This marked the beginning of my eleventh week here at the Patriot-News, and in some ways, the time has gone quickly, and in others, it seems like I have been here for years.

The biggest thing that I improved here was my technical skills, such as, learning how to make even a dark cave of a room look decent on A1. I used flash all the time, and learned how to get by without the cage. (I had to provide all my own gear, as I shoot Nikon, and the paper's pool gear was Canon) I had to edit and tone well, quickly, and there was no room for BS.

At this point, I feel like I have grown enough that I can provide at least three decent photos, and one "good" photo for every assignment that I shoot. I hope this will change to three good photos and one awesome photo, as I continue into my next internship.

The internship was truly one where I had a lot of independence- I got my shoots everyday and had to plan when I was going to edit/find standalones/do story research/get lunch/talk with my editor. There was no handholding even from the first day. I had to ask around on how to connect to the network, caption, and upload photos. It was terrifying at first, not knowing if I was doing anything right (I did mess up more than a few times at the beginning), but this independence grew into a norm that I'm afraid will be hard to grow out of once I get back to school.

I photographed a semblance of a story while I was here, but access was my biggest issue from it becoming a full-fledged portfolio story. I think that was my biggest disappointment here, the fact that I had a story idea, a subject, and was in the middle of it, but several factors kept it from becoming anywhere near finished. This is my goal for Vermont- to come out with at least one well-rounded story that I am more than moderately pleased with. The stories are out there, I just need to push myself and find something that hasn't been done by the paper before.

As for exploring the area, I think I did a pretty darn good job- put approx 8,000 miles on my car, mostly with assignments and trips to Jeff's and the ocean, but between this all, I found my alltime favorite bookstore (midtown books- whole wall of photo books), favorite vintage store (atomic warehouse), an incredible view, 5 minutes away from my house (a view of the valley from the appalachian trail), and got to ride on a pretty sweet ferry.

Goals for the end of the summer:

-Polo Match on Saturday
-Dog Show on Sunday
-Party Island on Sunday
-Roller Derby on the 28th
-Laser Tag with Ann
-Drive by 3 Mile Island

Favorite Assignments

-Going to Party Island on the Pontoon Boat
-Creation Music Festival
-The Family with Two Mothers
-Carlisle Truck Show
-The Last Ferry on the Susquehanna
-Dirt Track Races