how well this team has worked together to help each other be better players.  

This shot seemed metaphoric as we can't see who is left to catch this ball.

This week in class we are looking at Time Management and learning to multitask and prioritize. Both of these are important to learn as photographers and as busy students.  

Next week the team doesn't have practice and the formal pictures were put off due to the holidays. Upcoming we have a youth camp and formal pictures as we regroup and prepare for our season to start.

I hope you enjoyed the view of week 1.  I look forward to your thoughts!

Jessi

Let the Waiting Begin

Image Courtesy of Graphic Stock

While it is only day 2 of my internship I was hoping to have some cool images to share with you but instead I have the first lesson I can share from my Internship - be prepared to wait.  Things don't always go as planned!

I actually had 2 different shoot scheduled before today.  Last weekend I had scheduled to shoot the model that I am working with for our football team.  The shoot was part fashion for her and part team shooting / special projects for us.  The location we were shooting was an outdoor location.  Fear of looming storms had us reschedule for a different day.

So I planned to shoot my team the day before my internship actually started.  Practice cancelled due to our insane 40 degree weather in May.  We had hoped to do a few cool shots we could use for future fliers and we want to test a few things we will  be using for our formal shots next week. The formal shots we had to reschedule.

Today we have a practice. Well it looks like rain so it maybe rescheduled.  So now we are down to Sunday. I actually had plans to shoot a cool horse event on Sunday but it looks like I may have to  go shoot the team instead. 

I don't believe in being stagnate even though I've not been able to shoot.

Yesterday the owner said to me we should come up with one more fundraiser for the team.  We tossed around a few ideas and came up with one that we thing will be fun and raise a bit of money.  NO!! You just have to wait and see I'm not ready to spill the beans on this one yet!

So what have I learned so far as my first two official days of an intern?

1. Sometimes you just have to be patient!                                                                                    Even the best laid plans don't always work out in any  business.  This is especially true if you are an outdoor photographer.

     2. Make a back up plan or maybe 3!

         The only thing you can do to combat when things don't go the way you want is to have a

         a few back up plans.  While the internship is approximately 10 hours a week some weeks you

         due to things going wrong you may work 2 hours and the next week you may put in 20 hours.  

         Just like with any job sometimes you have to put in overtime when it is needed.

  3. Don't panic!

      You do want to make the most of your internship but panicking when things don't go right won't

      help you at all. 

Part of the internship process is about learning to work in a professional environment. This week's discussion is about 7 behaviors that that a professional has to balance. I can tell you that at least one of those behaviors had to come into play this week so I didn't freak out on my employer over things going wrong. 

In reality no matter what type of photography you shoot things will happen.  Clients won't show up. Equipment will decide to not work.  Your entire concept for a shoot may suddenly fall apart on you and you will have to scramble to make something work. So in a way this problem is exactly what you want to have happen in an internship! It is a good lesson to learn while the stakes aren't so high.

Fingers cross everyone that we don't have a bizarre blizzard, or monsoon this week so I can share some of the images taken late this week and what we are doing with them as we wait for our season to start!

Upcoming projects before the season starts include team photos, modeling shoots, fund raiser, and youth football camp! It will be a busy few weeks. Our official season starts June 6th.

Here we go! The steps to take to apply for an Internship! Part 1.

Welcome all it is finally Friday so we continue our series on Internship!   Tomorrow is my team's first pre-season game.  I'm hoping we don't get rain and as crazy as it is that we don't get snow! I promise I will start to share some photos of these early days once we get past the internship application process! So let's get back to it.

So you are almost there! This is the exciting part!  You have finally found the perfect internship and you can't wait to get started so how do you get it set up with school.

If you start to ask other students it becomes pretty clear that many of them will never do an internship so they aren't really sure what you do.  Some will start telling you it is a lot of paperwork or that the process takes a long time.

 At this point you are starting to feel like maybe you should just give up! It already took so long to find an internship and then making sure it was the right internship for you.  You may start to loose hope and think about just let the little voices of doubt take over and have a party.  But wait...

