In what ways do you hope to grow as a photographer?

Right now, I am just listening and learning, soaking as much in as I can before I graduate. After I complete school, I hope to grow more in my personal photography. I hope to look more into what photography means to me.  As a photographer, I am most excited about growing as a person, and where that path is going to lead me I couldn’t tell you.

Who has had the most profound impact on you as a mentor?

All the grad students from the past couple years have impacted me in so many ways. I would have to say with my most recent project from Soul of Athens from last year, Andrea Morales, Dania Maxwell, and Sue Morrow. They helped me think more deeply about my story and the reasoning behind certain images.  They have helped me grow personally and professionally.

What is the most rewarding assignment/project you’ve worked on thus far?

The Refuge, which is the first and only bigger project I have created so far. It has been rewarding to see the different stages of my project’s progress and then put it together in such a short amount of time.

What is unique about the school you attend?

There are many great photojournalism schools, but there are a couple of things that I feel make Ohio University unique. The undergraduate degree front-loads photo courses to make sure you are taking a photo classes the every first quarter you come to school. I think that is very beneficial for students to get involved from the beginning. Having a graduate program is something that I have always liked. A lot of my good friends from school were/are in the graduate program, and it gives the school a wide variety of community building within the program.

What advice do you have for someone who is just starting school and what questions would you most like guidance on?

Take pictures. You aren’t going to create any cool pictures by just thinking about ideas. Go outside, talk to people and be a part of the community you live in. The best pictures you will produce are ones where you are just wandering around, explore something new, or assigning yourself to go shoot

Please tell us about this project (The Refuge):

This project is about a family of five living inside a school bus. The parents, More Smiles and Space Cadet, gathered everything they had, including their three sons, Forest, Eli, and Simon and moved across the country from California to Ohio. They live in 20 acres of a dense forest filled with natural springs, deer, and a simple school bus. There is no running water or electricity. Forest, 13, attends public schooling, while Eli, 11, and Simon, 9, are still home-schooled by Space. Their simple lifestyle reflects their desire to preserve the land and live a slow-paced life. They want to try to provide a place for everyone in need to come and feel welcome. The land’s name is The Refuge. Their vision of providing a place for shelter and rest shapes their daily lives.  This story is about one family’s relationship with the land and with one another. It was initially just a personal project I was shooting outside of school. Then last spring when our annual Soul of Athens project started, I felt this would tie right into the theme we had for the year.

How did you meet this family?

I met this family when I was working on a story about someone with bipolar disorder. He would hang out with other people dealing with mental disabilities at The Gathering Place in Athens. I became friends with one of the volunteers named Julie and we would talk about our interests like the Rainbow Gathering, the outdoors, and Athens. One afternoon as we were both leaving she mentioned she had to pick her daughter up from her friends, Smiles and Space’s. Unknowing if these were people’s names, she further explained that they were working on getting their school bus ready for the up coming winter, and I blatantly said, “I need to meet them.” I had to wait for access and trust from the family, and then the rest is history.

How much time did you spend with them?

The end of fall my sophomore year was when I first met the Welch family, and I wasn’t photographing them for any class, rather as a personal project. I would spend time as much as I could with them, but having a full course load on top of other involvements at school, made it hard to get out there. But last spring, I decided to use their story for our student project, Soul of Athens, which allowed me to get out to their land multiple times a week.

What’s been your biggest challenge when working on this story?

Being patient for the story to development was challenging. It was hard knowing what I wanted to say about this family in the beginning. I had to remind myself, that I knew a story was there, and to be patient for it to unravel.

What’s been most rewarding?

There have been so many things that have been rewarding, but if I had to pick one thing to say the most rewarding would be creating a relationship with this family I will keep in touch with for a lifetime. They have become my second family in Athens, and yes I have them to thank for giving me the opportunity to learn how to create my first multimedia piece, and yes I have this family to thank for winning my first award with photography. But I have created a relationship with an awesome family and that to me is what is most rewarding.

To suggest a student or recent graduate for the Emerging Talent series, email Maddie at madd...@gmail.com

Jared Hamilton is senior photojournalism student at Western Kentucky University. He spent 2011 working on his project Reconnecting. It is about how technology has isolated humans from one another and how escaping into nature for a while can be therapeutic. That has now grown into a larger project called Finding Oasis.

What are your goals with photography?

Right now I just want to work on my book called Finding Oasis. I don’t want money or recognition. I just want my work to affect people. Finding Oasis is about making people think about the way we live. I hope that I can inspire people, that’s all that matters.

I have a lot of friends who are really motivated towards making it in the industry, but I don’t know if I want that. I just want a simple life and to hopefully use photography to make extra money. I find that when I am given an assignment it takes the fun out of shooting for me.

It has almost been two years since I’ve applied for a photography job. I still shoot nearly everyday, assignment or not. With the freedom from the restrictions of a client, I am able to make the photographs I want. Being able to do things my way is very important to me. For example, I spent last summer making pizza while I worked on my project. I am about to start another pizza job to save up for more travels this summer so I can get a little deeper into the project.

What do you want to do after college?

Wear suits and make good decisions. Nah, I’m just kidding. Right now, I am going to go with the flow of life. I plan to do some cheap traveling and continue working on Finding Oasis. The book is about the thought processes that lead to wanting to live a minimalist lifestyle. I don’t really have any detailed plans for the future at this point. I am just going with the flow and doing my thing. I have faith that if I put enough heart into my work, the necessities will come. All I really care about is making a badass photo book that makes people think. After traveling the country this summer I plan to find a farm where I can help with harvest, work on editing the book, and shoot photographs of that lifestyle. Hopefully after that I can send the book around and get some work taking pictures.

Who are your current inspirations?

I really love the work of William Eggleston, Constantine Manos, Alex Webb, and a lot of other more popular photographers, but for real my biggest inspirations are people that I know. I really dig on the work of Rush Jagoe, David Kasnic, Christian Hansen, and Austin Koester. It’s really interesting to know the personality of a photographer and see how that effects their work. Then you can break down a picture on a much deeper level and start to understand why the photographer shoots the way they do. Another recent influence has been the work of Peter Van Agtmael whom I met through Christian. Peter’s work is simple and beautiful even when the content of the picture is something as intense as war.

Are you working on any projects currently?

I have a couple of things going on. I am working on a project about working for a living and the flow of money. Later in the year I plan to photograph some organic farms and use the photos to compare the two lifestyles. This project will be included in my larger project Finding Oasis, which will include multiple projects or phases that show my thought processes. I started working on it when I returned to Kentucky from an internship in Michigan.

The first phase was called Reconnecting. It is about how technology and social media has isolated humans. As a counter point to that it is also about how getting away from everything and how being in nature gives us a chance to slow down and appreciate the beautiful world we live in. It has now grown into Finding Oasis, which will explore other ideas with a similar theme.

In what ways do you hope to grow as a photographer?

I hope to grow as photographer in the same ways I hope to grow as a human being. I just want to be humble and continue to grow. I’m not sure in what ways I am going to grow, but I believe that understanding photography is parallel with understanding life.

What mistakes have you made along the way?

The biggest mistake I made was my early view of why I should photograph someone. I would literally pick people that I thought were in bad situations because I knew those photos would receive praise in the college photojournalism world. I tried to justify it, but deep down I knew it was wrong. I think that a lot of students make this same mistake.

I am not saying that it is wrong to photograph bad situations, just that if you are going to do it you need to have good intentions. I think there is a thin line between activism and exploitation. I struggle with this constantly in my documentary work. When I choose a project it is always something I care about deeply. I try not to choose subjects for the wrong reasons. Bad situations make compelling photographs, but that isn’t a good enough reason to take the picture. It needs to be able to inspire change.

What was unique about the school you attended (or did not attend)?

WKU has been a great place for me to grow as a photographer and a person, but I don’t really know what is unique about it. It’s college. It was the sense of family that was built in the dark room because it forced students to be together and forge tight bonds. But the semester that I came in was the first semester that the Basic Photography class went all digital. Now some people work in the labs, but most people work at home alone or with a couple of friends. The family bond has changed. Luckily, I got to befriend a lot of the photographers that started out on film and see that tight-knit family unit that WKUPJ is supposed to be. There are still tight groups within the department, but it is not the same. This comes back to the issue of isolation through technology that I deal with in Reconnecting.
Who has had the most profound impact on you as a mentor?

I wouldn’t really say I have had much of a photography mentor outside of my teachers at school. The person who had the most profound impact on me recently was a friend from home named Dara. I had really been struggling with my personal ethics and the fine line between exploitation and activism. In 2011, I got first place in Hearst Journalism Championship in the Sports and News round. One of the photographs in my entry was a frame from the project I did on a young girl that uses medical marijuana to treat the symptoms that come with having brain cancer. When I was shooting the story I was viewing it as the most important thing that was going on at the time. When I got the award I felt guilty because I was gaining recognition and scholarship money because of her bad situation. This is something I have been struggling with for a while. Dara convinced me that documenting the bad parts of life is important if done with an empathic eye.

What advice do you have for young photographers who are struggling with similar issues / finding their voice / etc?

The only advice I really have for young photographers is be yourself. Be honest with yourself and trust your gut. Hundreds of people will tell you the “right” way to do things. Listen to everyone, but decide for yourself. In the end all that matter is that you are happy with who you are and the work you make.

To suggest a student or recent graduate for the Emerging Talent series, email Maddie at madd...@gmail.com.

Shely Pack teaches a ballet lesson at her studio in Half Moon Bay, Calif., on Wednesday, August 4, 2011. Pack's dance studio has produced numerous award winning dancers.

How was your internship structured?

My internship was about 11 weeks long. I worked 5 days a week and had anywhere from one to three assignments a day.   Luckily, it was a paid internship that treated me very well.  I was given a car, camera equipment and a laptop for the summer. More information can be found here. I would normally go into work, shoot an assignment or two, and come back to the office to get my take edited if I wasn’t on a tight deadline. My assignments were anywhere from a few miles away to an hour away. I got a variety of assignment from shooting A’s and Giants games to portraits of an “ecosexual” couple.

Artist Beth Stephens and former porn star and sex-positive feminist Annie Sprinkle are prominent leaders in ecosexuality, a movement that seeks to combine the study of sexuality and environmental consciousness. They are infamous for their ecosexual wedding ceremonies, in which they've got the moon, the earth, the sky, and other elements of nature.

What was the most important thing you learned?

I learned an incredible amount on my internship.  Judy Walgren, the Director of Photography, was a great mentor. She really pushed me to see in new ways, use lenses I normally wouldn’t use and keep going back if I didn’t get it right the first time. She also trusted me to shoot a few A1 stories and seeing my photos on the front of the paper was always an incredible feeling. I also learned to get more organized, trust my gut, and get out there and shoot everyday. Going from a small town to a big city was definitely an interesting change, but I learned how to navigate and manage shooting assignments every day.

Earlier this year, 15-year-old Nathan Adelman had a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Livermore. Six months later, he's got defibrillator in his chest, and his entire family -- parents and five brothers and sisters -- are facing a genetic quandary that already has changed all of their lives. Nathan's experience, aside from being a fascinating story on its own (the family dog saved his life by alerting them that the kid was in trouble), underscores a lot of the ethical dilemmas families and doctors face when they consider genetic testing.

What’s the best part about this internship? What’s the most difficult part about this internship?

The best part about the internship was being able to take photos everyday in the coolest city in the world. San Francisco is an incredible and accepting city, surrounded by beauty everywhere you look. And in some odd way, that made it more difficult to shoot there at times. Coming from shooting in Appalachia every day to a big beautiful city was a little tough. It’s just an entirely different environment. But it really pushed me to get out of my bubble and see different things. One of the most challenging things initially was navigating the city and getting used to how long it takes to get places. But other than that, it was great.

Members of the Hot Pink Feathers arrange themselves for a portrait after the Alameda Fourth of July parade in Alameda, California. The Hot Pink Feathers got many complaints for dressing too risque in a family friendly parade.

Describe your personal and professional growth during the internship.

This was my first internship, so I learned a LOT about how newspapers worked. I also learned how to work under a deadline.  Initially the rush of only having a small amount of time to complete an assignment and get the photos captioned and toned and sent back to the office was overwhelming, but I learned to enjoy it.  I learned to shoot with more than just a 35 and shoot sports (sort of!).  The photo staff was really awesome and always helped me edit when I asked. They made it really difficult to leave at the end of the internship. On a personal level, I lived alone for the first time in my life and that taught me a lot about myself.  I also learned a lot more street sense and to trust your gut feeling when you think something is wrong (especially while carrying around thousands of dollars worth of gear).

Dr. Rae Lyn Burke was a long-time Alzheimer's researcher -- until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's herself. Now in the early stages of the disease, she's participating in a clinical trial for a therapy that she actually discovered. Dr. Rae Lyn Burke meets at the Alzheimer's Association to discuss public advocacy on July 28, 2011.

What was your favorite assignment and why?

My favorite assignment was following around a woman for a day who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease after studying it for years. She now participates in the same clinical trials that she helped develop. It was so nice to spend the entire day with her, which involved using public transportation to get to an Alzheimer’s clinic several towns away. That was a bit of a struggle for both of us, but we both learned a lot and had a great day. It ended up running A1 with a big spread inside.

