Anyone work for their school newspaper?

[ooo]

How is it? I'm thinking of working for my school newspaper for free, just so I can learn a few things from the people.

[Wilt]

I did, 40 years ago! I was on staff, then I was photography editor. Shooting for a newspaper can be simply a broadening experience, or it can be very good learning experience if you have a mentor, and it can teach you the ropes of photojournalistic techniques (although less so in this instant digital age!)

Broadening because it exposes you to a wide variety of things that you might otherwise never have desire to explore! New sports (to you), theatrical productions, student politics. In my newspaper we had celebrity interviews with entertainers, politicians, sports celebrities and others, and got to experience things that the public would never ever experience. The names will probably mean nothing to you, but I shot inverviews with big names like comedian Bill Cosby, basketball big man Nate Thurmond, rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, in high school! In other years, interviews were held with Charles Schulz (Peanuts), political comedian Mort Sahl, singer Petula Clark, and others.

Learning experience because I learned techniques for the newspaper about printing for the offset press, how to process film and have dry prints for publication in less than an hour from walking into the darkroom, how to push process film to speed up its ISO rating. And the connections to mentors and to others provided the learning experience for me in learning to process color film. In high school!

It taught me to shoot under pressure, so that my first paid wedding coverage didn't break a nervous sweat. It taught me to use 4x5 press cameras and how to process sheet film.

In today's world a lot of what I learned are generally superfluous to the typical digital photographer. But you also find many on POTN who learned on digital, and they become interested in learning film methods, too!

[ooo]

What is like it? Do they assign you an event to cover or do they tell you themes and you shoot for that theme and they take pictures that work for it? In today's age, I would guess this photography would be digital =). We'll see on Monday I suppose. I'm going in to have a meeting with the editor.

[computerguru3190]

why not just go talk to them? you can get possible answers here, but until you actually talk to them its just guesses.

[Wilt]

Each newspaper will be different, depending upon who is the editor. In some cases, you will be asked to cover a specific story...a game, a student election, or whatever. In other cases, you are trying to find 'filler' photos that would be of interest although there may not be a story behind the photo...a featured teacher, a featured athlete, scenes from football practice before a 'big game', or whatever.

[dave kadolph]

Pretty much what Wilt said but 30 years ago for me.

And it was well worth the time and effort--IMO

[Mike R]

Do it and you both win, the paper will get the help they need and you will gain the experience.