Students learn by teaching
by Tommy O'Laughlin
From Collegeville to Concordia and Saint Cloud to Saint Paul, this student position has Bennies and Johnnies all over the map.
As the play begins, 18-year-old Carina Ezell, hunkered down on the sidelines, doesn’t take her eye off the football for even a fleeting moment. The pass is complete. The sound of Ezell’s camera rings with every single actuation. All of the players charge. The shutter sings at an impossibly fast 10 frames per second. Both brooding teams surge directly for her. She holds fast. In a display of primal bedlam, the enormous jersey-clad men explode out of bounds onto the sidelines, causing an undulation of surrender from the nearby crowds. Ezell clings to her camera and leaps back to safety just in time.
“I didn’t get the shot.”
Ezell, a first year at CSB, says her new position as a sports and events photography intern for SJU Institutional Advancement is “pretty much a polar opposite” from both her current and previous employment. “It’s definitely not a desk job.”
This new photographer says she’s been shooting at a serious level for two years now. “I got my camera for my 16th birthday . . . that’s when I got my first nice camera.”
Ezell is one of three tireless student photographers who cover SJU athletics in addition to many other various events. It is a requirement for the students to travel with the football team and cover every Saturday game.
Lori Gnahn, assistant director of Advanced Marketing/Communication Design, works full time as graphic designer, director and student supervisor within the department. Gnahn directly supervises Ezell in addition to the other two other student photographers. But that supervision rarely extends into the field, says 20-year-old junior Evan Gruenes, a photographer at Institutional Advancement.
“I just made a big decision to not hire another [student] graphic designer, to take on that work myself.” says Gnahn
While Gnahn says she feels good about her decision, she describes her even busier schedule as another barrier between her interactions with the photographers. “As students they should have someone who is mentoring them.”
The requirement for student photographers to independently train in new interns on behalf of their own initiative produces an interesting dynamic within the department.
“It’s very independent,” says Gruenes. “You do a lot of work on your own.”
With just three student photographers available to cover every athletic event, he admits it can be quite an undertaking. “Your boss is on you to do this, this and this—you have to meet those deadlines . . . and there’s those moments [at football games] when you’re running to catch an important play and drunk Bennies scream at you ‘Take my picture, bitch!!’”
However, though stressful at times, he agrees with the structure. “I think it’s great, though. I think if we had more than three it would be excessive. We wouldn’t have enough equipment to go around.”
Gruenes has been a photographer with Institutional Advancement for just under a year and says much of the actual shooting is supervised and carried out by students and students alone. When a new intern is hired, it is the responsibility of the senior student photographers to show the new interns the ropes. “I often times think, what would [those who trained me] do in this situation?”
Though the responsibility seems to have its rewards. “It’s a very unique opportunity to have an intern under you . . . It puts a lot of pressure on you, in that it’s a position of leadership,” Gruenes said.
“[Ezell] is in the same spot I was . . . the roles are reversed and that’s pretty interesting, you know? It helps you learn by teaching.”
Taught by students and run by students, this little known niche in Institutional Advancement carries a sense of unique and strong tradition. Gruenes says he definitely has shoes to fill, and someday Ezell might too.
“It has creativity no other job has,” says Gruenes. ”Some other jobs have you filing papers . . . this is the best job I’ve ever had. I love it.”
Ezell agrees. “This is something I love.” “It was less demanding [than expected] actually, which surprised me.” She says that with two other trained photographers by her side, her quintessential performance is not as imperative, which keeps the job less stressful.
“It’s going to get there, but not yet.”
