Tuesday

My first 14 hour day.

I started off the morning shadowing Melissa Phillip in the studio. She had two different food photo shoots. She explained how she shoots food stuff. The food was set up on a studio table and a soft box was put on each side of the table to light the equalize the light on the table with no shadows. She then added a light to go over top of the food to give it some extra lighting. She explained the different angles and worked with a designer on one of the shoots to make sure it was what she needed. Food photography is a whole different world of photography.

After the studio stuff, I headed to an intern luncheon. There were five other interns from different departments all over the newspaper. We had lunch and listened to Dan Cunningham talk about sports reporting and writing, enterprise writing and how to drive people to the page.

The rest of the afternoon I spent walking around to several photogs: James Nielsen, Melissa Phillip, Johnny Hanson and Michael Paulsen.

Michael talked portraits with me. I asked him to show me his portraits because everyone tells me he's the best here. And he is. His subjects are set up in the perfect spot. He uses a soft box to light the people perfectly - not too drastic to make it look fake, but just enough to make them pop. What he does, is truly amazing. I'm still hoping that before I leave I am able to go with him on a portrait shoot to watch his actions.

I talked to James about the project he is working on.

I talked to Melissa about how her photos turned out from the shoot. We also talked about various ways of approaching people at events and on the street. She gave me insight about people who don't want there photo taken. If they don't want their photo taken and they don't want to give you their name - let them be. She was telling me that it's not worth it to try and talk people into it because more times than not, they change their mind and editors will get a call in the morning. Melissa also printed off the caption guidelines for me.

She talked to me about feature ideas and how it's best to find an event going on, that way you don't have to drive around all day looking for something interesting that hasn't been shown before.

Johnny helped me with the photo mechanic coding. I am really excited to take this information back to the DI. It will be a huge asset in our upcoming sports coverage. He's always checking in with me to make sure I'm aware of everything I need to know.

Towards the end of the afternoon Julio Cortez came by and picked me up and we went to the Astros game. He showed me all the ropes of that - where you can shoot, when you can move, the most important things to shoot, the press room, the photo work room, how to set up a remote, how to insert codes in photo mechanic for team rosters, and the list goes on.

I've always wondered how photographers get their photos up so fast after a game. Now I know. You have everything all set up before the game starts. As you go, you tag on the camera. Julio downloads photos after each inning, finishes the captions and sends them. It's an amazing process.

In a way it was surreal being in the photog box during the game, but on another side - that's just what we do. We have front row access to it all because it's our job to show the people something different, something new, something they missed.

We went to the work room when the game was finished and I sent four photos back to the Chronicle desk.

Wednesday morning when I was getting ready to head back to work, Kathleen knocks on my door to tell me that one of my photos was on the front page of the sports section. They ran a one column photo, but hey, a photo on the front page of the sports section - is a photo on the front page of a sports section. It's even better when your byline is right there.

On top of it all my photo was intertwined with my cousin Jose de Jesus Ortiz's story. He's the beat writer for the Astros and is truly amazing at what he does. I was very proud to see my name and his name less than inches printed apart from one ajnother on the front page of the sports section in a prestigious metropolitan newspaper like the Houston Chronicle.