Internship: Charleston Magazine

food photography for Charleston Magazine

This past summer I interned with Charleston Magazine, a local publication whose publisher also produces WNC (Western North Carolina) magazine, Charleston Weddings magazine, House Calls magazine, and Grand Strand magazine. I was in the art department where there were design interns, photo interns, and some that did both. It was a tremendous growing opportunity for me as I learned proper etiquette for photo shoots and how to interact with a person that you are photographing for the magazine, and how to be professional at shoots while still being nice. One of the first things that surprised me when I was learning about the production process of the magazines was that you work on the publication for the month of May for example, in March and it has to be shipped by the end of March to have time to be shipped, printed, sent back, and distributed to all the stores by the 1st of May. Although I came into my internship having little to no experience with photoshop and indesign, I came out of it being so much more proficient in these programs it was unreal, which was extremely helpful. I appreciated how my bosses put our learning above everything else because the way they see it we are there to learn as much as possible in the short three months. Therefore, they pushed us to do things we might not normally do such as shooting the 10 or 12 products for the Love It! section all by myself and setting up the studio lights by myself, and also eventually going on photo shoots by ourselves.

Alice Wannamaker