Luke Rawson, 5, touches his great-grandmother Helen's face while saying "I love you too much, Grandma". "There's no such thing as loving me too much," Helen replies. Helen and her husband Martin are currently raising their great-grandchildren and have four generations living under their roof.

Did you set a goal for your internship?

I really wanted to shoot a story on my own this summer. I wanted to continue on a story I worked on in Ohio about grandparents raising their grandchildren and Judy really encouraged me to do so. She told me I could take as much time as I needed to work on it. Unfortunately I hit a lot of dead ends and didn’t find a suitable family until the end of my internship. But I got to spend some time with a wonderful Native American family raising their great grandchildren and I’m very thankful for meeting and spending time with them.

Sunday Streets 2011 Season continues the tradition of visiting diverse communities throughout the City with a variety of routes in different neighborhoods. On Sunday, August 14, 2011, Sunday Streets was held in the Tenderloin with activities such as bike riding through the streets.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

The San Francisco Chronicle was truly a great place to work. They have a wonderful and helpful photo staff, a wide variety of assignments and you get to live in the most wonderful city in the world (in my opinion).  If you get the internship, definitely push yourself to explore a TON, ask a lot of questions and get your work edited by the staff. You definitely have to put in the effort to succeed there too, but it’s an amazing place to be.

What will you do next?

Good question. I’m graduating from Ohio University in June and then we’ll see! I’m applying for some internships, but no plans are set in stone yet.

The deadline to apply for the San Francisco Chronicle’s summer 2012 internship is December 30, 2011 and the application process is online here.

There’s no law against bad design.

Good thing, because many popular websites are terrible. For media outlets, the challenge of presenting reams of rotating content often produces visually unfriendly pages. The New York Times may practice great journalism, but according to Andy Rutledge, the website “presents a rather typical example of terribly-designed news.“ It doesn’t take Nancy Drew to find good journalism content burdened by bad design.

As visual professionals, there’s no rationale to ignore the tenets of good graphic design. It is not an aesthetic frivolity to make sure your best content is easy to navigate online. Photojournalists love to snicker at how amateur photographers don’t understand how much practice and work it takes to become a professional. Well, graphic design is a craft that takes just as much study and practice to perfect.

Combining strong photojournalism with strong graphic design is a win-win. In the crowded and competitive photojournalism marketplace, it behooves you to make every part of your online presence look thoughtful and professional.

This is the final part of a series on how you can plan, design, build and maintain a successful photojournalism portfolio website. Part 1 explores planning your website and Part 2 discusses working with templates, HTML, CSS and plug-ins.

• Don’t overdesign

“Cut needless design, as E.B. White might have said,” says Liz Danzico, a designer who chairs and co-founded the MFA in Interaction Design program at the School for Visual Arts in New York City.

“What I really like are sites that are really simple and easy to navigate,” says Alina Grosman, the manager of sales and assignments at VII in New York City.

“I think simple is better,” says Mark Lennihan, a photo editor at the Associated Press.

Notice a pattern?

Simple, though, can be difficult to design. How do you make something simple without looking amateurish or unfinished?

• Hierarchy

The key is to simple design success is a purposeful hierarchy for your page. That means certain elements of the page are clearly bigger- and thus more important visually- than others. The recent Facebook timeline redesign is a perfect example of establishing a hierarchy. Without the timeline, Facebook pages were a visually-muddled list of elements presented at roughly the same size.

One dominant image per page is the obvious hierarchy for a photojournalism portfolio site. But simply plopping a big image on a generic template can look rushed and unfinished.

• How can I improve on a basic design?

The difference between a professional site and an amateurish clunker often comes down to padding (negative space inside the box) and margins (negative space outside the box). Simple design is in fact a studied, proportional, restrained attempt to let the content, not the design, do the heavy lifting.

Take a look at a website like Hammerpress. Do you see how the clear hierarchy works, with one prominent rotating slideshow and three icons below divided into thirds of the main image? Notice, too, how the space between each element is about 25 pixels, which gives the site an easy-to-manage feel. There’s no need for borders and box background colors if you use margins and padding correctly. Compare Hammerpress to a site like this, and you’ll see the importance of spacing your website’s elements generously.

Make sure each element of your page- header, menu, photo, whatever- has its own space to breathe. That idea should be familiar to photojournalists, all of whom have wished there wasn’t a telephone poll growing out of a subject’s head at some point in their career!

• Popular Styles of Photojournalism Websites

The Clean and Simple

Damon Winter’s personal portfolio website is a great example of a fully realized minimalist design. By exaggerating the negative space on the page, Winter emphasizes the strength of his images.

Many photographers work with some variation of a design like Ron Haviv’s website. When working with such a simple layout- logotype in the top left, menu along the left, big image, and clean background- it’s especially important to refine every adornment and detail.

Choose a smart logotype and make sure that it stands out. Whether through color, a larger font size or all caps, it should be clearly differentiated from your menu.

Don’t be afraid to use touches of color, as long as you keep it consistent. Space the margins in a purposeful way.

The Horizontal Slide

The horizontally scrolling photo portfolio website has become popular in the past few years. You can see the effect in Alec Soth’s website. Columbus Dispatch photographer Brooke LaValley used Indexhibit, which I mentioned in Part 2, to design this type of site.

The upside of designing your website with a horizontal scroll bar is that it’s still rare enough to feel like a trendy design, and it lets you present multiple picture stories in a palatable way. The downside is that Apple, Facebook and Google are making scrollbars harder to maneuver.

The Full Screen

The most successful full-screen-image sites I’ve seen- in which a piece of JavaScript code tells the image to resize when you drag on the corner of the browser window- have come from universities. Check out the University of Rochester and the University of Denver to see this style in action.

The disadvantage of this approach is that a full-screen image demands that you overlay a menu or caption on the picture. Many photojournalists frown at disrupting the integrity of an image.

Flash Websites

There are plenty of website templates built with Adobe Flash. For a photojournalist, there are three main problems with Flash site. First, iPhones and iPads do not support Flash. Second, images often take longer to load in Flash than in a more standard HTML/CSS site. Finally, Flash makes S.E.O. trickier because search engines may not index text like captions and menus as completely as non-Flash sites.

• More Tips

-Mark Lennihan at the AP doesn’t like when music starts playing when you visit a website. He also doesn’t like when a slideshow automatically plays.

“I like to be able to click on images and judge how long I want to look at and image, whether it’s one second or 20 seconds,” he said. Web surfers want to control their own experience online.

- Google Fonts offers the easiest solution to presenting diverse fonts online. Online, fonts must be easy to read and scan. If you use the Papyrus font, graphic designers will make fun of you.

- Every page should either have your contact information or a clear link to the contact page.

- Add Google Analytics, which is free, to your website. It gives you a wealth of data about the visitors to your site.

• Save Images to Load Quickly

First, size your image to the exact pixel dimensions you need on your site. Then, use “Save for Web and Devices” to prepare your pictures. The goal is to make the image as small a file size as possible before the quality visibly degrades. Usually, choosing “jpg” and “medium”- between 30 and 50 on the slider, depending on size- let’s you hit that sweet spot. Don’t be overly concerned about having a museum-quality image: online, making people wait for your pictures to download is a more serious problem than a slightly lower-quality picture.

If you have a cutout image or need a transparent background, save as a png or gif.

• Update frequently

As obvious as it sounds, many photojournalists fail to update their websites frequently. If you aren’t dedicated to refreshing your photographs every month or two- and much more frequently on a blog or on social media- then you’ll bore your audience.

• Focus group your website with a friend or teacher.

Most photojournalists have had the experience of falling in love with a picture that everyone else thinks is mediocre. Part of good design- just like good writing- is listening to feedback and revising when necessary.

The burden is not on the viewer of the website to understand how brilliant your design is. It’s your job as the designer to provide an easy-to-navigate experience that highlights your best work.

How can you vouch for that kind of good experience? Watch how a friend or teacher navigates around your site. See what they like and what they ignore. See how long it takes them to find your email, and see if they can figure out how to get back to the home page.

• Have fun designing your website!

“It’s phenomenal to me the capacity people have with an air card and a laptop and a digital camera to produce stories and video and get things online and show their work,” AP photo editor Mark Lennihan told me.

“I think someone who’s intrepid and enterprising can have a go at it and succeed. There’s room for every photographer out there.”

Brian McDermott teaches web design, photojournalism, and multimedia journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the chair of the NPPA’s Student Quarterly Clip Contest and designed the logo above.

You’ve read Part 1 of this series. You understand your potential audience, you’ve edited your photos with clear navigation in mind and you’ve professionalized yourself on social media.

You’re feeling inspired and productive. You sit down at your computer, ready to put your work online.

And…uh-oh.

Suddenly, building a website feels as daunting as hand holding a two-second exposure. But don’t despair.

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll discuss how to choose a template, modify it using basic HTML and CSS and add useful plug-ins. According to Placeblogger C.E.O. Lisa Williams, “No journalism student should be intimidated by the process of setting up and managing a website– it is well within your ability, and it can all be learned and practiced before you graduate.” That’s the quote I use on the syllabus of my Web Design for Journalists class.

This is the second of a three-part series on how you can plan, design, build and maintain a successful photojournalism portfolio website. Part 3 discusses trends and techniques for smart portfolio graphic design.

• Find Inspiration

Perusing the web for design inspiration is the first step in building any website. Look at other journalism websites, of course, but also look at what artists, businesses, graphic designers and universities are doing well online.

During a redesign of my website last year, I was inspired by the silhouette logo placement of Eduardo del Fraile’s portfolio website. I also liked the way that the Noor Images website had a single full-framed image which scaled to fit the browser size as it was adjusted. (Noor has since been redesigned, but you can see the same effect on the Zara clothing website.)

I emulated these elements, but made sure not to copy them wholesale. A website should be uniquely your own. Inspiration saves time.

• Find the Right Template

Most photojournalists rely on a template to leapfrog the steep learning curve involved in building a website from scratch. Unless you’re comfortable with Dreamweaver, HTML and CSS, constructing a website from scratch will be a slog. Luckily, there are a slew of template options from which to choose.

• Free Templates

The intrigue of “free templates” for most photographers is “free.” WordPress, Google’s Blogger, Flavors.me or Tumblr will let you customize and host a portfolio website without paying a cent. Tens of thousands of pre-made designs integrated with a functioning Content Management System (CMS) are nothing to sneeze at either.

WordPress: Twenty-two percent of all new websites going online are built using the WordPress platform. You’re on a WordPress blog right now!

Designer Jeff Hendrickson calls WordPress “a fantastic platform for photographers” in his list of 30 WordPress themes for photographers. It’s a useful list to find a template that hews to your professional needs.

I, on the other hand, despise the WordPress interface. To post the above logo on the front page of The Visual Student, for example, requires an embittering series of seven or eight clicks. They are difficult to customize without a sophisticated understanding of FTP protocol and advanced CSS.

If you’ve never built a website until WordPress, you’ll likely figure out what you need to do. But if you’re versed in web design and web building, you’ll be puzzled by the needlessly complicated organization and workflow in WordPress.

Blogger: Google’s blog platform has a friendlier interface than WordPress does. Unfortunately, it also has far fewer template options for photographers.

Tumblr: If WordPress is a 2005 Chrysler minivan, Tumblr is a fixed gear bike rocking a Sleigh Bells sticker on the basket. Hip and well designed, Tumblr offers some nice templates, and Has A Portfolio will help you create a functional portfolio Tumblr.

There’s a dark side to Tumblr– sometimes literally. For photographers, copyright and citation are weak to nonexistent concepts. The templates, though customizable, require an intermediate knowledge of HMTL and CSS to effectively change the elements of the page.

Flavors.me: Flavors is an easy-to-design web platform that produces nifty websites in a couple of minutes. For print reporters or students looking for an easy, professional web presence, it’s the site I recommend.

Yet its simplicity limits its usefulness for photojournalists, who must present a variety of images, stories and multimedia. As a photographer, Flavors would only work if you link out to a public Flickr or Picasa account, with your portfolio content arranged in different albums. That’s not ideal.

• Templates that Require Intermediate Web Skills

Drupal, Indexhibit and OpenDesigns.org all offer customizable templates that a true beginner will find challenging. The advantage of Drupal and the similar Joomla! Is that you can incorporate server-side content management programming into the site. OpenDesigns.org is great if you know Dreamweaver and dislike the interface of blog platforms.

• Sites That Cost Money

There are plenty of companies that will sell you a portfolio template. Among the most popular are Livebooks, Neon Sky, Photoshelter and Foliolink.

Depending on your bank account, a paid site could be a painless option for a portfolio website. If you’re shelling out the bucks, though, it’s reasonable to ask what each platform can do that a free template cannot.

If I were going to pay for a portfolio website, here are the questions I would ask. Will I have easy access to live support staff? How easy is it to customize the site? Does the site include a mobile version? Can I add e-commerce or a database? How long does it take an average user to create his or her site?

Avoid Flash-based websites. They often load slowly, and the 5-15 percent of visitors likely to visit on an iPhone or iPad won’t see a thing.

• Have a basic understanding of HTML and CSS.

Templates are generic by definition. If you want to personalize them, understanding basic HTML and CSS is crucial.

Think of HTML as the skeleton of any website; you can learn it in an hour. CSS is more the fancy haircut and Paul Smith suit. It takes more practice to master, because it’s finicky: the wrong property or a missing semi-colon can confuse the look and layout of an entire site.

Together, HTML and CSS work together to control the appearance, layout and functionality of a website.

• HTML

The perfect id of pure HTML is the 1996 Space Jam movie website, which has been up, unchanged, for 15 years. HTML is clunky and simple, and you’ll quickly run up against its limitations. Nonetheless, it’s the superstructure on which all websites are based.

It’s fairly easy to learn. HTML is a language of tags, read top to bottom. Every tag has an opening tag between two brackets– for example, <title> or <span>. It also has a closing tag signified by a slash– </title>, for example. Anything that comes in between that opening and closing tag is the title itself. Know that there are a few exceptions, like the image tag, <img>, that don’t use closing tags.

On this page, the title itself is The Visual Student | A resource for students in Visual Journalism. That’s because the HTML is <title>The Visual Student | A resource for students in Visual Journalism.</title>

HTML works like those Russian nesting dolls because tags go inside of other tags. There are also attributes, which are HTML adjectives: they modify the tag and always appear in the opening tag. Every attribute is written in an attribute=”value” format.

Understand those basic concepts, and you’re on your way to writing your own HTML. To learn more, follow this tutorial and check out a full list of HTML tags. Here are the most important tags to know:

<head>: Every page has a <head> tag, inside of which all the information and metadata lives. The page title, description and links to external style sheets and scripts all appear in the head.

<body>: Anything between the opening and closing body tag is what appears on the page.

<title>: This tag is especially important for S.E.O. That means your title has an oversized effect on how high you appear on the Google rankings, depending on the search. Include your name, a pithy description of your job and the city where you work for a portfolio website.

<p>: The paragraph tag is the main conduit of text online. <h1> through <h6> are heading tags that can function as the HTML equivalent of headlines.

<a>: This stands for anchor, and it’s the tag that surrounds all links to internal and external web pages when paired with the href=”…” attribute. Put an <a> tag around an <img> tag, and the picture will become a clickable link.

<img>: Photographers should know the image tag! It is always paired with the source attribute, src=”…” Img needs no closing tag.

<ul> or <ol>: The list tags, paired with the sub-tag <li> (list item), are useful because that’s how you can build a navigation menu. The step-by-step Listutorial website is a great resource.

<div>: This tag stands for division, and it is the primary method in HTML for organizing your pages. For example, if you have a header, you might put a <div> around the <img> logo, the <h1> name and title, and the <p> subhead into a single entity. Paired with the id=”…” attribute, you can use CSS to layout and work with those specific elements on the page without disturbing the other content.

• Understanding CSS

Everyone has used the box in Word where you can make text bold, blue or 16pt. CSS is the nerdy cousin of that box. It’s also the way to build pages that look professional. With CSS you can change fonts, colors and sizes, add background images and colors, and even layout the page.

The format of CSS is always the same. p {color:blue;} means that anything inside of the paragraph tag will be blue. #header {width:800px; height:100px;} means that the header <div> will be a box that’s 800 pixels wide and 100 pixels high. For more, read a general CSS tutorial here.

Understand that CSS takes some practice. There are rules on what you can apply CSS to in the HTML code, how you apply it and how one CSS rule interacts with another conflicting CSS rule. Learn it. Finding the CSS on your template and modifying it can be the difference between a site that looks generic and a site that looks like your own.

• What if I need a database or e-commerce system?

Alina Grosman works for VII, where she is the manager of sales and assignments for the Americas. She’s also involved in the upcoming redesign of the VII website.

“One thing that a lot of photographers don’t consider right away- a big thing to think about as they develop their business- is having a readily-searchable archive of images,” she said.

For photographers with an established client base, an income dependent on resale or for wedding photographers, that’s good advice. For students and young editorial photographers, the expense might not be worth it.

Orange Logic, Picturemaxx (which VII currently uses) and Photoshelter are all viable options, Grosman said. All allow for e-commerce, and all can be the platform on which you design your entire website.

• Take Advantage of Plug-ins

Whether your using a template or working from scratch, ready-made JavaScript plug-in modules are a useful way to incorporate slideshows into your website. Slides, Galleria, Simple Viewer and modifications of JQuery Cycle are all popular options for photo galleries online.

If you’re working with plug-ins, here’s what has to happen. You need to download the pre-written JavaScript onto your site and then make sure that code is linked to your individual pages in the <head> tag. Often you download CSS that can be modified, but you will rarely modify the script itself.

Because fonts live on the computer of the person viewing the web page, programs like Dreamweaver limit you to only a handful of common fonts. If you want something more creative, Google Fonts is a free resource.

Like JQuery plug-ins, you’ll need to paste a link to the font into the <head> tag of any page displaying the new font. As long as you then add that font into a CSS rule, it will appear on the page.

-Brian McDermott teaches web design, photojournalism, and multimedia journalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the chair of the NPPA’s Student Quarterly Clip Contest and designed the logo above.

Good evening … we’ll be starting up our chat here shortly. For those joining us for the first time, a few notes.

When submitting a question, please let us know who you are and where you’re from. All questions will go into moderation and we’ll pick the best ones for use in the chat. We have tended to get a lot of questions, so please don’t think we’re ignoring you – sometimes we just can’t get to all of them.

This chat will be archived here for later reading and if you’re question doesn’t get answered, please post it as a comment and we’ll try and get someone to answer it in the next few days.

Thanks for tuning in …

Ahh … winter break. A couple of weeks with nothing to do. Decompress, catch up with some buddies, tell all those high school kids how much cooler things were when you were there … ahhh, relaxation.

Don’t worry about your future. Don’t worry about your impending graduation. Or those summer internship deadlines. Why bother, they’ll all be waiting for you when you return to campus. This is your time off, you’ve earned it.

Okay, now that all the slackers have clicked away, here’s the plan: Sunday, December 11, 9 p.m. on the east coast, get your browser pointed to the NPPA Visual Student blog ( blogs.nppa.org/visualstudent ). We’ve got a lineup of people who will help you take advantage of this free time. Start building that web site you know you need. Use those empty days to drop by your local papers to say hi. Scout out a mentor who will help you edit your work down into a killer portfolio. Plan out that clip contest-winning project that will consume you through June.

Join Mentoring Chair Ross Taylor, Student Clip Contest Chair Brian McDermott, Student Chair Bettina Hansen, and recent Time Magazine intern and WKU graduate Tanner Curtis for an online chat to get you ready for whatever comes next. Get your concerns queued up – web platforms, cover letters, portfolio content. We’ll start with some basic ideas and then take questions from you.

We use CoverItLive, so just show up and follow the link on the homepage, it’s that easy.

A photojournalist needs a website.

Having a portfolio website in 2011 is as pro forma as getting your pictures in focus. Editors use portfolio websites to find freelancers, gauge job and internship applicants and follow the progress of photographers they know. Potential subjects use websites to see if you’ll present them fairly.

Yet for some photojournalists, having a website is an afterthought– even though for editors and sources it’s often a first impression. If you have a poorly implemented website, that first impression is the digital equivalent of having a piece of lettuce stuck in your front teeth.

This is the first of a three part series on how you can plan, design, build and maintain a successful photojournalism portfolio website. Part 1, below, focuses on planning your website. Part 2 covers template options, JQuery plug-ins, basic HTML and basic CSS. Part 3 has advice for putting it all together with smart graphic design.

• Understand your audience.

Just because the web has an enormous audience in theory doesn’t mean a website needs a huge audience to succeed in practice. Sure, VII or the New York Times Lens Blog gets hits from all over, but the potential audience for your portfolio website is more niche. Editors and potential employers will take a look, along with your professors, colleagues, parents, friends and the people you’ve photographed. Understanding the needs of that comparatively small audience is vital for building a successful website.

When you’re applying for a job, internship or assignment, ask yourself this: who is your specific audience, and what do they want to see? Mark Lennihan is a 23-year veteran of the Associated Press who works as a photo editor and photographer on the New York City desk. He always asks potential freelancers for a link to their website.

“For the wire service,” he said, “we look for people who can really hit the nail on the head with a single image.”

As a photo editor at the Columbus Dispatch, Lisa Marie Miller likes to use photojournalism portfolio websites as secondary resources. The newspaper asks applicants to send in a hard-copy DVD portfolio. Websites, said Miller, are “a way for people to stay on the radar, and a good way for people to stay in touch without being too obtrusive,” she said.

But “be aware of your audience. We’re a family run newspaper.” She said that editors had received portfolios with photos they considered inappropriate that the Dispatch would never publish.

Just like you don’t want to pitch a story about Cheetos to Saveur Magazine, you don’t want to pitch a community newspaper a portfolio befitting Vice Magazine.

• Use the Google Keyword Tool to scout out the competition in your area.

The Google Keyword Tool allows you to reverse engineer the keywords people use to search for photographers and photojournalists online– and then incorporate those keywords into your own website presentation.

What you often find is that the most contested real estate for photographers online is wedding photography. That means you should pay special attention to defining yourself as a photojournalist in the <title> and heading <h1> tags. (There will be more on S.E.O. in Part 2.) The tool can help also help you decide whether calling yourself documentary, multimedia, backpack journalist, video journalist or the like will be the most likely to match the searches of googlers. Simply type in the term to find out how often people search for a concept using different keywords.

Remember that geography is important for searches, and you should always include where you live and work in your page title and description.

• Always edit your work tightly…

By definition, portfolios exhibit your best work. That means you should edit your photos mercilessly. An iffy feature shot can cast a dark cloud over 20 good ones. If you have questions about whether a picture belongs on your website, it’s a good bet that a viewer will too.

…but show more than just your core portfolio.

Online, you can balance the priority of tight editing with the freedom to cycle in new work that shows your process and personality. Every editor I talked to likes the option of seeing in-depth projects and ongoing work on a portfolio website.

“Oftentimes, a portfolio only contains final pieces, as applicants are overly concerned about presenting perfection,” said Liz Danzico, a designer who is the chair and co-founder of the MFA in Interaction Design program at the School for Visual Arts in New York City. “Polish doesn’t communicate process though, and therefore I’m left with only part of the story. Messy problems- and how applicants work through them- can show a great deal more in a portfolio than one finished, airtight solution.”

• The best way to strike this balance is by designing smart navigation for your site.

Mark Lennihan at the AP likes a straightforward menu on photojournalism portfolio websites that allows him to jump easily to traditional categories like news, sports and features. But he also likes to see the “emotional commitment of a photographer to a particular issue,” whether that’s a gallery of photos from Occupy Wall Street or from fashion shows.

Sort your pictures into categories that make sense to the viewer. Ed Ou’s website features a descriptive and straightforward menu. Allison V. Smith’s website menu has more whimsy, but it’s still intuitive. Both successfully allow the viewer to quickly choose the content that interests them.

Some photojournalists base their menus entirely on project titles- say, “December Reflections.” At minimum, there should be a prominent description of the project as soon as you click through.

Nielsen once described Internet users as “selfish, lazy and ruthless.” Make navigation easy for them! Like the general public, editors will not take the time to meditate on the philosophical enigmas of your sub-menus.

“A ton of stuff is rolling across your desk,” said Columbus Dispatch photo editor Lisa Marie Miller, “and everyone has to juggle their time.”

• Professionalize Your Entire Online Presence

Employers expect journalists to show savvy social media instincts, so it makes sense to link to sites like Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Tumblr and LinkedIn on your website.

Here’s the caveat: everything attached to your name online must be professional. A 2009 survey found that 45 percent of employers use social media sites to screen potential hires, whether they got there through a portfolio website or not.

The takeaway is don’t link to your Facebook if your friends are posting pictures of you on a booze cruise or to Twitter if you have a lot of nasty things to say about your boss. Better yet, behave as if there’s no such thing as a private online posting.

Finally, make sure the user names of your email address, blog titles and online handles are professional. Sexy...@yahoo.com or picturesoflosers.tumblr.com will raise red flags for employers.

Brian McDermott teaches web design and photojournalism at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He designed the logo above, which will make sense for those of you who don’t know HTML after Part 2 of this series.

Photo by Jake May of Central Michigan University, Herald intern and NPPA Student Quarterly Clip Contest Winner

Photo by Rachel Mummey/The Herald

Interns are respected members of the staff, not gophers. We are looking for candidates with strong journalism skills who have an ability to generate daily and long-term story ideas. A portfolio of moment-based pictures that connect with readers is a must.

Send cover letter, resumé and portfolio to:
Dave Weatherwax
Chief Photographer
The Herald
216 E. Fourth St.
Jasper, IN 47546
E-mails to dwea...@dcherald.com are welcome. No phone calls. The application deadline is Feb. 1, 2012

Good evening … we’ll be starting up our chat here shortly. For those joining us for the first time, a few notes.

When submitting a question, please let us know who you are and where you’re from. All questions will go into moderation and we’ll pick the best ones for use in the chat. We have tended to get a lot of questions, so please don’t think we’re ignoring you – sometimes we just can’t get to all of them.

This chat will be archived here for later reading and if you’re question doesn’t get answered, please post it as a comment and we’ll try and get someone to answer it in the next few days.

Thanks for tuning in …

For starters, it’s more than handing out business cards at a conference.

On Sunday, Nov. 6 at 9 p.m. the NPPA will host its next Student Chat on the Visual Student blog to talk about networking.

Join NPPA President Sean Elliot, Board Member and APhotoADay founder Melissa Lyttle, Student Chair Bettina Hansen, Student Chapters Chair Michael King and Student Rep Maddie McGarvey for a Q&A on how to find the people who can help you. What works and what doesn’t for networking? How does social media fit in? How do you open those doors that hide your future?

The Visual Student is at http://blogs.nppa.org/visualstudent and this is open to all NPPA student members.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Maya Sugarman is a staff photographer for the Antelope Valley Press in Palmdale, Calif., and a photo/multimedia journalist based in Southern California. She has interned at the Los Angeles Daily News, Orange County Register, Santa Monica Daily Press, and East Bay Express. She is a recent graduate from UCLA, where she was a senior staff photographer and photo editor at the Daily Bruin.

What brought you to Mountain Workshops?
A friend of mine, John Adkisson (who did the workshop in Murray, Ky. in 2009), first told me about it and highly recommended it. I choose to do the multimedia workshop because that is the direction in which photojournalism is heading. The line between still and moving pictures is fading quickly in journalism, which I find very exciting because video is a whole new realm to explore. I didn’t have very much experience in video, I just started testing the waters this past summer. I came to realize that at it’s core, doing video is not that different from the thinking behind still images, and that moving pictures can tell a story better than stills in some situations. I wanted to learn more about every aspect of video production, and from the impressive work I saw from years past, Mountain Workshops seemed like the perfect opportunity.

My assignment was originally about a nature photographer, Charline, who has had to overcome a disability to pursue her dream. Charline’s disability wasn’t specified, but the assignment did mention that she lives with her mother, Pam, and that they are very close. Initially, I wasn’t sure how to represent this story visually – how do you photograph a photographer in a visually-compelling way? My first reaction was also that I didn’t want the piece to become too focused on Charline’s disability as the main struggle, and I hoped that I could delve deeper than those two sentences on my slip of paper. From those two lines, I felt that there were many other avenues to explore, such as the relationship between Charline and her mother, or Pam in relation to her role as a caretaker (perhaps, as I didn’t know what type of disability Charline had).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Andrea Wise is a photographer and documentary filmmaker originally from Rockville, MD. She graduated with Honors in Studio Arts from Trinity College in Hartford, CT in May 2011. In school, Andrea’s interest in psychology and art led her to independent work in multimedia storytelling, ultimately producing a 45-minute documentary film for her senior thesis. Since graduation, Andrea has been working with one her mentors, Shana Sureck, on a number of still and multimedia projects in Hartford and Western Massachusetts and she has been freelancing regularly for a variety of clients, including The Hartford Courant, The University of Hartford, and The Harold Grinspoon Foundation. Andrea is particularly interested in multimedia storytelling for non-profit and community organizations.

What brought you to Mountain Workshops?

I knew a couple people who had attended the Mountain Workshops in previous years and they all raved about what an amazing experience it was. I went into it expecting a really challenging and intensive learning experience with few hours of sleep. I was hoping to meet some people, get inspired, and learn to be a better storyteller.

Describe your assignment and your initial reaction to it.

We drew our assignments from a hat. My slip of paper had my subjects name, his occupation, and his phone number on it. I was really excited about telling a story of someone who works with animals.

What was most difficult about shooting your piece? What did you find most rewarding about the story?

This was a really difficult project for me but my subject was awesome and my coach (Wes Pope) was really supportive and helpful through the whole process. It was challenging to show, visually, a man whose work is to rescue injured wild animals, rehabilitate them, and then train them to survive in the wild (i.e. be afraid of strangers… like myself). The animals wouldn’t come anywhere near me, and wouldn’t even go near him if they could so much as smell my presence. It was really a lesson in thinking of creative solutions to overcome a visual challenge. I tried borrowing a GoPro to get some footage without having to physically be in the area, but I’d never used one before and somehow ended up not actually recording anything with it. I learned that in documentary work, the conditions are never ideal, and you just have to find a way to work with what you’ve got.

The most rewarding part was definitely when Alan (my subject) released the baby deer. Alan is such a loving, selfless man, and getting to witness that moment of the release was really incredible. I’d gotten to know him well enough by that time to know that the release is the moment he lives his life for. That’s a really precious and intimate moment for him and I was moved that he welcomed me to share in that experience. I’m still amazed by how open people can be in sharing their lives with us.

What was the most valuable lesson you took away from the workshop?

By far, the most valuable lesson I took away from the workshop was to “Embrace the Gap,” as Eric Maierson said. It’s the creative gap that Ira Glass describes between your taste and the work that you produce. That gap can be really discouraging and disheartening but Eric put that all into a perspective that I hadn’t seen before — that feeling disappointed in your work can actually be a reassuring feeling because it’s confirmation that you have good enough taste to eventually close that creative gap if you’re willing to, as Ira Glass puts it, “fight your way through”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cath(erine) Spangler is a Master’s student and Roy H. Park fellow in the Journalism school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A radio producer by trade, Cath is currently studying multimedia production to broaden her storytelling arsenal. If you force her to answer the question of what she likes to report on best, she’ll probably reply with something ambiguous like “what it means to be a human in the world.” She considers herself a collector of moments and a professional eavesdropper.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Mimi Schiffman is pursuing her Master’s Degree at UNC Chapel Hill to learn to better tell the human story using the full pallet of media available to journalists. She pursues her work in the interest of informing people about one another, and moving them to be more actively engaged in their world. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Community Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

What brought you to Mountain Workshops? Chad Stevens. He’s a huge inspiration, mentor and professor here at UNC and he’s been talking up the workshop since I started last fall.

Describe your assignment and your initial reaction to it. My assignment was a little blurb from a newspaper article about Hanna Young, a woman so dedicated to her job as a teacher that she came out of retirement as soon as she went into it to be back where her heart was, with the students. I came back and transcribed my first interview, stopping occasionally to talk to my coach Wes Pope. About an hour into the transcription and reflection I walked away from the computer with an idea. “Hey, Wes,” I said “so there’s this one thing. She did mention a ghost that her dad created when he was working at the school with her.” He lit up. It was that moment. You always have to share your ideas with a couple other people to see what interests them. Wes was totally sold and went into deep brainstorm mode with me. The whole thing came to be during that break.

What was most difficult about shooting your piece? I think the shoot was challenging, mentally challenging as I went into it knowing I had to shoot for horror, which was definitely a first for me. But it was also a huge blast. The bigger challenge for me was in editing; employing new tools in Final Cut and getting deeper into mood.

What did you find most rewarding about the story? Relationships. This piece was so fun for me because Hanna Young was so invested and so open. She lined up the kids to come talk to me and got the whole school talking about Charlie. Also working with Wes Pope and Eric Maierson on structuring this and pushing as hard as I could to make something new for me and having fun while I did it. I’d say I was laughing for about 40% of my editing process.

What was the most valuable lesson you took away from the workshop? Be open, be juicy, be ready to shift outside of your comfort zone.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduces his “Back in Black” plan to propose to congress in order to make cuts from government organizations to save the United States credit rating on July 18, 2011. Photo by Maddie Meyer

During my internship at The Hill in Washington, D.C., I got the chance to see what it was like to work as a political photographer on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Every morning I would wake up to an email from my editor with a list of assignments for the day. It was usually a list of between 4 and 7 items in the city, most of which were on the Capitol “Campus”. I took the Metro into the city around 7:30, and left after the day’s events were over, typically between 4 or 5.

Who was your supervisor or mentor?  What did you learn from that person?
My photo editor at the Hill, Greg Nash, was a great support during my time as an intern. Working on the Hill was challenging for me; I was often competing for the shots as people who have been working there for decades. Greg was able to teach me the procedures for various events and helped me navigate through the different buildings, which was more of a challenge than I expected.

Staff members attend a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Full hearing on “Consumer Financial Protection Efforts” on Capitol Hill July 14, 2011. Photo by Maddie Meyer

Describe the environment/dynamic of the photo department.
Greg is not only the photo editor but also the sole full time photographer for the Hill, which keeps him very busy. We had a good relationship because I knew exactly who to talk to about what the paper needed. One of the reasons I really enjoyed working in D.C. this summer was the fact that I got to work alongside  so many talented photographers from different publications. In the Senate side of the Capitol there is a photo office where photographers gather to use the internet, file their photos, eat lunch, and talk to one another. This was a great chance for me to sit alongside photographers from AP, Getty, the New York Times, and The Washington Post on a daily basis. Everyone was really friendly, and I picked up invaluable advice from an amazing group of professionals.

What was your favorite assignment and why?
It’s tough to pick a favorite assignment, but I really enjoyed when Stephen Colbert came to the city to get his Super PAC approved. This is where I made my favorite photo of my internship. It was a great way to take a break from the debt ceiling battles and get a front row seat to what felt like an episode of the Colbert Report.

What was the most important thing you learned?
The most important thing I learned this summer was the importance of being an informed journalist. It was vital for me to understand current events, bills coming through congress, and the key people involved in each story. I found the most successful photographers were those that were the most informed, and they were the ones who were best able to anticipate for the photo they needed to accurately portray the mood of an event or situation.

Comedian Stephen Colbert grabs donations from supporters following his meeting with the Federal Election Commission in which his “Super PAC” was approve July 29. Photo by Maddie Meyer

What’s the best part about this internship? What’s the most difficult part about this internship?
The best part of my internship was getting to meet so many talented photographers and watching them work. It was really valuable to me to see photographers shoot then see their work in newspapers or online and know how they did it. Though there may be as many as 15 or 20 photographers at some of the larger events, it was really interesting to see how different each person’s results were. The most challenging aspect of this internship was photographing the same situation in different ways each week. There were events that took place weekly, and rooms I would work in almost daily, so my creativity was definitely put to the test.

Did you set a goal for your internship?
My goal for my internship was to see if I wanted to pursue a career photographing politics. Though I think I have a lot to learn before I decide what or where I’d like to spend my career, I loved my time in Washington. As a bit of a history buff, there was nothing cooler than walking into the Capitol building for work every morning. The energy of Capitol Hill was an amazing environment to work in; it was really interesting to see all of the congressmen, senators, and their staff at work. Being able to observe the men and women responsible for making such large decisions that affect millions of Americans was something I felt lucky to see, and it gave me insight into how the country runs. I got hooked on covering national news, and I hope I’ll have the opportunity to return to Washington in the future.

Describe your personal and professional growth during the internship.
During my internship I became a lot more resourceful and responsible as a photographer. There were days where I would be running from place to place from 9 to 3 and wouldn’t have a minute to stop and eat until 4 after I filed my photos. I had to assess situations quickly, make decisions about how much time to spend at each assignment, determine who the key players were at each event, and scout out where to shoot from so I wouldn’t disrupt others around me if I had to slide out during an event. This was tough figure out at first, but after a few weeks I felt like I was starting to get the hang of it.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) speaks with reporters in the Capitol before a press conference on June 23, 2011 regarding his disappointment with the President's plan to remove 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year. Many democrats thought the plan, which projected a withdrawal of 30,000 troops by the end of fall 2012, wouldn't be aggressive enough to make serious progress to end the war. Photo by Maddie Meyer

Was it a paid internship?
My internship was not paid. To try and cover my costs of metro fees and food, I photographed swim and dive meets on Saturdays and sold the photos to parents. It was also nice getting some time outside and photographing sports.

What helped you get the internship?
Last summer I was lucky enough to assist New York Times photographer Doug Mills at the White House through a program at my high school. After attending a few events I was hooked and I knew that I wanted to try something on my own this summer. I applied to the Hill noting my past experience, along with some of my work from my first year of classes at Ohio University.

What will you do next?
Right now I’m really excited to be back at Ohio University for my sophomore year. I don’t have any solid plans yet for this coming summer, but I would love to photograph the campaign. I’m looking for another internship this summer, likely outside of the D.C. area.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I think an internship is DC is something every photographer should keep an open mind about. From my time on the Hill I learned a lot about photography, our government, and photojournalism as a business. It was really helpful for me to be around so many talented photographers everyday, and its an experience I wish all of my friends at OU could share with me.

The Wasson siblings, from left, Abigail, 9; Rylee, 8; and Max, 11, rest in the refreshing mist from the 35-foot Hayden Falls in Griggs Reservoir Nature Preserve. "We come here at least every day of the week, or we try anyways," Max Wasson said. Photo by Taylor Glascock

Taylor Glascock recently graduated from the University of Missouri with an undergraduate degree in photojournalism with a minor in film studies. While in school, she worked as a photographer and photo editor at the Columbia Missourian, and just finished a summer internship at The Columbus Dispatch. Currently, Taylor is on a fall internship at The Dallas Morning News. In addition to traditional editorial photojournalism, she has done photography on the film sets of Anchor Bay’s A Horrible Way to Die and Lionsgate’s upcoming You’re Next. She is also a writer and creator behind the satirical site Sh*t Photojournalists Like.

How was your internship structured?

My internship at The Columbus Dispatch lasted three months, and I’d typically have one or two assignments a day.

