Week 1: April 11-15
Total: 33 hours and 10 minutes
April 11: Day One
9:30 am- 4:30 pm: 7 hrs
My first day at Aerial Innovations was quite an adventure. I was first introduced to the owner Colette and photographer Julie. Julie took me up to her office and explained to me a little bit about how things worked. There are several photographers who go on scheduled flights each month in a rotation. Julie had the most recent shoot on Friday, April 8th. So, today the office was responsible for the production of the images she took that day. I watched and learned how to label the images and saw the client’s order process.
The company was short on staff today due to one person being on vacation, another attending a funeral, and the other on a flight. After rotating vertical images to the correct orientation, they needed me to do what they call “color correcting.” I was shown their way of the process on Photoshop Elements and then performed the process on half of the images. Next, Amanda taught me how to burn and label CDs and then we completed the task. I was then taught how to print shipping labels, and learned a little about the sales department. I went to the print lab with Julie to pick up the prints that were edited earlier. Some clients request prints in addition to a CD, while others request images through email. Most of their work comes from construction projects, but they also shoot real estate and businesses. The most difficult thing today was keeping up with everything I was told. I learned a lot of new things in one day and it was overwhelming at first.
April 12: Day Two
10:00 am- 4:45 pm: 6 hrs 45 min
Today I walked in and Colette said she had an activity for us to do. She wanted me to practice my handshake because it was too weak. She told me to build my confidence and learn projection. I called Jenny to see what day I will be meeting her in Orlando to work with her. We decided on Wednesday, April 20th.
My first task for the day was placing copyright labels on the back of all of the prints. After all are labeled, they are sorted and placed in an envelope with is labeled with the project title, date shot, how many views, and size and number or prints. When I finished doing that I began to work with Stephanie who works in the sales department. She showed me some useful tools on Google that they use for creating what they call “Approvals.” Then I helped the company set up a Twitter account. The Tennessee branch of Aerial Innovations got a Twitter and suggested that the Florida and Georgia branches get one too. Stephanie and I together worked on getting things set up with it and finding some clients to follow.
I then worked on getting all orders of the day packaged with shipping labels and ready for UPS to pick up. Jason taught me how to order prints from one of the photo labs. The last thing I did was place more copyright labels on prints.
April 13: Day Three
8:30 am- 3:50 pm: 7 hrs 20 min
Today I had to leave at 7:35 am to meet Jason at the Tampa Bay History Center. Colette wanted me to shadow him at a press conference taking place there. I was nervous about this because it was a very new experience for me. Jason had a Nikon D200 with a Speedlight SB 800 ready and set up for me to use. The conference started at 9:00 am and lasted 30 minutes. I focused on photographing the speakers, the handshakes, and the audience reactions. It was not as scary as I had expected because there was only about 20 people there and it was outdoors. We then went back to the office and did work there. He taught me how to send picture files to a client’s FTP.
The rest of the day I was assigned to go through all of the flight books and search for each client on Twitter. Stephanie and I spent the entire day searching for people to follow that relate to the company. It was a long, time consuming process, but very necessary for marketing Aerial Innovations.
April 14: Day Four
9:30 am- 3:35 pm: 6 hrs 5 min
Today, Laura returned from vacation so I met her. I spent some time locating some buildings for her on Google maps. I also worked on their Twitter and Facebook. I attempted to link the two so that they could update them at the same time. For some reason it was not working so I will continue to work on this on Monday. They didn’t have much for me to do because the sales department was running slow and there wasn’t anything to work on in production.
At 2:15, Colette drove me to Peter O Knight airport for my helicopter ride. Julie was returning from her shoot so her pilot took me up for a ride. They showed me which settings to have my camera on before going up. Flying was the coolest thing I have ever done! The pilot, Brian, is 24 years old and he has one of the tiny helicopters that looks like a dragonfly. He flew me around downtown Tampa and a yacht club near the airport. It was a short ride, but it was so much fun! Shooting out of a speeding helicopter is not the easiest thing. It was very windy and I had to make sure I kept the horizon straight since the helicopter was constantly moving. After returning to the office they looked at my photos and critiqued them. They liked a lot of them and said I had some classic shots. The things I did wrong were shooting too wide causing distortion, and I had the camera on spot metering causing a few photos to be overexposed.
April 15: Day Five
8:45 am- 2:45 pm: 6 hrs
Today I had to be at the office earlier than usual to meet Julie. We had to go to Shorecrest Preparatory School to tell a 2nd grade class about Aerial Innovations. Before we left she had me look through their giant prints in the back so we could take some for the kids. Julie had a presentation prepared to tell about her 23 years of experience with the business. It was nice getting to be there because I got to hear more about the company and see a lot of the photos they have taken over the years. After her presentation we helped the kids take pictures of each other with a DSLR.
