With only 90 minutes to shoot under the guidance of a professional photographer, sophomore Daysha Schickel and junior Karsen Vandegrift were put to a challenge.
Schickel and Vandegrift spent the day learning and getting more experience about photography. Out of the hundreds of pictures Schickel had taken, one had won Reserve Champion in the Food category.
“I was very excited to hear that one of my photos won. I was more surprised than anything,” Schickel said.
Many students' love of photography has come from their older siblings but Vandegrift has had a passion for it since she was younger.
“I was given cameras when I was quite young and I have always enjoyed experimenting with them,” Vandegrift said.
Between the amount of people, the size of the fair, and the time span, there was a great deal of stress.
“It wasn’t stressful taking pictures of multiple things, it was more stressful picking eight pictures out of the hundreds that I did take,” Schickel said.
Vandegrift felt like she was doing too much at once so she had to force herself to slow down a bit.
“Having to be at the right place at the right time to fit the criteria of the picture was challenging,” Vandegrift said.
Schickel felt if she had more time she could have focused more on getting better pictures.
“I would definitely focus more on getting good pictures rather than just focusing on getting one for each group,” Schickel said.
The students were somewhat misled by the preview of what this opportunity was going to be when they signed up to do an internship with a professional photographer. They were under the understanding that they would be learning how to improve their photography skills before getting a shooting assignment.
Vandegrift would not recommend doing this assignment again due to there being few instructions and it overall being unclear.
“I do think, though, that it would be a good learning experience for someone who has had prior experience with shooting specific topics,” Vandegrift said.