If it was a slow day, I would go feature-hunting. Looking for features isn’t my strong suit, but some days it was really nice to hop in one of the press cars and just see where the road would take me. Since I wasn’t from Columbus, I got to discover all kinds of beautiful, little places I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Simone Huff, 6, of Hilliard, Ohio, leans on her go kart after placing second in the kid kart class at the Commercial Point Grand Prix on Saturday afternoon, Aug. 6, 2011 in Commercial Point, Ohio. It was Huff's first season racing, but the Grand Prix was in its 19th year. All race revenue is put towards future races as well as the purchase of supplies and equipment for the Scioto Township Fire Department. Photo by Taylor Glascock

Who was your supervisor or mentor?  What did you learn from that person?

I don’t think she realizes it, but I always considered Brooke LaValley to be my unofficial mentor (HI BROOKE!). I was a nervous wreck on my first day of work, and it was so comforting to find a little note from Brooke in my locker telling me that I was going to be great, despite the fact that she had only met me once before. She approached everything with enthusiasm and taught me how to be more confident in myself and my work. It’s really hard to choose, though, because the whole staff took me under their wings as what Brooke called “the littlest intern,” haha.

Describe the environment/dynamic of the department.

Most of the photographers at The Dispatch have been there 20+ years or so. It was quite a transition for me to go from working with other 20-somethings at The Columbia Missourian to being the youngest person on staff. I loved it, though. The staffers all worked so hard on everything, even if it was an event they’d covered for the umpteenth time. Some of my friends have mentioned the discontent and general burned-out attitude some of the staff photographers they met at their internships, but I never saw that at the Dispatch. Everyone was kind, helpful, and always totally killed it when they went on assignment.

Hannah Wackernagle, 15, and the rest of the Comets cheerleading squad prepare before the first home game at Central Crossing High School on Friday, August 26, 2011 in Grove City, Ohio. Photo by Taylor Glascock

What was your favorite assignment and why?

My favorite assignment was working with Hannah Wackernagle, a special needs student that joined the varsity cheerleading squad. Most daily assignments are very short; an hour here, an hour there. In this case, I got to spend a whole evening with Hannah, and it felt so wonderful to have the chance to connect with someone and get to know them instead of just introducing myself and shooting away. I wanted to work with Hannah more and maybe pursue a story, but unfortunately I got so caught up in daily work that it didn’t happen.

What was the most important thing you learned?
Always ask for help, even if you’re embarrassed.

My only sports experience before The Dispatch was shooting basketball, so when Friday night football season rolled around, I was terrified. Jonathan Quilter was editing and one of the main sports shooters, Kyle Robertson, was at the desk when I approached and asked for help shooting that night. They were so kind and funny about the whole thing. Jonathan drew me this scribbly little map and Kyle sort of acted out a couple of plays. They were so encouraging and by the time the game started, I wasn’t nervous anymore.

Samaria Coleman, 5, of Livingston area Columbus, sits in timeout at the COSI Dinosaurs: Explore. Escape. Survive exhibit on Sunday, August 28, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio. Coleman's aunt made her sit in the corner after she jumped into one of the animatronic displays. The popular dinosaur exhibit closes September 5, 2011. Photo by Taylor Glascock

What’s the best part about this internship? What’s the most difficult part about this internship?

One of the best parts of The Dispatch was the location. I had never been there before I got the internship, but Columbus is a really awesome city. The downtown area isn’t huge, but there is a great arts district.

The most difficult part of the internship was that you do most of your editing on your own. You don’t get feedback automatically, but it’s always there if you ask. If anything, I became better at self-editing and really learned what worked and didn’t work for the paper.

Did you set a goal for your internship?

Before I graduated from the University of Missouri, I had spent most of my last semester working on stories, and my last month and a half at school was dedicated to all night shoots as a still photographer on a film set, plus attending classes. It was an amazing experience, but it took a lot out of me (just ask my friends, I was a zombie) . Because of that, I decided to dedicate my time at the Dispatch to working on my singles.  Knowing how to tell a story is important, but being able to go out and totally nail a photo in a 30 minute shoot that you can’t return to is just as important.

Terry Hostetler of Dalton, Ohio mans the temperature of his balloon, Kryptonite, during the first Fairfield County Hot Air Balloon Festival on Friday evening, Aug. 5, 2011, in Carroll, Ohio. The event benefited the Tina Hermann and Kody Maynard Healing Hearts Memorial Fund. Photo by Taylor Glascock


Describe your personal and professional growth during the internship.
It was my first internship at a newspaper, and it was right after I graduated from college, so I was going through a huge transition. When you’re in college you have this support group, and then boom, you’re on your own. It gave me a lot of time to think about what I was doing and why I was doing it. While I was in school and doing film shoots, I never thought that I wanted to pursue work at a daily paper, but this changed my mind completely.

What helped you get the internship?

I think there’s a serious misconception about what makes a good portfolio; there isn’t a checklist of photos you need to include. Yes, you do want to show that you can handle a variety of situations, but I think an editor would rather see your unique personal vision rather than the typical “spot news, peak sports action, feature” kind of portfolio. With my work, I tried to show how I alone see things, not how I thought they wanted me to see things, if that makes any sense.

Also, I always try to invoke my sense of humor in my cover letter, biography, or wherever else I’m using words instead of pictures. Editors are looking at your skills set first, but they also have to consider whether or not you’re a good fit for the paper. If you work hard AND you can goof around with the staffers, it’s a major plus.

Mitzy Balls, 7, (front left) looks back at Isaiah Speelman, 15, (front right) before taking a dive at Dodge Swimming Pool on Sunday, August 21, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio. Sunday marked the end of the swimming season, and despite stormy weather, many families came out to enjoy the last open day at the pool. Photo by Taylor Glascock

What will you do next?

I’m currently working at The Dallas Morning News in Texas, and I’ll be there until January. I’m in the process of sending out more applications, so we’ll see what happens.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

If I were reading this, I would want someone to tell me, “Don’t be so hard on yourself!” My mentor at TDMN is Sonya Hebert, and she and I had this very discussion on my first day. She told me, “You are not your photos,” and she’s right. Give your all to every assignment, but don’t beat yourself up if your photos aren’t perfect. Sometimes a shot of people waiting in line is just a shot of people waiting in line, and nothing more. Don’t stress.

To Apply: 
Cover Letter, CD Portfolio, Resume

Lisa Marie Miller, Photo Editor

The Columbus Dispatch

34 S. 3rd Street

Columbus, Ohio 43215

Members of the Seattle Chinatown Dragon Team practice in front of the EMP before the 2011 Alaska Airlines Seafair Torchlight Parade in Seattle Saturday, July 30, 2011. Photo by Joel Hawksley

How was your internship structured?
My internship lasted ten weeks. I shot on average 1-2 assignments a day.

Who was your supervisor or mentor?  What did you learn from that person?
I had several. Kevin Fujii was my supervisor, and was the one who hired me for the internship. Kevin taught me a lot, especially when it came to being a better journalist. I knew coming into the internship that this was something I needed to work on, and he definitely set me in the right direction.

Staff photographer Erika Schultz was my mentor. On my first day at The Times, she took me under her wing and gave me of ideas for my time in Seattle. It was one of the best parts of my experience at the paper, because I was able to bounce ideas off her before taking them to the editors.

Other members of the staff helped me in various ways throughout the summer. Photographer Dean Rutz showed me the ropes at my first MLS game, and helped me get comfortable in the professional sports environment, which was new to me at the time.

Barry Fitzsimmons, the Director of Photography, helped me edit some of my larger assignments. He also sent me on two of my favorite assignments of the summer, multi-day excursions out into the state of Washington.

Photo editor Fred Nelson provided invaluable advice almost daily when it came to approaching my assignments. He made sure that I was prepared for whatever I had coming, whether it was knowing the best route to beat the afternoon traffic home from an shoot or strategies for working with the Seattle Police Department.

The 2011 Alaska Airlines Seafair Torchlight Parade, Seattle. Photo by Joel Hawksley

Describe the environment/dynamic of the photo department.
Inspiring. Every day I went into the office, I was inspired by the people with which I had the privilege of working. There is energy everywhere, especially in the late afternoon when the editorial staff gathers around the desks of the picture editors and discusses the images that have been selected for the next day’s paper. It was incredible to see the dedication and purpose carried by every member of the staff, especially as they pursued personal and long term projects, which was common.

Food is delivered to the main circle before dinner from the numerous kitchens at Family of Living Light gathering in Gifford Pinchot National Forest on Friday, July 1, 2011. Photo by Joel Hawksley

What was your favorite assignment and why?
My favorite assignment was traveling to Gifford Pinchot National Forest for the Rainbow Family gathering. I spent two days documenting the 20,000-person congregation of the most incredible people I have ever met.

What was the most important thing you learned?
I learned to always hold myself to the highest standard professionally. In this day and age, it is the accuracy and ethics of newspapers like The Seattle Times that makes them invaluable to the communities they serve. It is our responsibility as journalists to hold ourselves to be the best we can be.

Kyle Kizzier walks back to the range after resetting his target. Photo by Joel Hawksley

What’s the best part about this internship?
Learning and growing from my experiences through my assignments and working with the rest of the staff. I also enjoyed only having 1-2 assignments per day, as it allowed me more time to prepare myself before I went out to shoot, which I know helped me make better images in the end.

What’s the most difficult part about this internship?
It’s difficult to land in a new city and start finding great photo ideas right away. It was hard for me to come up with ideas for things that hadn’t already been covered by the paper in the past. That being said, my mentor Erika helped me find a few projects to work on that the paper could use, which was a huge help.

Heff, a boston terrier, owned by Leigha Jurabich of Queen Anne, struggles to get out of the water during Pooches in the Pool at the Queen Anne Aquatic Center in Seattle on on Saturday, August 27, 2011. Photo by Joel Hawksley

Did you set a goal for your internship?
To develop myself as a photojournalist and as a human being.

The field of horses rounds the first turn at the start of The Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs in Auburn, Wash. on Sunday, August 21, 2011. Photo by Joel Hawksley

Describe your personal and professional growth during the internship.
I really learned to look for meaning in what I shoot. I traditionally viewed my images in an aesthetic and emotional manner, but did little to consider what they would mean to readers and how they could be interpreted in different ways, depending on who was looking at them. Professionally, I feel that I grew the most in my approach to shooting features, which is definitely my weakest skill. I had a few occasions to shoot alongside the other staffers, and it really helped me understand how to work in certain situations to make the best possible image that tells the story of the assignment.

Was it a paid internship?
Yes.

Seattle Mariners left fielder Greg Halman warms up before batting during the Mariners' game against the Rangers at Safeco Field in Seattle on Thursday, July 14, 2011. Photo by Joel Hawksley

What helped you get the internship?
I got an email reminding me of the deadline, the day or two before materials were due. Luckily for me, the paper accepts electronic portfolios/applications, so I was able to turn my stuff in before the deadline.

Neenah Hood, of Palm Springs, California, shops for antiques at Apple Annie Antique Gallery in Cashmere, Wash., on August 13, 2011. Hood stopped by the store on her way to visit family in Wenatchee. Photo by Joel Hawksley

What will you do next?
I am headed back to Ohio University for my Senior year. I also did the Eddie Adams Workshop this fall. I have a few options for after I graduate, but none of them are set in stone.

Check here for more information about an internship at The Seattle Times.

Mitchell Peterson, of East Grand Rapids, plays a practice match at Orchard Hills Swim and Sports Club on Tuesday, July 26, 2011. Peterson will be the first player from Grand Rapids to compete in the USTA Boys National Championship in Kalamazoo since 2002. Photo by Ryan Young

How was your internship structured?
My internship at the Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Michigan was structured like a lot of other internships are. I was treated as just another member of the staff and given anywhere between one big assignment to four small assignments a day.

Who was your supervisor or mentor?  What did you learn from that person?
My photo editor, Chris Clark, does a great job of keeping the photo department organized and making sure everything runs smoothly.  One thing Chris was always reinforcing to me was the importance of being both a journalist and a photographer.  I sometimes tend to get caught up in visual aesthetics, so it was good to have someone reminding me to get good information as well.

What was your favorite assignment and why?
I got into photography because I’m a huge sports guy, but alas, I lack any real athletic ability. I figured that while I’ll never be able to make money on the field, I can still make a living on the sidelines.   So, my favorite assignments are always sports related ones, it doesn’t matter if it’s professional, college, prep, or two kids playing with a ball, as long as people are keeping score, I’m gonna be happy.  I feel like no matter what, there’s always potential to get great shots at a sports assignment, they’re dud-proof.  So while there’s usually not as many sports assignments during the summer, there were enough to keep me sane.  I especially loved West Michigan Whitecaps games (a single A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers) because there was almost always some great little quirky thing going on that you wouldn’t be able to find at major league games (and great media food, to top it all off).

Sarah Barker, a volunteer for WMEAC gets dunked in a water tank as her son Hunter Vanderlaan, 6, foreground, tries to avoid getting splashed by the water at the Great Lakes Water Festival on Sunday, June 26, 2011. Photo by Ryan Young

What was the most important thing you learned?
Like I said earlier, having the importance of being a good journalist constantly be reinforced was probably the most important lesson I’ll take away from this summer.

