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| The Blade's Dave Zapotosky viewing a student portfolio. |
It’s that time again. Hundreds of
student photojournalists are scrambling to find summer newspaper jobs. Despite the dismal job market paid internships still
exist.
This blog post focuses on helping
PJ students prepare a competitive portfolio, which is the most important tool in landing an internship.
A portfolio is a visual showcase; a
collection of work that basically defines the skills and interests of the
applicant. Seriously, in about 1/125th of a second a photo editor
can tell whether the photographer is a good fit for the newspaper.
Many newspapers, including the
Toledo Blade, hire summer interns. The hiring process for this summer’s Blade intern began in
January, and by the end of February Jeffrey Smith from Central Michigan
University was selected out of 70 applicants.
So what helped the chosen one
rise to the top? What made him so special? He had the best portfolio.
A good portfolio includes three vital components: Great photos, strong captions, and a good organization and delivery method.
As I recently watched Blade photo supervisor
Dave Zapotosky and photographer Andy Morrison go over this year’s crop of
portfolios, I asked them to share their concerns and tips.
Let’s start with the photos, the
heartbeat of the portfolio.
The
Photographs
· Offer visual variety. Include your
very best selection of sports, news, features, portraits, and at least one
photo story. Editors want their new hires to hit the ground running, even
though they expect them to be a little green. Stating in your cover letter you
can handle the work isn’t enough. Demonstrate it. Spread the love. For example: 20 photos of portraits aren’t as convincing as five portraits, five sports, five
features, and five spot news. Also include a solid photo story. Be very, very choosy in your selection.
·
Don’t overindulge your college life. Editors
aren’t too impressed with shock value: images of drunken students depicting
wild nightlife; sexual ambiguity for the sake of it (performing drag queens);
and nudity. Know the newspaper’s readership. Our newly-hired intern’s leading
photo on his website is a man walking goats past a cornfield – our Midwest
flavor.
·
Show off your technical skills. Do you have a
firm grasp of lighting? Do you know your camera controls? Is your use of
motion and depth of field evident, appropriate, overdone?
·
Do not
over process your photos in Photoshop! Instagramish, over-processed, hyper contrasted,
super saturated photos and sun-flared pictures will not earn you extra points. Less
is best. Crop, tone and color correct. Shoot it right and edit tight.
The Captions
·
Include complete captions with every single
photo! Captions explain what the photos are about. Make them super easy to
find. Andy and Dave were very frustrated when they couldn’t find captions or
had to apply effort to find them. This is a deal breaker!
·
Ensure your captions are complete. This is the journalism
part of photojournalism. Answer the 5
Ws and the H. Watch your spelling and grammar. Complete sentences. Use present tense when explaining the 5Ws.
The Delivery
·
This is still evolving. In days gone by, we’d
submit a page of 20 slides with a caption sheet. Now there are blogs, websites,
CDs, flash drives, Dropbox.com, and who knows what else.
- Dave prefers a CD or flash drive that
includes two folders: one for
single images and one for the photo story. This allows him to simply drag each
folder into Photo Mechanic and view all of the photos at once. He said he
doesn’t want to open a lot of folders (one for portraits, one for sports, etc.),
considering how many folders he already has to open. When he’s ready to read
the caption, he clicks on the Information icon.
- Include no more than 20 images in
each folder.
·
Might be good to call and ask each editor how
they prefer to view your portfolio. This will save you a lot of work and
possible heartache.
·
If you have a website or blog, include the URL
in your cover letter. Again, make sure your blog is easy to maneuver, and the
captions are easy to find.
- Make your cover letters unique to each particular newspaper. Form cover letters are sometimes quite obvious. Make sure you study each newspaper before you apply. Again, this is knowing your audience. At this point in your collegiate career you should know what "do your homework" means.
- Make your cover letters unique to each particular newspaper. Form cover letters are sometimes quite obvious. Make sure you study each newspaper before you apply. Again, this is knowing your audience. At this point in your collegiate career you should know what "do your homework" means.
Well, that’s about it. Good luck to all students
applying for internships!
Here are more tips from working pros:
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