Don't give up yet, no matter how bleak the situation looks! Ambassador Friday is here to help!

Here is a secret and you have to promise to not tell a soul!  This is the easy part.  Finding the right internship was the hardest part of process. Really! I promise you that I am not lying. I'll give you all the steps involved so you are prepared for the process of getting that great internship approved.


Step 1 - Contact your Academic Adviser

You can actually contact your adviser before you find an internship! You let them know you have potential interest in getting an internship and they will send you the internship packet before you even start looking for an internship. This is a smart way to handle the situation. Why?  Because not every internship would qualify as an acceptable internship.  I did not personally do it this way because I attended on of our amazing webinars that had taught me what would be an acceptable internship.

Since you have already found what you believe to be an acceptable internship, the first thing you want to do is email or call your adviser to let them know about the internship offer.  Your adviser will send you the Photography Internship Packet along with an email of questions that needs to be filled out and sent over to the Photography Internship Coordinator, Effi Karkaidos.


Step 2 - Initial contact Email sent to the Photography Internship Coordinator

After you have read over the PDF Internship Packet you will copy the template email sent over by your adviser and sent it to Effi.  It first asks for your contact information as well as that of your adviser.  The email has some important questions you must answer about your current status with the school as well as the internship.  Here are a few of those important questions.

• Have you completed 75 credits worth of core Photography courses?

          This one is a biggie! You need to make sure with your adviser at some point that you are on 

           track to do this around the time that doing an internship will work for you. There will be more           discussion about time in another section.

• Have you discussed your eligibility to enroll in the Internship course with your Academic Adviser?

          While Effi is glad to answer questions you do need to work with your adviser to make sure 

           you are fully able to do your internship before submitting this email.

• Why are you interested in an Internship?

          This question actually has 7 different reasons why you want to have an internship you choose 

          between 1 - 7 on what is the most important reason to you.  A few of those topics are as  to  

          earn 3 credits towards my degree, to earn a wage, to build my portfolio.  None of this has a

          wrong or a right answer so be honest!

                              There are three important foot notes on this email as well.

                   1. You must find your own internship. It isn't Effi's place to find one for you.

                   2. You can't intern for your own business or that of a spouse or close family member.

                   3. You must gain approval for your internship if you want to receive credit for it!

Not to leave you in suspense but just like I had to wait for my reply email from Effi the rest of the steps to apply for your internship comes next week! (Yes Effi's return email was faster)!

As always I look forward to your questions and comments!!

So you've been offered an internship but how do you know if it is the right internship for you?

                                 Congratulations! You've been offered an internship which is very exciting.

The question is how do you know if it is the right internship for you?

That might seem like a very silly question. After all getting one internship offer was hard work why would you ever consider turning it down? There are several very good reasons for not accepting an internship if it isn't the right fit for you.  To understand what those reasons are it helps to look at how you tell if it is the right internship for you.

Will you be working with someone you can learn from or who can inspire you to be a better photographer?

• Not every person you work with can teach.  You want to make sure you are doing an internship with someone who will be a good mentor and teacher for you. 
• There is little point in doing an internship if you aren't going to come out a better photographer.  If you just want 3 credits, you could just take a general elective course.  
• Being an intern is a large time commitment.

             Does the person you are interning with have a bad history with his or her interns?

• I wish that I could say every person you have the chance to intern with will be amazing! Many of them really will which I am glad to say, however there are some who may not be.
• Check to see if the person has a history of only using interns as assistants.  It can be ok if that is how they do things but you may want to know up front if you will have any hands on training as their intern or if you will just be given tasks to complete.
• If you have hopes of working with this particular company or photographer you may want to know up front if he or she ever hires his interns.
• Ask around in photography forums if anyone has ever interned with this company or person.
• Do a little research and ask the person up front his or her expectations of an intern. Find out what types of jobs you will be doing so you are prepared for how the internship will go.

                    Does the idea of this particular internship get you exited to learn more?

