Internship

Internship is a month long program where we are out of school and working with a business. We learn about how the business works and how life will be after high school. Students work five days a week and between 30-40 hours a week. Every student has their own mentor they are working for and learning from.

My Internship is Bob Hoffman's Photography and Video. I'm interning here with another student from HTHI, Omar. They are mainly a photography place, and half of their business is weddings. I am looking forward to working with them because I've gotten into photography since last year and I love the challenge of trying to recreate the image people see in their heads.

Blog Post 1: My hopes, dreams, and fears. You have each of those for everything you do. My hopes are that this is a fun, enjoyable, and educational experience. I really hope that everyone gets along really well, and it's kind of like a work family. My dreams for this internship is to eventually make a photography portfolio, and get to experiment with the cameras. Of course I hope it will be good and will be proud of it, and actually want to show it off. My only fear about it is that I am going to run out of ideas, or none of the photos will come out the way I want. I also fear that we will stuck just doing busy work, just work to fill time. Not actually something that will help us or something meaningful.

Blog Post 2: My mentors name is Tara Hoffman. She is the wife of Bob Hoffman, and one of the owners of Bob Hoffman photography and video. She has a cat and a dog, two kids who went to high tech high.

Mentor Interview Questions

What is a typical workday like?

Not a lot of typically, monday through fridays are paper work or editing. Weekends and nights are videos and photos

What are your main duties and responsibilities?

HR human relations, making sure clients are set up, and workers get paid.

How is the organization structured?

We have four things, corporait and social events. (bday partys, weddings, etc) Photo and video for both events.

Tell us about your path in getting to where you are today- what is your educational history and work experience prior to working here?

I went to college at uc santa cruz, studied art and art history. Always had an art background. Used home movie camera more than still camera, edited all home movies. Met husband at college. Wasn’t a direct path, a matcheration process, living on our own. Liberal arts. Video when we started was almost unheard of.

Why did you choose to work here?

We had been working here for over 30 years. This is what we know and what people know us as.

What qualifications do employees need to be successful here and how are those qualifications acquired?

Gone to college, they have some interest in film, tv, graphic arts, photography, etc. Sometimes photography majors, video majors, etc.

What other personality traits, skills, or knowledge are important to be successful here?

“Most people are let go of a job for incompatibility than imcompetant” most jobs you can be trained. We’ve hired people without a degree who had a love. If you’re incompatible it won’t work. Collaberation is important.

What advice do you have about working here?

Respect is a big thing, young people tend to have a way of thinking where they think they know everything. It becomes incompatible. Be open minded and listen. Learning how to say yes, rather than slacking off because they don’t like what they or someone else did. The costumer is always right. It’s not what I like best, it’s what the client likes best. Understanding who the client is, and your product satisfy the client.

Blog Post 3: Tara has been a great mentor so far. During the day I mostly have been getting to know more about the company, photography, and cameras. I've been looking through magazines and finding Bob Hoffman's photographs. Tara wanted me to get to see what the company has done and the trends that are popular with photography. Today they set gave us lessons on how to do different types of photos on a camera. The lessons also showed up different techniques, and we got to experiment with the different settings. I took around 20 photos and I used as many techniques as I was taught in the lessons.

Here are some pictures from my first week, and why I took them:

(from the scavenger hunt that Tara had me and Omar do)

Blog Post4: At Bob Hoffman's their goal for each and every client, no matter what they come in for. Every client has their photos done their way, no talk back. The customer is always right. Their goal is to capture the moment cause it will never happen again, capture the feeling and emotion in that moment. Every bride deserves to feel beautiful on their wedding day and the beauty of the photos depends on the photographer.

Blog Post 5: Interview a coworker! I chose one of the coworkers, Emily. She has been really nice and helpful since the first day. She has an adorable dog Toffee who comes in almost every day. Here is her interview questions and answers:

Describe your education

I attended two universities, UC Riverside and UC San Diego. I started out in 2008 at UC Riverside studying Studio Art (drawing, painting, sculpture, photography), which I enjoyed, but decided I wanted a narrower focus on photography and digital media. In 2010, I decided to transfer to UC San Diego to be closer to home and to major in their Media Art program. I chose photography as my concentration and graduated in December 2012 with my bachelor's degree and high honors.

What is your overall career path?

My first paying photography jobs were for friends and family, and I learned a lot about what it takes to provide a service to paying customers. I then took a job as a school photographer, and got lots of practice posing and coaching people in front of the camera, especially small children. Beyond my current job, I hope to pursue opportunities in commercial photography, shooting portraits and styled fashion editorials for magazines and online publications.

What is your job description?

I am a lead photographer, which means I shoot jobs as the primary photographer when Bob is not present. I'm also the main editor, and I process thousands of photos per year, and keep track of the editing schedule.

Blog Post 6: During Internship we are given a project that will help us learn more about what are internship does. Since we are learning about photography our project is to create a portfolio showing our progress throughout the next couple of weeks. I have learned a lot about photography and camera's so far. I've learned how new kinds of photos, I learned about the majority of controls on a camera, how to use them and what they are for. I have taken hundreds of photos trying to learn different techniques, and here are a few.

Blog Post 7: Everyone gets along really well. They have their own job titles and their own things to do, but they work together great. The people that work here make sure everything is done in a group effort. Everyone is really nice and open to new ideas, interns, projects, etc. It is kind of like a work family here. My mentor Tara always says she is a mom first, and she is. She has everything you would need, and she worries about you like a mom does. One of the days it was raining and she knew I took the bus, she immediately asked and made sure I was getting a ride home. If not she offered to drive me, she is extremely caring about everyone who walks through the door.

