Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Next stop: The Windy City

Things have been falling into place lately and this week was no different. Monday morning I got a call that I've been waiting for from Shaun Sartin at The Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Illinois. It's official, I'm the new photo intern due to start a six month internship in mid-January.

After coming close to getting another six month internship at The Advocate in Baton Rouge last week I felt the pressure as I waited to hear from The Northwest Herald. I knew that I made the finals there and had a phone interview last week but I couldn't do anything but wait to see what happened. Although in the back of my mind I think my heart was set on going to a big city paper, at this point I didn't care where I went as long as I wasn't trying to "freelance" out of my parents basement. Don't get me wrong I love my mother but if I have to hear another one of her "stay home and freelance" ideas I think I'll drive myself crazy. I had sent out a total of nine applications for winter internships and the thought of batting .000 like I did with summer applications wasn't something that I wanted to deal with.

The more and more I think about it the more excited I get about moving to Crystal Lake. Despite the unwelcoming cold and windy conditions that I'm about to ensue I probably couldn't have picked a better place to go. I have a TON of friends in the Chicago area and I'm really excited to move somewhere different but with a group of people I know will be more than willing to show me a good time. One friend in particular, Kelly Anne, lives only about 20 minutes from where I'll be living so it will be great to have a good friend close. 

Chicago is about an hour away, so I'm told, but I will be visiting as often as possible, on assignment or not. Being such a huge sports nut will make watching and shooting the Bulls, Cubs, Sox, Blackhawks, Fire and others a blast. I've been blessed to live in such a sports saturated market such as Denver my whole life and moving to another one really puts a cherry on top.

The way I see it this is just another stop along the way to doing what I love full-time. The staff at The Northwest Herald has some young, great shooters that I am anxious to mix it up with. I want to push myself and the limits of my portfolio and I think that I will be able to do that in Crystal Lake. 

I still have a month and a half left here in the Springs and I want to take full advantage of the opportunity before I move on. Mark helped point out some things that I still need to improve upon and I'm going to make sure that I work on them the next 6 weeks.

Back to the grind in the AM...

-JCE

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