• This is a class that will last 11 weeks and you be dedicating at least 10 hours a week to doing.
• You should feel excited at the chance to do THIS internship.
• It shouldn't feel like you are doing it for credit or for an easy 11 weeks.
• I got involved with setting up my internship not realizing I would get credit at all.  I just really wanted to learn more than I would learn as just the team photographer.

At the end of the internship can you see yourself continuing on in that field?

• It really doesn't matter if you will or won't continue on in this type of photography.  During the process of being an intern you might learn that this field is not to your liking at all.
• The important part is at the start of your internship you should really feel like it is a possibility that you could love that type of photography.
• You should feel like no matter what happens you know you will leave that internship with knowledge that you can apply to any other field of photography that you choose to pursue.

The reality is this is a great opportunity and learning experience for you. It is something you can put on your resume.  Even if you don't find your dream job doing it you may make many new connections that can lead to your dream job. 

You can only do one internship at school through the school and some mentors will only uses interns.  So you want to make sure that you have really done your research to make sure this is a good choice for you before you accept the internship and start the process of getting your internship approved.

Next Friday will be the internship approval process start to finish!

As always please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments! I look forward to them!

Jessi

The Journey to Internship

                                                  The flyer the Silverhawks made for me.

As the Semi-Pro Football Season is about to start here in Ohio so is my internship as the Photographer for the Jackson Silverhawks.  Officially my internship starts on May 14th and ends July 29th however I will already be doing some work with the team starting this weekend.  It struck me that the journey to my internship as well as the time I spend as an intern could be an interesting series for the Friday blogs.

So the first part of the process is how did I end up with this really cool internship. It is a process that I started as soon as I started at AI in 2013.  I knew I wanted an internship.  Before starting at AI I had taken a photograph class at our local zoo and met a wonderful photographer who pointed out to me how many great groups we have in Ohio for photographers.    I took another class at our local library where I met another photographer who pointed me to a few more groups. Both introduced me to some wonderful people who were willing to help me on my photographic journey.

The one thing that I started to see is how important connections can be when you start looking for an internship.  I didn't just have one internship offer I had several. So my work at networking gave me the chance to pick the internship that was right for me.

I actually met the Jackson Silverhawks last year.  I had seen an ad from a photographer on Craigslist that was looking to network with other photographers.  I contacted him and we talked a bit online. He mentioned to me that he shot Semi-Pro football and he was looking for a second shooter.

Here is a secret. I didn't love sports. Hilariously I was captain of my own school's Pep Club and I had to make all the hoops for our football team to run through but I was clueless. I held the hoop and I went home.  However, I never turn down the chance to shoot something new.  I always say you will never know what you truly love to shoot if you haven't learned what you hate to shoot. So I told that photographer I'd love to be his second shooter.  He offered me a small amount of money but I mostly cared about the experience.

I met the other photographer in person at the first game.  He gave me a few tips about shooting but pretty much just let me shoot and learn by shooting.  He then quit and I suddenly became the first and only shooter for the team.  I told the Owner I would stand by him for this season.  I shoot through the summer.  It was definitely a learning process where sometimes I did great and other times I wish I had done better.  I shot not only my team but the other teams we played.  I gave the other players access to tag themselves in my pictures.

At the end of the season the team owner mentioned me considering doing an internship for him the next year. I told him I would think about it because I knew his current coach was leaving with most of the team so I didn't know what the teams status would be next year.

With in a week of the season ending, I had 4 different teams ask me to be their photographer for the next year.  I ended up accepting the paid internship offered to me to stay with the Jackson Silverhawks.  I was grateful to the team for giving me the chance.  Had I not been given the chance I never would have learned I love sports photography. The team owner and I have a lot of great ideas for this season and I can't wait to slowly share them all with you guys.  I will also show how he is helping to promote my website and Facebook page as well.

Next week I'll talk about the actual process of applying for an internship once you have someone who offers you one.  I look forward to hearing your questions!