On the way back to the office we drove by some houses because Julie is looking for a new place to live. It was another slow day at the office so I had a lot of free time. After burning CD’s for clients, Julie had me transfer images of myself in the helicopter to my flash drive. She said I could look through their archive photos and take some to show everyone. I did this until prints were back from the lab. I helped Amanda place copyright stickers on the back and bag them up for shipment. Then, Julie had me flip images to the correct orientation and rename them to match previous images of the same location. This wasn’t very easy because the images were of road construction. The only way I could tell the pictures were of the same area was because of the buildings or bodies of water along the roadway. Since there wasn’t work for me to do and it was Friday, I was sent home early.
Week 2: April 18-22
Total: 36 hours 40 minutes
April 18: Day Six
10:00 am -3:45 pm: 5 hrs 45 min
Today I spent most of the day finding pictures from February 2009- March 2011 of a specific section of a road. They were required to assist in a client’s potential lawsuit so it was an important task. It was a very time consuming job because I had to locate the photos, change them to their correct orientation, make proof sheets, and save them into a new folder. I was unable to locate five months worth. I told Julie about the problem and she tried to search too. She was unable to find them so I then had to look through filed invoices. These proved that the photos had been taken and revealed the exact date they were shot. Jason was able to locate the files; they had been named incorrectly. I continued the job and then let me go home.
April 19: Day Seven
10:00 am- 4:00 pm: 6 hrs
Today was another slow day. Julie asked me if I could archive all of their photos from this month. She quickly showed me what to do and I got to work. I had to create folders for each shoot and drag them into the archive folder. This was a couple hours worth of work. Then hundreds of prints came back from the lab and I placed copyright stickers on the back of each one and then bagged them for shipping. I spent the rest of the day with Stephanie. I got the Twitter/Facebook link to work. We planned out where I would go for photos tomorrow.
April 20: Day Eight
7:45 am- 5:20 pm: 9 hrs 35 min
Today I had to go to Orlando to spend a day with Jenny Smith from the sales department. She works out of her home because her territory consists of Orlando and other surrounding areas. We drove around to clients and locations to try and encourage their business. I learned that Jenny has to do some investigating to locate the general contractor or whomever she is trying to find. Out of five people, we only spoke with two. Others were hard to locate, and one had jut lost his job. I got to use my new firm handshake and friendly personality when meeting these clients. It is important to keep a good and trusting relationship with your clients and find ways to help them remember you and be loyal to you. One client said he was so glad she came by so that they could review the progress photos they had been doing. He decided he now wanted photos twice a month instead of just once and he showed her exactly how he wanted his building documented. This really showed me how important it is to keep stopping in and checking on your clients even if it’s just a few minutes. Next, we went to her house so that I could help her change her email template. It was something I was unfamiliar with, but I did not give up until I solved the issue. She was very grateful for my help and I was glad I was able to figure out the solution.
April 21: Day Nine
6:50 am- 3:45 pm: 8 hrs 25 min
Since most people were gone from the office today and they would not have any work for me to do, they sent me on a day of shooting. Colette and Stephanie came up with some places for me to go to and photograph. Some of these locations included the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Caspersens Beach, Tarpon Springs, and Ybor City. I spent the day driving around with my family taking pictures and enjoying the state of Florida.
April 22: Day Ten
9:35 am -4:00 pm: 6 hrs 25 min
Today was my last day. Everyone in the office had their own tasks that they did not need help with so Colette decided I could scan in color slide film. She began to go through her slides and pick out ones she wanted me to scan. She was picking ones to put on their Zenfolio site of beaches, abstracts, and clouds. Since I wasn’t sure how to scan the slides and no one else there did either, she had me call Paul from the print lab. He came over and tried to teach me but it was not working. He took the slides to the lab to scan them there.
Amanda had me file old negatives among a wall full of boxes, which are full of negatives. It was really cool to see how the system works with film; it is so different than digital. Without an organized system it would be impossible to locate a piece of film, but when a digital file is lost it can sometimes be found through a search. After that I searched for companies on Twitter and Facebook and updated both. The company decided to order in from Gourmet Pizza since it was my last day and their favorite restaurant; we all enjoyed lunch together. After lunch Colette wanted me to go through archive photos to find pictures for Zenfolio. Then, Steven showed me how to use Zenfolio and Emma. I searched for interesting photos from the month of April for them to use in their May newsletter and renamed files from the Shorecrest Prep School visit.
It was then time for me to go. I was sad to say good-bye. I have learned so much from everyone there and feel like my time with all of them was too short. I will always keep them in my heart. I believe the most important thing I have learned is how to have confidence in myself and make an impression on people.
Overall Total Hours: 69 hrs 50 min