Blog Post 8: I love being an intern here, it's great. I love the creative and positive atmosphere. So far this place is really amazing. Even though I love it it's not something I want to do or study in college. I love photography and will continue learning about it, but I think I want to do something in the medical field. So far I have learned a lot here for the future. I have learned a lot about myself too. I really like this internship because I like that everyday is different, and that is why I can see myself doing well in the medical field. Everyday is a different new adventure. I actually really like studying too, I know it's kind of weird. At Bob Hoffman's they have us researching different lighting and photography techniques. So we know what the photo is supposed to look like and how to do it before we take the photos.

Blog Post 9: So for this one I have to comment on other interns blog posts, and see what is different and similar about our internships. Who I commented on:

Richard ( posted on their blog)

Gayle ( posted on their blog)

Rainee (posted on here because her blog does not allow comments)

The first day she had to observe and watch everyone, and that was similar to my first day here. I mainly watched people make edits. A difference though is that I have been able to get to know the coworkers here and they have all been really nice. I have more direction now and it sounds like you never knew what your project was going to be either.

Blog Post 10: A challenge I have personally here is letting people see the photos that I take. I've never showed anyone any art or photos I have done because I've always been independent. I've always loved the arts but I've never had anyone to share it will so it's all a little new. I have to get used to change sometime.

A challenge that the company has had while I was here... We were setting up at an event and the planners left out that we couldn't set up a camera along the side of the venue. Everyone stayed calm and one of the coworkers called Bob and explained that it was a fire hazard to set it along the side. They ended up figuring out another place to put the camera, but it showed me that you can plan and plan but something is bound to come up. Everyone worked together really nicely, even people who weren't with us. They even helped and were nice to be around.

Blog Post 11: Something I can take away from this internship is being more productive. During school I would just talk and not do anything when I got bored. While I've been here I have started being more productive in other aspects of my life. If I had spare time here which I normally do, I have been doing practice SAT courses and looking at different colleges and summer internships. To try and find something I might want to do in the future.

Blog Post 12: There are a lot of differences between School and Internship. I have some freedom at school but a lot more during internship. We get to go around San Diego and take photos. They treat us like we are just normal coworkers here and it's pretty great. They don't see us as just kids. In some ways they are the same though, we still have a teacher, sort of. We have more freedom with our mentors/teachers here then at school.

Blog Post 13: My project is still the same, we are making a portfolio. We are using different lighting techniques, angles, people, areas, etc. My mentor wants me to be able to compare my old photos and new photos that I learn to take. So far these are the different lighting techniques I have learned. Clam shell, Rembrandt, narrow, and wide

Blog Post 14: The photos above I took at an event called Bridal Bazaar. From the name and the pictures you can assume it was a wedding based event. There were carters, dj's, dress designers, decorators, etc. Above are only a couple of pictures I took, but the event made it very easy for me to get interesting photos because everyone had an all out booth. My favorite booth for decor was in the photo on the top right. I love the taxi cab, and the vintage look of it all. It was a very busy event. Everyone was making sure everything looked right, then the brides and families who were going crazy planning their own weddings.

Blog Post 15: During the last week of our internship we have do do an IPOL. Which is an internship presentation of learning. Our sophomores from our advisory come in to our internship and we tell them about what it's like. Since they are doing internships next year it's to give them an idea of what it's going. I am going to make a small presentation showing the pictures I've taken and explaining what I've done here.

Blog Post 16: Everyone who works here is very nice and they get along very well. They are very much a work family. Everyone can still have fun and be entertaining but be professionals and get there jobs done. Some of them are quiet and not as social, but I can't really make any claims about anyone here because I have only known these people for a couple of weeks.

Blog Post 17: Internship has made me think a lot about college actually. I have figured out I want to do something that is a little more secured then photography. Photography is extremely risky because you're creating something that someone else is thinking of in their head. I've actually been looking into medical internships for the summer and thinking about going into pre med programs. I'm not sure what I want to do but I am hoping that another internship with help.

Blog Post 18: I am extremely thankful for even having this opportunity because not a lot of schools do this program. I have gotten a real life experience and actually been treated like an adult. We get to know what the work world will be like even when we are still in high school.

Blog Post 19: I am defiantly going to do another internship because I want to find something I really love doing and might pursue in the future. I found a couple of summer medical programs that look interesting.

Blog Post 20: Advice I would give to future interns is to start researching early. When everyone is looking for internships and you have your exhibition to be planning for it gets pretty hectic and stressful. You're worried about your final grades and it can be hard to spread your time across to everything you have to do.

Blog Post 21: My internship project went pretty well I think. The other intern and I didn't get really clear instructions about what our project was. We learned about photography and we created folders of our growth from the beginning of this month to today and we'll keep adding till the last day we are here. '

Blog Post 22: It's the last day! I'm actually sad to go, everyone has been so welcoming and great to be around. This has been a great experience overall and as made me want to do more internships in the future. Before leaving we have to do an IPOL, and mine was actually fun. I recreated a couple of the photos with my advisory. My advisory and adviser mainly asked questions about what it was like here, what kind of cameras we used, and what my typical days were like.

(Tara wanted me to take a selfie so we could compare it to a head shot we'll take later)