Week 2

Starting this week I worked a Wednesday - Friday schedule.

This week was the week of making digital portfolios for the iPad. I was given about seven print books, and was supposed to find the images in the photographers' folders on the server and make spreads/resize the spreads for digital viewing.

Considering I'm not particularly familiar with the portfolios or how anything is organized in these folders, I definitely started out pretty slowly. The only way to really learn the work was essentially to go through every folder within folder within folder and just look. Time consuming? Yes. I spent the better time of the three days at work doing this, but I finally finished the resizing of Graham's book exactly at 1:59PM just time to get out of work at 2PM. (granted, I totally skipped lunch..) Knowing photoshop/bridge like the back of my hand definitely makes the entire process faster - browsing through folders was swift, and the actions I made for resizing and saving saved hours of tedious work. In the end though, I'm glad to have done it, cause now i know the work of the photographers that I admire so much at Utopia.

Something I realized when I went to Le Book last week was that the books that we showed were very streamlined and built by the agency. I was actually surprised to see how hands on our agency really is with the talents' work. We take care of the printing, sequencing, and building of all the of the books whereas I know some other agencies have the photographers do all of that. I even did processing matching for ~70 selects to send to clients (again, thank god for actions).

Anyways - although most of my time was spent in front of a computer this week, my boss makes it a point that I get to be a part of as many aspects of the agency as possible, so for the last four hours of Thursday, I got to help out at my very first casting. The casting was for a campaign that Lisa Loftus is shooting (got to sit in with her, her assistant, and my boss for the casting). It was interesting to see how we interact with the models, I feel like it was 50/50 looks and personality when decisions were being made. My boss told me that she always tends to look for movement and versatility in the books and as much personality as possible. makes sense.

Besides work, I went to my very first laundromat a couple of hours ago, and I've realized that EVERY sunday i've been here, there seems to be some sort of Puerto Rican festival. interesting.

Le Book

So my first few days at work, and I'm helping the agency get ready for Le Book - what an intense way to begin my internship! The first day began with some cropping and printing of photos for the books that needed to be put together...but I also got to help style (by that I mean, my boss told me what went together and I dressed the model until my boss got back...but thats besides the point) a test shoot for a couple of hours, which was exciting - for sure. The rest of the day was more printing and some color matching. The office atmosphere is great - even in high stress situations, everyone is still upbeat and working their hardest. Tuesday was spent mostly sequencing/screwing together books for Le Book - it was interesting to see agents know their talent's work amazingly well and make those decisions as to where to put the images and what to throw out...in record time. At RIT I'm pretty sure it takes us most of the week to do that. ..anyways. Once all the books and promos were packed in the car, ready for tomorrow morning, we finally took a breather for the last half an hour of the day, organizing tear sheets.

Wednesday was the first day of Le Book - however it was the other interns turn to go whereas I would going on Thursday. So in the quiet office, I spent most of the day doing research and finding contact information for the agency. For once I learned google can only take you so far, as I had to end up calling most of the contacts to get emails. A slow day, but much appreciated from the two days before. After work, I went to visit Alex at Fordham and had some deliciously filling Chinese food - time seems to fly so much faster in NYC because before I knew it it was close to 11PM and I needed to head home.

Side note: trains take FOREVER later at night...it took Jocie and I closer to two hours coming home from Hoboken when we celebrated Amy's birthday on Monday.

I was very excited for Thursday. I got to go to Le Book. The morning was slow, and I mostly looked around at all the other vendors. I left for lunch, then came back around 4PM and the entire place seemed to have transformed. The amount of hustle and bustle increased ten fold, and everyone in the agency seemed to know everyone and their mother jsut through email correspondences. Our goal was really to catch new clients, including art directors, art buyers, ad agencies, etc so they wuld use our talent in future projects. I became quite swift at sneaking a peek at badges to determine who I should excitedly approach and lure closer to our booth. The event was definitely overwhelming to say the least, I don't know HOW the people at each Agency could keep such an extensive rolodex of people stuffed in their brains...I guess that's a whole part of the industry that ;you just pick up. Finally around 8:30 everything got packed and I went home.

more later

...

it is 12:42AM



i am about to fall asleep.




tomorrow..

The Life of a NYC Pro?

Our simple mission to pick up a steamer/notebooks/various hygienic supplies became a very long day of running up and down avenues in Manhattan today.

However - last night I ate at a Diner around Flatbush for dinner with Clint. I think the photo will speak for itself:
HUGE. BURGERS. Clint & I both ended up getting burgers although there was definitely a vast selection of your diner foods. Waitress and hostess were both sweet and on top of everything =)

Fast forward to today:

Like I said - Jocie & I were on a mission.

We left for lunch around 10:30AM towards Manhattan and ended up at Curly's Vegetarian Lynch @ 328 E 14th St. This was my very first all vegetarian restaurant experience (with the option of making ANYthing on the menu vegan). This is a perfect place to take a couple of girlfriends for a nice relaxing lunch. I'd heard complaints about slow/rude service, but our waitress was nice, and got us what we needed is timely manner. Food also showed up in like 10 - 15 minutes! Photos + the food we got is below:

Huevos Rancheros & Gravy Fries (from their weekend Brunch menu)

Buffalo Blue Burger with Fries (and lemonade!)

Crayons for drawing - right side of Curly's is covered with customer drawings

Atmosphere

after we left Curly's we walked back towards Broadway to find a Bed Bath & Beyond...however...

we got sidetracked.

first at the Apple Store:

Then at Magnolia Bakery...

...we got Key Lime Cheesecake & Caramel Cupcake! yum.

But finally, we found what we needed and found a huuuugeeee BB&B - complete with a CVS-like section...with super cheap prices. Perfect!

Now all we needed was to buy our planners/notebooks. Apparently Duane Reade and Art Stores suck at having good planners (non-academic) ... so eventually we went to a Staples and got perfectly sized planners for our busy schedule this summer!

...tired, we take the M all the way back to Flushing Ave...and arrive to:

Apparently, Brooklyn's Annual Puerto Rican Parade.

First Things First

The very most important thing that needs to be discussed here is the sheer amounts of foods we will be trying. I've been on a sugar spree - so from the Best Thing I Ever Ate list - we have:

A Salt & Battery - Various Fried Candy Bards

Levain Bakery - Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory - Butter Pecan Ice Cream

Cake Man Raven - Red Velvet Cake

Still going with my sweet tooth, I want to visit Juniors & Magnolia Bakery. I've been to both many times before, but I need to bring the girls with me to share the experience!

Instead of food, we've decided we want to go to as many of the free concerts for Good Morning America at Central Park as possible. I died a little inside when I realized Gaga has already performed last week - then another piece of me went six feet under when I was going to miss Beyonce because of a planned trip home to D.C.

but ANYWAYS

Jennifer Hudson

Florence & The Machine

Goo Goo Dolls

Nicki Minaj

these four WILL be seen. no excuses.

yes, I have work those days, but I should be able to catch at least an hour of each concert <3

more adventures to come

Carol