Little Rock, Ark. was more of a whirlwind than I expected. My internship was amazing and I got photograph a lot of stories that I am proud of. One of my goals going into this internship was to create a product that I was proud of, and I did just that.

After photographing a Human Rights Campaign press conference, I was contacted by Kristen Hare at Poynter. Poynter is looked up to by many journalism education professionals and has always been a resource that the professors at Ball State have encouraged us to use. Kristen asked me if I wanted to write this story she had an idea for. She described the story to me over the phone: writing a personal narrative about Taylor Ellis’s bio in the yearbook being censored and my coming out story being published in my senior yearbook. I was pleased by the opportunity and was excited to get started writing.  Now, being a photographer, I told her that I was not the strongest writer. To which she said, “I’ve read your blog and you have a very clear voice which will be perfect for this.” Encouraged, I wrote my story after some editing it was posted on the website.

For the most part, the reception was good. Many people found strong take-aways from my story. Some said it was misguided, but I guess that’s the subjective part of blog writing. I was proud of the work I did and no one sitting behind a keyboard can take that away from me.

In the final days of my internship, I had a photo that was made into the cover and I photographed for the kids magazine that the Arkansas Times owns, Savvy Kids. It was a great experience to be able to work for two different publications and turn out work that people around the office were taking notice of. I cannot believe it’s over and that I have now graduated. In just a few weeks, I will be heading out to Sacramento for eight weeks while JP does his internship. Excited to start this new chapter in my life.