What’s the best part about this internship? What’s the most difficult part about this internship?
The best part about West Michigan is that there is a lot of variety in the area, so there’s a lot of variety in assignments.  One day I was shooting Ludacris and T-Pain at a music festival in downtown Grand Rapids, the next a high school football team practicing in an overgrown field in the middle of the country, and the next day feature hunting on the shores of Lake Michigan.  That being said, like with many of newspapers, there are definitely some assignments where you get there and you think to yourself, “How in the world am I supposed to make something interesting out of this?”  Assignments like that always push your creativity and really force you to push boundaries and never give up on trying to come back with something visually interesting.  However, after doing two newspaper internships, I’ve learned that you can never discount any assignment, and that as long as you’re shooting you have the opportunity to get a “portfolio shot.”

One of my favorite shots from this summer came from a small festival that happened on a sunny day at high noon where there was maybe about 20 people total in attendance, most of whom were just listening to a band play quietly.  Sounds exciting, huh?  I was really about to give up after getting a few boring shots of the band and the “crowd”, but then I found one of those dunking booths hidden away behind one of the little booths and a group of about 4 or 5 kids playing around with dunking one of the older volunteers.  I walked up asked if I could take a few pictures, and maybe made 20 frames, but of those 20 frames I got something that I wasn’t expecting, a photo from a small, boring festival in the middle of the day that was worth hanging on to.

Kaitlyn Smith is consoled by close friend Steve James as Smith's daughter Makayla Smith, 7, looks on during a moment of prayer at the candlelight vigil held for victims of the July 7th murdering spree in Grand Rapids. "They were like a second family to me" said Kaitlyn of the Emkens family who lost Kimberlee Emkens, one of Kaitlyn's best friends, Amanda Emkens and Marissa Emkens. Photo by Ryan Young

Describe your personal and professional growth during the internship.
During the summer I had a lot of time to reflect about what I really wanted to do when I graduate from OU.  I realized that I’m not sure if the newspaper industry is necessarily for me.  During the summer in Grand Rapids, there was a man who went on a murdering spree and killed seven people and then eventually himself after leading police on an all day manhunt/chase.  This was big breaking news that received national attention.  However, covering that and then the ensuing events (funerals, visitations, vigils, etc) was kind of unnerving for me.  I know that these type of things need to be covered and it’s important for journalists to be there to tell these stories, but I just don’t know if I have the type of stomach, or courage, or brass (or whatever you want to call it) to make pictures of people when they’re going through such rough times.  It always amazes me that most people I’ve photographed in those situations were okay with it when I asked permission to take their pictures, because I don’t know if I would be okay with someone invading such a personal moment of my own or of someone I loved.

I know being a newspaper photographer is more than just shooting sprees and fatal car crashes, but it certainly is part of the job, and it’s a part of the job that I don’t really feel great about.  I have nothing but respect for people who are thick skinned enough to not let that type of stuff get to them, who, as Marty Lederhandler put it (in a recent AP story about photographers working at Ground Zero on 9/11) let the camera absorb the disaster and sadness of an event.  My camera is just not a great shield for me.  It’s not that I want to ignore that terrible things happen, I’ve just come to realize that I don’t want to have them be a constant part of my job.  So, in the future I’ve decided that I’d love to be able to focus more on sports photography (it’s the reason I became a photographer anyways) and immerse myself into that sporting niche as much as possible.

Was it a paid internship?
Fortunately, yes.

A Star Wars Clone Trooper hangs out with the Bowling Green Hot Rods in the visitor's dugout prior to the start of the West Michigan Whitecaps' game against the Bowling Green Hot Rods on Saturday, July 9, 2011. Saturday was Star Wars night at Fifth Third Ballpark. Photo by Ryan Young

What helped you get the internship?
My buddy and fellow Bobcat Joel Hawksley had the internship last summer and knocked it out of the park, so I think everyone at the Press was pretty confident in the abilities of kids coming out of OU, especially good looking studs (you’re welcome, Joelski) with sports heavy portfolios.

What will you do next?
I’m back in Athens trying to finish up my senior year and doing freelance gigs when I can.  After my senior year I’m gonna be looking for another, longer term internship, or (this is scary to say) look for a real job.  And as I said earlier, most likely explore ways to work my way more into the sports photography world.

The Grand Rapids Press usually posts internship opportunities on the NPPA Job Bank, but inquiries can be made to Chris Clark, 
ccl...@grpress.com

Applications can be sent to The Grand Rapids Press
 Attn: Photo Desk 155 Michigan Ave. NW
 Grand Rapids, MI 49503

Just wanted to post a few links relating to the talk, thanks to all who participated! – Bettina

William Snyder on Internships

Portfolio Tips from Michael P. King

Francis Gardler’s Internship Postings

PhotoPhilanthropy.org

Idealist.org

Julie Elman’s Resume Series

Heading to the Barn at sunrise. Photo by Andrew Dickinson.

Andrew Dickinson, 20, grew up in Overland Park, Kan., and attends the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has interned for the Northeast Nebraska News Company, ZUMA Press and traveled to Kazakhstan during the summer of 2010 for a university-funded photo project.

Team Pink
Leader: Michael Williamson
Editor: Tim Rasmussen
Producer, Lisa Krantz
Tech: Bob Houlihan
Story: Jeffersonville Adult Home
Theme: Last Resort

What were your expectations going into EAW?
Most of what I expected going into the workshop was to gain inspiration, make contacts and get a chance to learn from people I wouldn’t otherwise get an opportunity to meet. What I gained from the workshop was far more than those simple three things, though. The combination of the speakers, the 11:30 club critiques, the edits on our shoots, the camaraderie, the atmosphere, the lack of sleep and many more weekend events made for an incredible few days where I learned more than I could have imagined.

What was most difficult about the workshop?
The most difficult part of the workshop for me was the lack of sleep. But even that wasn’t a huge issue – here wasn’t a single dull presentation and the story I worked on was great. After getting an hour of sleep the night before, I still found myself still wanting to stay up until 4 a.m. getting to know the incredible people I was surrounded by all weekend.

What was your favorite experience?
The bonfire was one of the best experiences of the weekend. Being able to step back for a second and see that I was on Eddie’s land, surrounded by 99 other students who all care about photojournalism and professionals who volunteered their time in order for us to learn, was profound to me. I can’t thank everyone who put anything into the workshop enough.

What would you tell to someone applying to the workshop next year?
I would tell a prospective Barnstorm student to think about an edit that shows work that they care about. Forget the standard newspaper portfolio. And, once you get accepted, prepare to have the time of your life.

The Mojica family poses for a group picture with Enrico Fabian.

Enrico Fabian, 29, is a freelance photographer in New Delhi, India, but is originally from a small town called Kamenz, near Dresden, in Germany. He has done internships with Reuters and the Hindustan Times in New Delhi, and has put out several books on documentary projects. Enrico won a grant from the Chris Hondros fund at the end of the workshop.

Team: Green
Leader: Kwaku Alston
Editor: Pancho Bernasconi
Producer: Elizabeth Griffin
Theme: Cash is King, which focused on the economic situation of people living in the city of Liberty.

What were your expectations going into EAW?
To be honest I didn’t have many expectations. I think mostly for the reason of not being pre-influenced about the things ahead. I wanted to experience the workshop with an objective, with a free, with a tension-free mind. The only thing that I really expected was to meet some really great people, doing their work because they are driven by something that is within all of us, compassion and responsibility for the small and big problems, we and others face in life. This expectation was fulfilled to the max.

What was most difficult about the workshop?
To leave the farm on the last day and say “See you soon” to everyone whom I shared such honest and intense moments with.

What was your favorite experience?
That’s I guess the hardest of all questions since so many experiences had been very special throughout the last days. But if I would have to name one, it would be the moments I shared with the family I photographed. For me it was very overwhelming not only to see how their life looked like (which I guess is also because it was my first visit to the US at all) but also the level of acceptance and understanding I was given from the first moment onwards. Without knowing me, I was accepted and allowed to photograph their life unfolded in front of my camera without any hesitation or facade. They took me for rides through the town and introduced me to their neighbours; they shared their cigarettes and offered me food. We had short but intense conversations about their and mine everyday life; its constant ups and downs and all the things that go hand with it. Unfortunately these things, even if they sound very normal, have become quite uncommon and even if we humans get closer and closer in the digital world, the real, offline, life is mostly very much different from Facebook friendships.

Moments with the Family were the most special ones throughout the workshop and even throughout my 12 day visit to the states.

What would you tell to someone applying to the workshop next year?
First of all don’t be scared that the workshop could be too “high level” for you or anything like it. Just send in whatever YOU think is important and give it a try. You have nothing to lose and can only win. One way or the other.

Approach the workshop and especially the people with an open heart and without any thought of pressure, competition or challenge. Just soak in everything that comes your way and be the way you are. Do not hesitate talking to anyone you feel like talking to and make the best of the days. The gaining of experience, in terms of a personal development as well as professional development cannot be described in any words us humans, or at least I, know.

Enrico, can you tell us about the experience of winning the grant from the Chris Hondros Fund?

The experience of receiving this grant was one of full of mixed emotions. Seeing Mrs. Piaia (Hondros’ fiance) standing on the stage trying to express what hardly can be put in words was something that moved me deeply and I felt very sorry for her loss. After my name was announced everything became even more surreal for me. Accepting a grant of this magnitude is something I am not used to, neither standing in front of so many people.
Of course, I was very proud to receive this honor, but with the knowledge of why this grant exists, it was not something to take lightly.
Everything happened so fast, that even now I really struggle with recalling any memories from the last minutes of the award ceremony. Even if I didn’t know how much the grant was that had been entrusted to me, I immediately knew what I would utilize it for. I have been looking for a long time for somebody who was willing to support me in an ongoing project about pharmaceutical drug abuse in India. I am very sure that if Mr. Hondros would have seen the story and experienced what I have experienced, he would support my decision to use the grant to pursue this project.

'Family' -- Photo by Maddie McGarvey

Maddie McGarvey, 21, is from Columbus, Ohio, and is a senior at Ohio University. This past summer, she completed an internship at The San Francisco Chronicle and is the recipient of the 2011 Luceo Student Project Award for her work on grandparents raising their grandchildren. McGarvey received a gold award for portrait in the 65th College Photographer of the Year contest. She is also President of the National Press Photographer’s Association Ohio University Chapter and is the National Student Representative for the National Press Photographers Association. She was awarded an assignment from AARP at the end of the workshop.

Team: Orange
Leader: Carolyn Cole
Editor: Elizabeth Krist, Nancy Andrews
Producer: Melissa Lyttle
IT: Amanda Lucidon
Theme: Family

Our theme was “family” and Melissa did an amazing job coming up with 10 incredible families for us to photograph over the weekend. My story was about a working, 8 1/2 month pregnant mother working at Dick’s Sporting Goods and a stay-at-home dad looking after their 2 1/2 year old. It was a little challenging to shoot at times because I followed around the mother at work for 4 1/2 hours and only had a couple of hours with the dad and daughter but it all came together in the end. All of the stories were amazing though, ranging from a lesbian couple trying to gain the right to adopt their two children that they’ve been fostering for years, to a mother and her children living out of a motel. My entire team bonded really well and hung out together the entire weekend.

What were your expectations going into EAW?
I wasn’t really sure what to expect going into EAW. I had heard about how amazing it was from so many different people but it’s incredible to experience it first hand. You’re surrounded by the absolute best in the industry and they are all there to help you. There was such a feeling of camaraderie the entire weekend. The first night we were told to stand up and hug our neighbors and tell them we love them, no matter who they were or if you didn’t even know them.  It was that kind of support that kept us going through the weekend.

What was most difficult about the workshop?
The most difficult part about the workshop was running on about 2 hours of sleep a night. When they say you don’t get any sleep, they mean it. You have 22-hour days, starting with breakfast, speakers, shooting, editing, more speakers, dinner, speakers, portfolio reviews and then sleep if you’re lucky. But it’s so worth it. Just load up on caffeine and don’t make the mistake I did by pulling a couple of all-nighters before coming. Be VERY well rested before you come to the workshop.

What was your favorite experience?
It’s hard to pick only one favorite experience. Being inspired by amazing speakers, being pushed by your team leaders and meeting so many of your other talented peers was my favorite. You leave the Eddie Adams Workshop as part of a family.

What would you tell to someone applying to the workshop next year?
I would tell you to include pictures in your portfolio that you like and that highlight what kind of work you want to be shooting in the long run. I think this is different than applying for an internship where they want to see X amount of sports and spot news. This is your chance to show pictures that matter to you and that you want to be shooting. The judges will be able to see what you’re passionate about. Good luck, be real and if you’re accepted be prepared for a mind-blowing weekend.

Students get feedback on their portfolios late into the night at the 11:30 club. Photo by Kent Nishimura.

Kent Nishimura, 26, is from Honolulu, Hawaii and is a student at the University of Hawaii. He has done freelance and internship work with Ka Leo O Hawaii, Getty Images, The Honolulu Advertiser, The New York Times, Bloomberg News, and Agence France-Presse.

