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Travel Journal Photos |
Hooked up by the Washington Post Company Right now, I'm writing from an internet cafe in the heart of Times Square. According to the posters around me, Broadway appears to be literally shooting from the hip. Among the choices for legitimate theatre are The Vagina Monologues, Urinetown and Debbie Does Dallas the Musical. They offer high brow alternatives to the few remaining sex shops that have resisted the Disney-ification of Times Square. Today, I got the biggest hookup from the Washington Post Company since Washington Post staff photographer Carol Guzy gave me her private e-mail address. (Carol has three Pulitzer Prizes, a Sprague Award, photojournalism's highest honor and can bring a room full of professional photogs to tears with her images showing humanity's peak moments from the past 15 years.) However, today's hookup wasn't with their flagship newspaper. It was with their magazine division, which is based in NYC. They publish Newsweek, which is where I started my morning. I met one of their graphics people a year ago at a press convention and gave him a heads up that I was coming into town. The grand tour of their facilities was actually a little unsettling, since they had thinned their office a year ago and had many empty desks. I spent TWO HOURS at their office--and I'm still not done with them! When I showed the graphics guy my photojournalism portfolio, he was so excited that he immediately walked me to the deputy photo editor's office. I didn't get to talk to him directly, he was busy at the time, but I left my portfolio. I heard he might be able to hook me up with a summer photo internship. I'm going to try to catch him tomorrow for a brief audience. I did get to meet an art director who had once attended the same Poynter Institute Visual Journalism Fellowship that I will be at this June and July. Through Newsweek, I got an even bigger hookup with their sister magazine across town: Frommer's Budget Travel. The graphics guy at Newsweek, in addition to a senior Newsweek Art Director, loved my hosteling photos from last summer. They placed a call to the photo editor at Frommer's Budget Travel and made me an a afternoon appointment. While Frommers, I caught a brief glimpse of travel oracle Arthur Frommer himself. Their photo editor loved my travel photos and my website. She called up the associate photo editor and insisted that we set up a meeting--which I have for Friday. She's also eager to see what I can do to get started contributing to the magazine. They have a few regular areas which she thinks I could submit pictures. One interesting note, when I showed her a picture of the Chain Link Bridge in Budapest at sunset, she thought it was the Brooklyn Bridge at first. Budapest always reminds me of New York City, the way the Danube splits it, Buda feels like Brooklyn and Pest feels like Manhattan. The bridges in Budapest resemble those across the East River; City Park feels like Central Park. After Frommer's, I headed to my interview for a year long internship in London and my original reason to visit NYC. ALthough the internship is usually March to March, should I be accepted, they said I could defer to September, so I could also attend the Poynter Fellowship. Tomorrow, I will be shaddowing David Handschuh,a staff photographer at the New York Daily News. David hooked me up with my large international legal team three years ago when ELPD decided it needed my riot negatives more than I did. He also sent one of my reference letters for the Poynter Fellowship. best from NYC, P.S. I've recently found out that for the right amount of money, you can franchise some American magazines like Rolling Stone or Newsweek. In fact, the Polish edition of Newsweek has more ambitious design than its American parent--despite having only a two person design team. I've thought it would be interesting to do an internship with the German edition of Rolling Stone. When I spoke one of their photo editors this summer, she insisted that I have and use her direct line. I think I could add a little to them, particularly after Poynter, because their design and editing seems to lack the confidence of its American parent. P.P.S. If I had more money, it would be fun to start up a Dutch edition of Rolling Stone. Or a Swedish one. Or both. Or others. P.P.P.S. The internet cafe I'm typing this at doesn't have a very secure computer system. I was able to type out my complete journal without using a minute of access time by writing it in Wordpad and then pasting it into internet explorer. Note: I later got a rejection letter from the London internship people. They were the original reason for my trip into NYC. |
