Ta-ta for now..

It's my last day! I can't believe how fast the time went. I guess working 40 hour weeks doing something you really enjoy helps, though. Last week was pretty much just a round-up of everything I've done since I got here. I researched more articles and contacted people about pictures and information for Culinary Getaways, pulled photos from previous magazines, ran a lot of little errands, etc. I put together some checklists of information and contact info of all the people I've talked to about whatever they're involved in (Wineries and cooking schools, country inns, what have you) so that my bosses wouldn't be lost when I left with a mess of information that they couldn't really decipher.
I am absolutely going to miss working here, and I am jealous of all the interns (that is.. the other 4) that get to stay a few extra weeks. Marina told me from the beginning the end dates were flexible as long as I fulfilled the hours I needed to get credit (which I'm well over by now) and I wish that I could stay longer. Unfortunately, commuting into the city is expensive! But hopefully my internship here will have been the first step to my first magazine job in the city after graduation.. and I'll actually be able to live here and not take the train in every day from New Jersey.
I definitely learned a lot in the past weeks, and really got to see what part of magazines I think I want to work in. I can't think of a better place to have interned at, and it was such a wonderful opportunity to be able to work with all the people that I did. I guess that's it for this summer - ciao New York! & thanks, CL.

Haunted houses, delicious looking donuts, and.. a gumball machine?

Throughout the week I was asked to research stories for the October/November issue, including "Historical Haunted Houses" (Mark Twain's House, the Ohio State Reformatory where the Shawshank Redemption was filmed, and the Winchester Mystery House- which at one point had over 600 rooms in it!), "Donut Shops" (where I spent probably an hour an a half before lunch looking through pictures of the most mouth-watering doughnuts I've ever seen), "Pumpkin Festivals", "Historic Old Theaters", and "Country Inns with Good Food". I have never emailed and spoken to so many people, or looked up so many webpages and articles and clicked on so many links looking for information before -- it was definitely exhausting. I was able to pull a lot of information and pictures though, and in the end turning in each folder was very satisfying.
On Friday, I got the opportunity to not only go to the October Costumes photo shoot, but also be in it! They decided to do three age groups (a child, teenager, and adult) and I was volunteered by my boss to be the teenager. I was the gumball machine, the child's costume (Sarah Gray, our EIC's nephew) was the goldfish bowl, and the adult costume (Gyna, our Managing Editor) was a snowglobe. We shot in the morning in front of the Swedish Cottage in Central park. It was a lot of fun, and something I would never have had the opportunity to do before, and probably never will again!

Research, research, research.. and then research some more

Last week and this week were all about, you guessed it- researching! Researching photos for the Heart of the Country opener, researching pictures for the Country Vet article, researching pictures and potential articles (like drive-in theaters across small town America) and so on. During all this researching I started reorganizing the photo archive binders and creating new ones that would make searching and looking up past shoots easier in the future. When you read a magazine you see the pictures and don't question how they got there, or what they add to the overall meaning of the story. This week, I learned all the work that goes into making that effortless flip of a page happen- and there is a lot more time that goes into it than you'd think!

This past week I did a lot of the same, but we're working on closing the October issue so it was mostly starting to look up new articles and ideas for November. I printed out some more photo sheets for October's HOTC opener, and scanned some pictures from Country Living UK's past fall issues to see if they had anything we could use. I started contacting people from the Winchester Mystery House and The Mark Twain House for an upcoming article- "Historic Haunted Houses".

Overall it was a busy two weeks! I did get to go on a food photo shoot which was really fun to watch and also delicious (think fresh baked popovers). I'm still loving my time at the magazine and I feel like the time is flying by faster than I ever imagined. I've been helping around in a lot of different departments and I'm excited to see what the rest of July will bring after the October issue closes and we can begin working on November!

A Week of Firsts

Well, my first week as an intern was amazing- to say the least. I had no idea what to expect going into my internship and was definitely intimidated and nervous that first day. Luckily, I had made a test-run into the city from Jersey the week before so I knew my route for the most part. Once I finally got into NYC, walking into the Hearst Tower was both exciting and nerve-wracking. I had one of those "little fish, big sea" moments as I stared up the 3-floor tall wall of water and wondered what I had gotten myself into.

I have to admit I was expecting a little "The Devil Wears Prada" as I rode up to the 32nd floor, but I was pleasantly surprised. Immediately Marina, the photo assistant, greeted me and introduced me to all the editors and the staff of Country Living. She gave me a tour, and set me right to work. The first day I worked on printing photos from the archive so that we could printed versions in binders for easier reference. The rest of the week I had many different tasks. Some included researching pictures online for upcoming articles, researching events alongside the editorial interns for the upcoming October issue (a giant pumpkin regatta race, anyone?), going through past issues of CL and marking when the logo has changed (it is changing again in our upcoming issue), mailing previous issues out to people, and other office duties like bringing items down to be photographed.

It was a whirlwind week, but I truly enjoyed every minute. The atmosphere is so cooperative and friendly, and it is so exciting to see all of the work and minute details that go into the production of a magazine. It also helps that Country Living is a magazine that is familiar to me, not only because my mom had a subscription for many years, but because in many ways it is almost a picture perfect representation of my home in Virginia. It is a great feeling to be doing something "real" for the first time, even if it is just an internship, and there is an unexplainable happiness that comes with doing something you honestly enjoy.