Team: Lilac
Leader: Stacy Pearsall
Editor: Jamie Wellford
Tech: Allison Lucas
Theme: Talent

Living in the middle of the Pacific doesn’t afford me the opportunity to attend a lot of workshops regularly, but when I had found out that I had indeed been accepted to Barnstorm XXIV, the Eddie Adams workshop, I immediately booked my plane tickets. While I can’t compare Barnstorm to other photo workshops like the Missouri or Mountain Workshops, it’s been perhaps the most unique, amazing experience of my life so far.
Many friends told me that Barnstorm this magical workshop where they met amazing people and lasting friendships were forged, but as I found out this past weekend, that was just the tip of the ice berg.  My good friend Cory Lum was the first to introduce me to the idea of applying to the workshop.  He’s an 1993 alumni of the workshop, from the blue team with Chris Hondros, Alex Garcia, and Ami Vitale.  One day over beers, he suggested I apply for the workshop. “It’s an amazing experience. It’ll blow your mind” he said.
After two years of getting rejection letters, I finally got it.  I received word during lunch with my girlfriend via a text message from my friend Patrick Fallon.
“You got in to Eddie Adams!” he wrote.
In the middle of the crowded restaurant, I jumped up from my seat and started cheering at the top of my lungs; people stopped eating and awkwardly stared at me, but I didn’t care.
For those of you who don’t know who Eddie Adams is, or what the Barnstorm Workshop is, Eddie Adams (1933-2004) was a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist who covered 13 wars and was recognized with over 500 awards during his lifetime. He founded the Workshop along with his wife Alyssa, who still allows students into her home and continues the tradition of Eddie’s vision.  Every year, the workshop selects 50 students, and 50 just starting-out professionals for an intensive four day workshop in Jeffersonville, NY.
Fast forward to October 7, 2011.  From across the world, 100 students from all walks of photography — photojournalism, portraiture, sports photography, commercial studio work, and more — descended upon Jeffersonville, NY for the workshop.  On the ride up to the Catskills, we talked about what type of photography each of us pursued, and where we were from.  We shared out expectations of the workshop, and whom we hoped to get a chance to meet.  But nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the walk up the hill; being cheered on by hundreds of faculty, staff, and volunteers — all of whose goal was giving each and every student the experience of a lifetime.  Each day after the first was better and better.
In what seemed like an extremely short four days, we were able to listen and learn about the the latest work and ideas coming out of Sports Illustrated from Jimmy Colton and Steve Fine; soon after we were listening to Eugene Richards speak about his experiences during work on long term projects, Doug Menuez speak about photographing Steve Jobs, post-Apple in the mid 80s and listening to Bill Eppridge tell his story about his time following Robert F. Kennedy on the campaign trail.
My favorite speech, was from Red Team Leader and New York Times Staff Photographer Todd Heisler.  Todd spoke mainly about two bodies of work, first was his famous Pulitzer-Prize winning essay, “Final Salute” from his time at the Rocky Mountain News, he spent a year documenting the work of Major Steve Beck and the Marine Honor Guard who handle family notifications and the funerals of Marines killed during the Iraq War.  The second was a project that the New York Times conducted in 2009 called “One in 8 Million” where Todd and other staff from the Times profiled 54 New Yorkers every week for a little over year.  The series won a News and Documentary Emmy Award in 2010.  Todd spoke about the impact the projects had upon him, and how they shaped the way he grew as a photographer.
Probably the most difficult thing about the workshop was that there were so many things to do and experience, but just not enough time in the day for what we were trying to accomplish. Aside from the speakers, for a good majority of the weekend students worked on completing a documentary essay structured around their teams theme.  It was a good opportunity for students to work on deadline, and with extremely skilled editors.
It was normal for students to finish for the day and get back to the hotel around 2 o’clock in the morning, only having to wake up four hours later.
“You will sleep when you are dead, or at the end of this workshop.” said Stacy Pearsall, my team leader during our first team meeting at Eddie’s farm.
We all laughed nervously because deep down, we all knew she was right.
My team, the Lilac Team, had the theme of “Talent” – between the Ten of us, we each photographed a person in the town of Sullivan and did our best to find and tell a story about who they are and what their talents are.  Each story was thoroughly researched by our team’s producer, New York based Leah Latella.
I got to spend my time photographing Ramona Jan of Damascus, Pennsylvania who lived along the Delaware river.  Ramona owns a store called “Vintage Bling” and aside from selling vintage clothes and jewelry, she made lamps from recycled antiques and ceramic doll heads.
I spent a nice chunk of my first shooting day getting Ramona accustomed to me being there, I wanted her to eventually think of me as just another item in her studio where she made her lamps.  A fly on the wall if you will.  Being a fly on the wall would allow her to open up and not act any certain type of way, allowing me to capture who she really is.  It was very cool being able to watch the physical manifestation of her creative process at work while she assembled, disassembled and re-assembled the lamp she was working on, only to disassemble it again.
After shooting, editing, and listening to speakers, students were able to get their work reviewed by editors and photographers from many different newspapers, magazines, and agencies at the 1130 club.  I got to meet and show my work to Patrick Witty of TIME, Sandy Ciric, Pierce Wright, Michael Heiman and Mario Tama of Getty Images, and Diana Suryakusuma of Bloomberg Business week to name a few.
Todd Heisler, Jimmy Colton, Leah Latella, Jamie Wellford and my teammates gave me the support I needed throughout the weekend, and really put a lot of things into perspective for me.  Where my work needed improvement, and helped me realize that I don’t need to move from Hawaii to pursue stories…just yet.  But, beyond my work, and what i needed to do to improve, I realized that I had become a part of something bigger than all of us, I made friendships and connections with people from across the world — all of whom I am proud to know, and call them ohana (Hawaiian for family.)

Kathy Thompson, 60, cries as she holds the wall to what was once her living room while walking down to the first floor at her home June 10 on S. New Jersey Avenue in Joplin, Mo. She and her husband survived the tornado in the closet of their bedroom at their home. Photo by Jake May

If you look at Central Michigan University senior Jake May’s blog, you get the feeling he’s a busy guy. Whether it’s tornado damage in Missouri, auto racing in Michigan or a county fair in Indiana, May prolifically photographs the Midwestern communities where he studies, freelances and interns.

Ten winning clips earned Jake 390 points- 1st Place- during the first year of the NPPA’s revamped Student Quarterly Clip Contest. You can see a special gallery of winning clips on the NPPA website from May, Ohio University graduate student Bryan Thomas and recent Western Kentucky graduate Jeff Sainlar, who both tied for second place with 200 points.

“Most of my photographs, and my way about photojournalism, is community photojournalism,” May wrote in an email.

“Jake’s compelling work takes us into the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary way,” said Kent Miller in an email. He is an assistant professor of photojournalism and new media at Central Michigan and one of May’s teachers.“His passion and enthusiasm are contagious.”

Below are the top ten points winners in the Student Quarterly Clip Contest from August 2010 to August 2011. Congratulations to all the winners, and we look forward to more strong photojournalism and multimedia in the upcoming contest year!

Jake May, Central Michigan, 390 Points
Bryan Thomas, Ohio University, 200 Points
Jeff Sainlar, Western Kentucky, 200 Points
Jordan Stead, Western Washington, 140 Points
Sarah Priestap, Rochester Institute of Technology, 130 Points
Eamon Queeney, University of Cincinnatti, 130 Points
Ryan Young, Ohio University, 120 Points
Tamir Kalifa, University of Texas, 120 Points
Andrew Hida, Syracuse University, 110 Points
Bob Miller, Syracuse University, 100 Points
Grant Hindsley, University of Missouri, 100 Points

A totally fun way to network. Geekfest 2010, St. Petersburg, Florida.

Are You Prepped to Network?

Join NPPA President Sean Elliot, Student Committee Chair Bettina Hansen, Student Chapters Committee Chair Michael P. King, Education Committee Chair Mark E. Johnson and Student Representative Maddie McGarvey for an online chat to talk about finding internships and jobs. We’ll talk about what you need to get started, tips on how to take advantage of various NPPA programs and share ideas on how to network like a pro – because we all know it’s not necessarily what you know but who knows what you know.

We’ll start up at 9 p.m. on Sunday, October 16, here at the Visual Student and everyone can participate. Post a question, post an idea – get involved.

Photojournalists with least three years of experience, who have had editorial work published, and returned to school in the last year, are eligible to apply. Find more information here.

Amina Mohamed prepared food for her family in anticipation of the day's end of the fast for Ramadan August 5, 2011 in her apartment in Minneapolis. Mohamed came over to America in 2004 and still has family in Somalia who are currently being affected by the famine. Photo by Leah Millis

Leah Millis lives in Denver, the city where she was born. After going to Knox College in Illinois for two years, she transferred to Metropolitan State College of Denver to pursue photojournalism. Millis has worked as a photographer and photo editor at The Metropolitan, the school’s student newspaper, and done internships at The Loveland Daily Reporter-Herald and The Denver Post, before completing her most recent summer internship at The Minneapolis Star Tribune. In 2010, Millis traveled to Haiti to work on stories for two months with funding from the National Press Photographers Foundation’s Reid Blackburn Scholarship and a scholarship from the Colorado Press Women.

VS: Describe the internship program at the Star Tribune.

The summer internship at the Star Tribune is a 10-week-long deal, it starts early June and ends mid-August depending on each intern’s start date. The Strib offers two visual internships in the summer; one for stills one for video. It’s a big daily paper with a photo staff of over a dozen people. I worked with seven different editors throughout the summer depending on what shift I was working. I worked “40 hour” weeks but realistically it was quite a bit more when you add the overtime. Which they do because the paper is unionized (thumbs up!). I pretty much worked Thursday-Monday but my schedule changed week-to-week depending on where they needed someone to fill in due to vacations and such.

As an intern they bring you in to cover everything. Breaking news to feature hunting to sports to portraits. The bottom line, though, is that you’re here to do daily work. My boss told me that it’s great if you have time and energy to work on a project in your (little) spare time but their biggest need from the intern is for good daily work. At a big daily like this it was key that I know how to handle shooting multiple assignments on a day-to-day basis and that I was able to work quickly and efficiently on deadline.

Governor Mark Dayton addressed the media after holding government shut down negotiations with Republican Majority Leader Amy Koch and Republican House Speaker Kurt Zellers in Dayton's office July 5, 2011at the State Capitol in St. Paul. Photo by Leah Millis

VS: Who was your supervisor or mentor?  What did you learn from that person?

Janet Reeves is my supervisor but I had a number of mentors. From Janet, I learned how to work hard and the importance of really working a situation to try and get the best possible image out of a scene. Something she suggested to me once was starting off the week with a really simple goal: I want to make one photograph this week that moves people. That’s my goal. Something that simple can really help bring your focus back in. Another thing I learned from watching her work and working for her was the overriding importance of serving the community. There was also a reporter at the paper who kind of became a mentor to me – Allie Shah. I was thrown right into the fire with her on my first day when we covered a breaking news story about a Somali suicide bomber who had died in Somalia but was from Minnesota. We had to find his mother and it was my job to photograph her. It was a hard assignment but we found her in the end and throughout the summer my editors tried to put me on similar stories with Allie. I was able to build a relationship with her and I learned so much about journalism from watching her work. I learned so much about the importance of persistence and how much it pays off to simply listen to people, even if you’re in a hurry.

Joy Vang, left center, snuck a kiss from Paline Vang while Mindy Yang, left, and Elizabeth Lee, right, all of the Shades of Yellow a Hmong LGBTQ organization, watched a woman perform poetry during the first day of the Twin Cities Pride festival in Loring Park. Hundreds of people attended, enjoying food, games, music and an assortment of activities and booths. Photo by Leah Millis

VS: What was your favorite assignment and why?

I think the highlight of my summer was being able to work with Allie and get into the Somali community with her. Minnesota has the largest Somali population in the country and sometimes it’s like being in a different world when you’re out in their community and I loved that challenge. A lot of the women do not want to be photographed which is really difficult but again, there are ways through, you just have to be persistent but in a respectful way.

VS: What was the most important thing you learned?

I think the most important thing I learned is that good journalists don’t give up easily. You can gain a lot by talking and listening to people. On a spot news scene you can do your job and tell the story and still be respectful about it. In terms of taking photographs, if you don’t do the best job today, there’s always tomorrow.

Riley Pfeifer, 11, didn't let a downpour discourage him from fishing at Lake Calhoun July 23, 2011 during a strong thunderstorm that moved through the Twin Cities Saturday morning. His grandmother Mary Setre, who remained in the car for the worst of the rain, she said he was determined to go Saturday rain or shine. Photo by Leah Millis

VS: What’s the best part about this internship? What’s the most difficult part about this internship?

There were a lot of great things about the internship. Honestly, working for Janet Reeves has kind of been a dream of mine for a while (I grew up with The Rocky Mountain News). It was amazing to be working in such a passionate newsroom with a boss who is still very passionate about telling visual stories. That kind of atmosphere really pushed me to be a better photographer/journalist every day.

Harrison Watt, 3, leaped off of a carefully landscaped pile of rocks during a visit to his grandmother, Mary Pat Myss in Pioneer Point. Myss' home is part of a Pulte development of single family homes that are association maintained, meaning things like maintaining the lawn and shoveling the snow are not her responsibility. "I would not own a single family home if I had to do the maintenance myself" said Myss, who works 40 hour weeks. Photo by Leah Millis

VS: What was your favorite assignment and why?

