Placement year and the impact of lockdown.
Hello everyone, welcome to my first blog post. In this post I will be discussing my placement year, what I've learnt from the experience and how lockdown had impacted my internships.
"Overall my placement year was a valuable experience that gave me the relevant skills for employability."
Placements
My first placement was at a makeover photography studio which concentrated on clients that were not models (members of the public), so this meant the photographers had to direct and pose them. I started off by retouching client photos using a graphics tablet which was something that I hadn't done before and was a big learning curve for me, however I picked this up really quickly and now I much prefer retouching photos with one for ease and speed. It took a while to work up to actually photographing the clients but once I had, I learnt how to pose them with the routine that was required. Overall I think this was a valuable experience, despite struggling with certain issues.
My second placement was at an e-commerce studio specialising in some small designer brands as the shop was an independent business. I worked with models from an agency so they had experience in front of the camera which meant that they knew how to pose and didn't need to direct them as much. I learnt about workflow and folder organisation, e-commerce shooting, working with models, and how a photography studio works and runs in the industry. I enjoyed shooting full outfit photos with models as they were always the most fun to shoot and it meant that I was constantly busy and shooting.
Overall my placement year was a valuable experience that gave me the relevant skills for
employability.
Lockdown meant that I wasn't able to fully complete either placement or return afterwards, however I had still done 9 months worth of work so I still had enough knowledge and experience to progress.
