June 18-20, almost a month ago (sorry for the late post!) I spent time at The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's newspaper with Maureen, a soon to be second year photojournalism student at RIT.
The first day we spent time with Gus Chan, one of their staff photographers. He was looking for a hot weather feature. In the car ride to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, I asked Gus a ton of questions. (actually keeping the conversation going, a skill I hadn't developed with people I have just met, until that day) He said a lot of things that Snyder tells us constantly so that was good to realize that everything I am learning is really important in the photojournalism world.
When we got back from the shoot, we hung out with Peggy Turbett. She has an interesting story about being from Ohio, and not wanting to return, studying in New York City, learning photography in her spare time, being a writer, then a photo editor, then a shooter. She looked at my portfolio and spent a ton of time with it and giving me really in depth feedback.
The Plain Dealer has around nine staff photographers, that's still pretty high compared to what we saw in New York-basically all freelancers. Talking to them and asking them questions was a great way to learn. The "doom and gloom" of newspapers is something that they talked to us a lot about. But they are also excited to see where it will go. Some even said Maureen and I are in a great position right now, we just need to be open to new possibilities.
The second day, Bill Gugliotta, the director of photography, gave us an assignment to shoot a hot weather feature. I know my way around Rochester, better than Cleveland so I pulled from the things I knew and called people. We decided to go to the Tremont Pool, but couldn't get in because we didn't have press passes. I figured there would be a line outside of the pool so we waited around before it opened. Instead there was a park by the pool and some kids were playing on the playground. About ten minutes before the pool opened the same kids I was photographing on the playground were getting ready to go to the pool and applying sunscreen. I caught some of those moments and was fairly happy with them. My pictures were put in an online gallery for the Plain Dealer, here.
Honestly, I wasn't 100% sure how I felt about newspapers, and I'm still not. But I loved the Plain Dealer and their staff and I think it would be very enjoyable to work there...if they ever hire more photographers.
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