It can be challenging at times to keep your energy level up and going full steam ahead when you’re working ALL the time. I think the hardest assignment was covering the aftermath of a horrific house fire at a B&B that killed six people including the owner and her two young daughters. I learned a lot from that experience though, and my editors were very helpful offering emotional support and encouraging me and the other intern to talk about it afterward which is very important.

A young woman hugged an unidentified man (who both wished to remain unnamed) as they cried after seeing The Bohemian Bed and Breakfast Sunday July 3, 2011, the site of a devastating fire that killed six people early Saturday morning in New Ulm. Photo by Leah Millis

VS: Describe your personal and professional growth during the internship.

I think the biggest growth I went through as a result of this internship was simply learning to be a better journalist. There’s a reason it’s called photojournalism. It’s much much more than just being able to take pretty pictures. I think I learned a lot about that this summer. Professionally, I was able to get a few nice clips for my portfolio and I think experience is really the only way to improve yourself. This internship will give you ten solid weeks of professional experience.

Jarnae Barney, 19, of U.N.L. Drill & Dance Performing Arts drummed up front with her team after the Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride Parade at Loring Park in downtown Minneapolis. Photo by Leah Millis

VS: What helped you get the internship?

When I’m applying for internships I usually apply for as many as I can handle. For me that’s anywhere between seven and ten applications. I’ve done that for a few years now and every year I get a lot more denials than I do offers. I think that’s part of it-apply for tons. I was told that my editors liked the fact that I had good enough singles showing that I would be able to handle daily work which was the most important thing for them. I think my Haiti story may have helped in the decision-making process too, not because it was a Haiti story but because it was an interesting story that happened to be set in Haiti.

VS: What will you do next?

Next I plan on finishing up school by December and possibly applying for one last internship. I have plans to go back to Haiti, too. A job would be nice but in the meantime freelance work pays the bills.

People huddled under umbrellas and signs during a rally to voice support for embattled Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdillahi Farmajo at Peavy Park in Minneapolis. The protesters say Farmajo's departure could bolster Al-Shabab, which U.S. officials fear has been recruiting young Somali-Americans from Minneapolis and elsewhere to join them and fight. Photo by Leah Millis

VS: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I think for fellow students who are looking for internships and applying: make sure you apply for a ton and don’t lose hope if you don’t get your first choice. Reach out to people who you look up to or whose work you admire and ask questions. These days with email it’s kind of silly not to. Some will respond, some won’t. Bottom line for me, is keep being curious, be a good listener and learn from your mistakes.

To learn more about applying for this internship, contact Duchesne Drew, Duchesne.drew@startribune.com or check www.startribune.com/internships

TIME is looking for the best young photographers of 2011.

Recently announced by TIME and their fantastic photography blog, LightBox:

This fall, TIME invites talented student photographers dedicated to honing their craft, whether it be photojournalism, portraiture, still life, conceptual or fine art, to submit a portfolio of at least 10 but no more than 20 photos for review by our editors. All applicants must be currently enrolled students or members of the class of 2011.

See the full rules here. Students – you’ve only got until October 17th, so get editing.

Spread the word and see what people are saying on Twitter with the tag #NextGenPhotog

**EDITOR’S NOTE: One of the NPPA student committee members noticed this rights grab in the contest rules:

In addition, by entering, Entrant grants to TIME.com a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to edit, publish, promote, republish at any time in the future and otherwise use Entrant’s submitted photos, along with Entrant’s name, likeness, biographical information, and any other information provided by Entrant, in any and all media for possible editorial, promotional or advertising purposes, without further permission, notice or compensation (except where prohibited by law).”

That’s a pretty sweeping license to grant someone to use your photographs. Please be aware of this if you decide to enter.**

Ryan Henriksen, Philip Scott Andrews, Joshua A. Bickel, Andrew Spear and Maddie McGarvey during a break from sessions at the Atlanta Photojournalism Workshop. Photo © 2010 Maddie McGarvey

After talking to some current students and PJ grads, I wanted to put together some advice about starting out for a young PJ. Here are some of those thoughts – some brief, some long, but ultimately useful to anyone interested about this opportunity to learn with some amazing people. While many of the comments here are from Missouri and Ohio University students, good advice is good advice – pretty much applicable to any one, anywhere. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. What would you say to yourself on the first day? – Patrick Fallon, Visual Student Editor.

“Keep an open mind as you grow as a photographer, because everyone’s field of interest in photography changes over time.” – Clint Alwahab, graduate, University of Missouri

“Do everything you can in your first year to get your feet wet and get a better idea of what exactly you want to do. Wanting to explore and do lots of different things is good. I think everybody goes a little nuts for at least the first few months after they “discover” photography or get their first camera. Try working at the student paper, especially if you are interested in sports. Get to know the editors there and learn from their experiences.” – Chris Dunn, graduate, University of Missouri

Patrick Fallon shares his newest Facebook album, a parody of two Missouri and Ohio photo students both named "Joel" with remarkable similarities besides their names with MU photojournalism chair David Rees (center right). From left to right, fellow photo-j students Grant Hindsley, Sam Gause, Nick Agro and Jeff Lautenberger gather around. Photo by Chris Dunn.

“We all learn a ton when we get here and it is a total wake up call. Try things out and be active in the community in any way you can be. Don’t be a negative person, there is enough of that out there. Use the fuel of your excitement to make better pictures and learn from those around you. A strong community of people to help you with honest advice and who can push you is better than any class or accessory.” – Grant Hindsley, junior, University of Missouri

“Dork.” (Translation: Don’t take yourself too seriously)  – Ryan Henriksen, graduate, Ohio University and 64^th College Photographer of the Year

“Find out if your J-School has an early enrollment program for PJ courses, so you can see if this is really what you want to do earlier.. It was for me.” – Taylor Glascock, graduate, University of Missouri.

Students listen to professor Rita Reed during the last day of their picture story class at the University of Missouri. Unlike some previous classes, this years class developed deep friendships and trust among each other in and out of class, a sense of openness that enabled better critiques and helped everyone grow as a photographer and a person. Photo © 2011 Taylor Glascock

“Everyone has a dream and a goal when they first start, we pursue it by seeking out advice from older photographers… and I think that is awesome.

Where would any of us be if we hadn’t wanted this really, really bad? It all starts with some sort of dream and then you shape it until you find what fits for you. I didn’t know shit about photojournalism before I started college. When I started, my portfolio consisted of photos of animals, plants, and black and white photos where I made one color pop.  But I got to school and learned. So, so much and most of that was from guidance from older photographers who I trusted and looked up to.

Don’t be afraid to talk to an upperclassman who can help you grow as a photographer. Some solid mentoring can definitely help you out. As for the older PJs, remember where you were once and don’t forget to take that opportunity to help.” – Maddie McGarvey, senior at Ohio University and current NPPA Board Representative for Students.

Students trade prints with each other at an Ohio University print swap. Photo © Dustin Franz.

“We all go to school to learn, even if our heads are in the clouds. Get involved and meet the community of older kids. With hard work and an open mind the shooting will all fall in to place. I certainly didn’t have a photography website when I was applying to schools. I had a portfolio, but I had not a clue what I was doing.

Get amped up and talk with your advisers and professors about how you can become more involved. A strong PJ community can push you to great heights, but you have to become a part of it.” – Nick Agro, junior at University of Missouri

“Keep your chin down, work hard and don’t make a name for yourself for the wrong reasons.” – Daniel Berman, senior, Western Washington University.

“Just this week I went back and looked at a bunch of stuff I shot in my first few weeks and months at Missouri. Most of it is total crap by what I’d deem acceptable today. But I know that in those few weeks and months I was giving it everything I had. I never half-assed something. Have a work ethic. Have goals. Bite off more than you (or your editor) thinks you can chew. A will to work, to teach yourself, to take risks and do crazy things are some of the best things you can do to help yourself learn to find your voice and style of photography, and to become a better visual journalist.” - Jeff Lautenberger, graduate, University of Missouri.

“Stay focused – but don’t stress as much! Whatever is going to happen will happen – just push through it and smile. Nothing is the end of the world! I would also suggest really paying attention in those dull classes (comm law, history of journo etc…) in the end they are really helpful! AND back up EVERYTHING and start a good naming and archiving system early, you will thank yourself for it years down the road.” – Chelsea Sektnan, graduate, University of Missouri

“Take non photo/journalism classes… and take photos for yourself.” – Karly Domb Sadof, graduate, New York University.

“Know that you aren’t going to be good automatically, and you’re going to be surrounded by a million people that you think are more amazing, but with super hard work and persistence, you will look back in a few years and realize how far you’ve come.” - Katie Currid, senior, University of Missouri.

“It’s all going to be ok… you can do this,” – Cody Duty, graduate, Western Kentucky University

And finally some fantastic thoughts from Joshua Bickel:

“The last thing any of us needs to hear is how bad it is out there. It’s always been hard to pursue this as a career and I think we all know that.

Be encouraged to make pictures that you want to make. And if they’re all pictures of deer frolicking in the woods, then it needs to be the best damn picture of a deer in the woods ever. Find people who can help you be better photographically and in the process become the best damn editor of deer-frolicking-in-the-woods images.

I think at one point we all imagined ourselves working for a place like National Geographic. But, I’d bet that most, if not all of the photographers who work there, never went in expecting that they’d ever be on assignment for the magazine. They went out, made the best images they could, and eventually that led to a career. We all know this, and we’ve all heard older, wiser photographers repeat this a thousand times: Shoot for yourself. If you care bad enough about what you photograph and it shows in the image, the career will come, I promise.

More importantly than the act of photographing, though, spend as much time – if not more – finding other people who you trust. People who will critique you and help you grow, and to ignore the ones who don’t give two shits about you. I’ve been away from Missouri for less than three months, but now that I’m not around people who think kinda like I think and learned kinda the same things I learned, I realized one really important thing:

Not having those people physically around sucks.

Columbia, Missouri is unique that way and I don’t think you realize it until you’re not there anymore. It’s a blessing to be surrounded by people (once you know who they are) who both care about you and the work that you do. There’s always going to be somebody (who’s probably in charge of you) who doesn’t see things the way you do, and who might try to force you to do things the way they would do them. When I read this Magnum post, this advice punched me in the face:

“Make the pictures you feel compelled to make and perhaps that will lead to a career. But if you try to make the career first, you will just make shitty pictures that you don’t care about.” – Chris Anderson (Magnum)

Whoa. Ain’t that the truth.

- Find people you trust, keep them close and always seek their advice.

- Be a human first, be a photographer second and try to turn that into a career third.

- Fight for stories you want to do. Then fight to do them the way you want to do them.

- If you’re lucky, work with people who won’t make you fight for these stories, but will help you make them, and yourself, better.

- And finally, remember to relax every now and then and put the camera down.” – Joshua A. Bickel, Masters Graduate, University of Missouri, and former adjunct professor at MU.

Feel free to leave your own advice in the comments!

More great advice on the Magnum Photos Blog

From The CPOY.org site:

“It’s time! Time to pull together the best of your images from the past year for entry in the annual College Photographer of the Year competition.

Entry is free, courtesy of Nikon Inc. and promises to easier than ever now that the photographer friendly online entry system CPOY debuted last year has been fine-tuned.

The deadline to enter is 11:59 pm Central Time, Wednesday Sept. 28, 2011. But please help yourself and us, by entering early and preventing a last minute logjam on the CPOY servers.

Pay careful attention to the rules, entry guidelines and awards – there are a few changes along with additional premier awards in more categories. As always, please do your absolute best to enter correctly.

Judging will be Nov. 6–13 on the campus of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo. You are invited to attend, and if you can’t be with us to watch the judging sessions via either screencast on the CPOY website or download on iTunes starting Nov. 6th.”

“Work with photographers, reporters and editors who have won some of the most prestigious awards at one of America’s best small newspapers. The Herald, located in Jasper, Ind., is seeking an intern to work from January through the end of June in 2012. Like the wood workers in the local factories, The Herald values old-fashioned craftsmanship. Our newspaper is nationally recognized for its classic display of documentary-style photography, devoting ink and newsprint to photo stories at a time when space for pictures is drying up.”

Photo by Rachel Mummey/The Herald

Interns are respected members of the staff, not gophers. We are looking for candidates with strong journalism skills who have an ability to generate daily and long-term story ideas. A portfolio of moment-based pictures that connect with readers is a must.

Send cover letter, resumé and portfolio to:

Dave Weatherwax

Chief Photographer

The Herald

216 E. Fourth St.

Jasper, IN 47546

E-mails to dwea...@dcherald.com are welcome. No phone calls. The application deadline is Sept. 15.

Download The PDF: Jasper-Spring2012Internship

Round 4: Multimedia - Opens September 19,2011 at 9am PDT. Closes October 2, 2011 at 11:59pm PDT.

Round 5: Education - Opens November 14, 2011 at 9am PST. Closes November 27, 2011 at 11:59pm PST

For more information see: http://photophilanthropy.org/grants/

Pictured below, is an image from winner Bethany Mollenkof, of the 1st Round: “In Your Community.”

Farhiya Mada, 10, rests her arms while playing with her siblings outside of her South St. Louis home. Her family came to St. Louis from Somalia in 2002. © Bethany Mollenkof. Courtesy Photo Philanthropy

To View the 2011 Eddie Adams Workshop students, go here.