I had the opportunity to job shadow Mary Lewandowski who is interning for the Jackson Citizen Patriot from January 2019 until January 2020. Mary graduated from Central Michigan University in 2018 with a degree in Photojournalism, where she also worked for Central Michigan Athletics and Central Michigan Life. She also explained to me how her typical workday schedule consists of, which turned out being every day of the week. Overall Mary shared that she loves the spontaneous stories each day brings and loves the close-knit family her internship has brought.
George Rose (far left) from Melbourne, Australia poses for her portrait during Bright Walls Festival in Jackson, Michigan September 6. Other artist use different types of methods to create their murals such as spray paint or cans of paint.
After a minor miscommunication with my google maps, I eventually made my way to the small office of Jackson Citizen Patriot, employed with five reporters at 8:30am. Mary and I’s assignment was to create portraits of the twenty-one artists featured in the Bright Walls Festival. I learned that it was the second year of this festival and there are artists from around the world participating in this event. There were local painters and people all the way from Brazil, Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Texas and Italy. It was such an amazing opportunity to witness such large pieces of artwork spray-painted on buildings. The crazy part about it to me was the fact it had to be finished in five days! Since the news team has close connections with important people within the town, Mary and I were able to go up on the 14th floor of the City Government office in the Mayors room to snap a quick photo of an overall view of the festivities going on. The cool thing about that was the fact Mary had never met the Mayor or have ever been inside that building, so it was a nice experience for us both.
Another interesting event we both got to witness was seeing a fight breakout on the side of the road. They were young teenage black girls, all surrounding two of them pushing each other back and forth. While driving by, two of the girls were standing right in our lane. Luckily, the police were already behind us to take action!
Seeing Mary in action was honestly one of the coolest things I have seen. She was not afraid to approach artists and sneak pictures from behind. There was a point when a group of fourth graders were staring at the artists, waiting for free stickers and Mary realized it would make the best photo and approached the teachers to ask for their names. Later, while Mary and I were shooting more photos of the kids surrounding one of the artists the event coordinator said, “Hey you will have to ask permission before taking photos of kids.” Nothing we both haven’t heard before. But I admired how calm and contained she responded to this sudden response, “Yes of course! We already got the okay”. We were also able to shoot most of the artist at the event, but one who preferred not to be seen. I admired how she took note on a notepad of each individual and we took three different trips back to the festival to ensure we got each artist. Now that is persistence!
I received advice from Mary that I know will help me apply myself to not only JRN 422, but my future endeavors. While taking our stroll through Jackson on our way to the festival, Mary told me she tends to be hard on herself when it comes to getting the right photo and the deadlines can be stressful. Since she is just an intern at the Jackson Citizen Newspaper, it is easy to feel such a way. But, through advice and help from her boss, Scott, she learns multiple ways to destress and as stated by Mary herself, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, learn next time.” She also urged me to buy Photomechanical, a program she feels she could never live without. It was awesome to see her workflow, how fast and easily she moved from editing down to her top ten photos and get just the right adjustments made to create her photo collage. While she looked through my photo’s she also advised me to get closer to my subjects and to not find it uncomfortable or strange, after all, they are just people. Some advice that she had received from Jake May, a popular fellow photojournalist student at CMU was, while you are at different assignments is to stop and get a photo of yourself there. That was something Mary and I both did while taking turns posing in front of the big “BRIGHT
WALLS” yellow letters. I also had the opportunity to learn how to shoot a double exposure photo. Mary had come up with the idea for this assignment from a past work colleague and explained to me the process. You take one photo with a blank background and apply it in front of another photo with the artists standing in front of their painted murals. I will be looking forward to seeing how they turn out once the festival has ended and the paper is realest.
Mural painted by Eelco on the alley-way September 6, during the Bright Walls Festival.
I do feel like this assignment changed me in the reason being, I got to finally witness someone use their degree of photojournalism for an official newspaper. Not many people can say that were able to sneak behind the scenes, talking to famous artists with amazing talents around the globe and create an article with an expert. It was great to see how a typical day was for news reporters and the environments they must get used to. The location where the Jackson Citizen Newspaper is, let’s just say it is borderline sketchy. Mary told me they experience multiple suicides, stabbings, and abuse from neighborhoods surrounding them. They kept a new scanner close by in the office to hear for spot news stories they could cover, and it shook me to realize how much terrible situations occur in the area. I also loved seeing how the workflow was within such a small group of people, to create such a wide known paper. For example; There is one person in charge of getting the articles posted on time, a reporter, someone on all social media norms to spread their stories, and a photojournalist. They all seemed to get along extremely well and shared multiple jokes and laughs while I sat in.
Partial photo of mural work done by Detroit, Michigan artist, Ouizi.
Inspiration that I could give to my fellow students and readers is to keep pursing your degree, because it can really pay off! After getting to know Mary, I saw how her involvement with different CMU groups taught her all the skills she needed to get this internship and be like everyone else in her office. We discussed a couple times about JRN 422 and 420 alone and how she keeps many of those techniques she learned in her back pocket. Such as, always carrying her strobe for quick portrait assignments such as the Bright Walls Festival, football game portraits and shooting different proms.
Close up shot of David Rice flower mural.
Contacts that I was able to make during this assignment for future employer benefit was getting to know the boss of the establishment, Scott who helped me with any questions I had during my experience. Which, by the way Scott says you’re a dork… Mary also gave me multiple Facebook groups, that help give advice if any photographer needs it. She told me to join CM life next semester and other photography groups in the college to help me improve and receive the advice I need.
What I learned that cannot be learned in a classroom is the real-life situations you are faced with when reporting different assignments. In 422 you are forced to create multiple picture stories, but on a day-to-day basis a photojournalist must complete sometimes up to four different stories at a time. The deadlines can also be a task, that I do not feel as students you really realize the affect that can have on you. Mary explained to me how during football games they are expected to send a report in of what they have during halftime, which usually results in traveling to the nearest Mcdonalds to leech off their WIFI and doing so. You are also expected to work on an average every day of the week, yes even weekends. With such a shortage of employees, you can be pushed outside of your comfort zone. Usually that entails doing the reporters job, photos, and writing your own story for the article as well.
What my other classmates could learn from this experience is, to expect the unexpected. There are times when you are forced to report on topics that are uncomfortable for you, like a stabbing that Mary had to report on, and those opportunities are a way to grow you and your portfolio. Something I learned and think others would learn from this was making sure to create a portfolio as well. This is a way to reflect and look back on how far you have come and a way to show to your future employer. There are also many times that Mary has been asked to take peoples photos, since she is always seen carrying two. It is not like anyone knows that she is a photojournalist for a paper, but it does not hurt to snap a quick picture for other people’s enjoyment.
Laura Helferich JRN 420 & 422 Photography 