AP, New York Times, and Reuters. Day 1.

Day one of the photojournalism NYC trip we were able to sit in on the current events meeting at Associated Press. We stepped into the building and saw news writers running into the conference room where we were stationed. We heard the current events of what going on in the world. One of the most interesting things I heard in the meeting was, "Why should I care?" I remember Professor William Snyder saying this to my photojournalism class not two weeks before. Almost everything I heard today I have heard from Prof. Snyder in the past semester. 

After the meeting, we met with Santiago Lyon who explained what we need to do to be a successful photojournalist. I heard from him, as well as New York Times, that it is necessary to start incorporating another medium into our repertoire; be it video, text, multimedia, etc... The world is changing and we can't just be straight shooters anymore. 

Lyon told us the three things that he goes by to create an outstanding image: artistic qualities, dramatic photographs, and a connection to your viewers. This was to show us that we need to approach the subject with a level of creativity to make it different from what we as image consumers have ever seen before. 

At New York Times we met with James Estrin. He talked about his photography career and how he co-founded Lens Blog. He said, "The goal isn't to take a picture, the goal is to tell stories, and photography is just the medium." 

That was really profound for me. I needed to hear that and I will absolutely use that in my work. 

After that we went to Reuters and learned the basic building blocks on how to get hired at Reuters from Andrees Lateef. In my notes I have a huge list, but the couple points that were brought up the most were 1) ANSWER YOUR PHONE ALWAYS and 2) want to photograph outside of assignments. Take pictures all the time. It's what we want to do, so why not do it?

We met with some amazing photographers at Reuters. Andrew Kelly and Carlo Allegri to name a few. They are both Reuters photographers and really knew their stuff. 

I was really impressed with and excited about what we did today. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings...