Christine Chang Photography

www.smdp.com

Today I got hired as an photojournalism intern for the Santa Monica Daily Press.  The staff feels like a small family.  SMDP isn’t exactly corporate and big like the Los Angeles Times, but this is what I am liking so far; it’s a friendly environment and everyone seems very supportive and it’s that “we’re a small community paper” feeling that’s attracting me there.  I met up with the editor and the owner of the paper also, and they both seem like they’ll be fun to work for.  It also looks like they’re ready to give me a ton of freedom with regards to covering the news via pictures, so I am really looking forward to this internship.  I’m getting the feeling that they really believe in me, and so likewise I believe that I can really make a difference and give my best effort to this newspaper also.

I applied for alot of photojournalism internships, including those as far as Merced and Sacramento.  I am still a bit weary about going so far for a longer period of time because I have commitments here, but I thought I’d try anyway.  I’m really glad that for now I will be around where I live because it’ll be good exploring my surroundings and besides, Santa Monica has alot of stories that I would like to tell through pictures.  It’s a daily paper, which means five weekday editions and a weekend one, so this will give me a taste of working with daily deadlines.