Weekly Geeks #7

I skipped Weekly Geeks last week because I got super busy and just didn’t have time to catch up on reviews… lame, right? Anyway, I’m back on board for Week #7 of the Weekly Geek challenge (courtesy of Dewey at The Hidden Side of a Leaf). This week, we’re challenged to do something with photos, which is actually really appropriate for me!

The internship I’ve alluded to in the past few posts is a photography internship with The Citizen, a community newspaper in Hugo, Minnesota. Since my internship focuses on photography, and the challenge is about photography, I thought it would be a good chance to post a little bit about me and what I’ve been up to through some photos.

As a teeny bit of background — I graduated in May from the University of Minnesota, Morris, a small, liberal arts college on the prairie. I graduated with degrees in both English and Journalism, and eventually hope to write for magazines as a staff writer or freelancer.

I started working at The Citizen soon after graduation (the picture on the right is me at my desk on my first day). Two days before I started, a huge tornado swept through Hugo, killing on little boy and leaving hundreds without homes. My first and second days, I had to run the newspaper office because the regular office manager was out with a family emergency, and the rest of the staff works remotely. It was very stressful, but I think the story will become a good, “When was a time you were challenged and your job and what did you do about it?” sort of answer.

My first photo assignment was to take pictures during the disaster recovery efforts the Saturday after the tornado. Thousands of civilian and professional volunteers came to Hugo to help families clear out the debris and start to get the neighborhood cleaned up. I’m not really a photographer — I just managed to convince the people at the paper that I am an enthusiastic learner and would try really hard. Going into a disaster area for my first project was intimidating, but I think I handled it well. My editor told me afterwards she was very pleased with my pictures, which made me extremely happy. The photograph on the left is one I took that ended up at the above-the-fold photo for the edition of the paper. The photo on the right is just one that I thought was cool, but didn’t end up in the paper.

Things have calmed down considerably since, but I still think it is going to be a very busy and exciting summer. I’m looking forward to getting some more photography experience before I head to grad school this fall, and I really love doing community news. I’ve gotten to write a number of articles for the paper as well, which is something I feel much more qualified to do! Anyway, that’s my Weekly Geek this week, I hope it was interesting!