Internship My internship was at Verbena Vision Photography, which is located at Miami. The business specializes in wedding photography, catering mainly to Chinese clients. I met with Jia Song, the owner, when I first arrived. Her company is primarily about the Chinese wedding photo business. Chinese couples, when they are getting married, like to do wedding photo shoots at exotic locations. Miami is one such location, and that is why the business started. Mrs. Song explained a little bit about her business, and that she wants branch out a bit in the future, doing things like graduation videos.

There are eight people who work in the office, and I was able to meet all of them, though it took a short while before I remembered everybody's names . My job for this internship was to assist with the photoshoots. I was an assistant to the chief photographer, and in this capacity went to a number of shooting locations. These include different apartments that are rented short-term and then used to stage photo shoots.

In the early part of the internship, I worked in different divisions of the firm so that I could learn more about the photography business. I spent four days shooting in the early going. I would then take the photographs, edit them, and work on the selection process. They asked me to do Photoshop, but I was not very good at that. I learned early on in this experience how hard it is to create that perfect photo that people want for their wedding.

I spent some time in marketing. For example, there was a pageant that was hosted by several Chinese companies in San Francisco, and I was able to participate in the negotiations with the W hotel manager. I worked on a few other projects as well, including making advertisements and social media posts that were subsequently posted onto Facebook, Weibo and WeChat.

The pageant project was something that continued for a few weeks. In this project I was working with a company called MKT UP, and we set up in the W hotel, which is the hotel where I had been negotiating earlier. We spent two days doing the set-up, and then we started shooting. There were judges who were making decisions, which was an interesting experience. Throughout most of this I was working on the assistant to the photographer.

I continued to work in marketing, but with the pageant project done, there were other projects that needed to be handled. My boss, Mrs. Jia,, had me take a trip to New York City, to negotiate with the manager of Ctrip, which is a company that runs tour packages to Miami on weekends. The idea was that Ctrip would develop packages for newly-married couples to fly down and we felt that there was opportunity to get them to include our wedding photography in their business. The fact that wedding photos are a popular thing with Chinese couples made this a reasonable business model.

The experience of working on that negotiation was different, because it was really my first business trip. So for me, it made me nervous but I wanted to seem as professional as possible. As such, it was a great experience, and I was able to make some positive contributions to the effort to land this deal. I learned a lot about the business development side from this experience, too, because that it something that requires a high level of professionalism, preparation, but also creative thinking to come up with some good ideas.

Mrs. Jia kept me in marketing, which was contrary to our original plans. But she felt that I had demonstrated good communication skills, and in particular good writing skills. I had done well in the negotiation in New York. I was put to work on the pitch to Ctrip. This task included writing articles, and putting together some visuals to highlight to their customers that Miami was a great destination, especially for newly married couples. The client wanted a project custom-made for them, and a lot of that came to me.

Towards the end of my internship, I went back to assisting the chief photographer. I had the opportunity to tour a lot of the places in Miami, to see how beautiful it is. I had the opportunity to see the Deering Estate, Fairchild Tropical Gardens, Bonnet House and Museum, Matheson...

It was a fantastic experience.
One of the things that stands out is how this experience helped me to fulfill a goal of being in the fashion world. I had always wanted to be that world, since I was little. By being able to work on photo shoots, and to negotiate deals in this industry, I feel that the internship provided me with an excellent opportunity to fulfill those childhood dreams.

The experience of working at a company like this was quite positive. IN the course of the internship I was able to get good experience and build relationships with some of the people, including Mrs. Jia, and the chief photographer. Being able to spend time with those people, who are quite successful in the industry, was enlightening for me, just to see how they worked, and to absorb some of the knowledge that they have with respect to this industry.

Taking business trips was quite cool. I felt like this was an important part of what I wanted to do, to gain that kind of experience where I would be able to travel to different place, see them, and also be able to get work done on the trips as well. This was a valuable experience, in particular because it allowed me to feel more professional with respect to how I presented myself. I found the experience was kind of empowering overall.

I also feel that the experience of working on the shoots was great for me. It was really good ot see just how much work goes to preparing for things like a fashion shoot. It takes time, and there is a lot of effort that goes into design, into all the prep work, and that final show is just a tiny portion of what must be done. That was a fun aspect for me, to see how that works first hand, how the photographer can take an ordinary setting, and transform it into something truly special and unique.

I would take away from this experience the fact that I have a higher level of appreciation for what people do, how hard they work, and what it takes to be a professional. There is an entire team that works on this one business, just wedding photography for Chinese clients. It seems like a simply business but there are a lot of people working on it, each with a specialization, and it all comes together for an excellent product. The reality is that wedding photos are one of the most glamorous things for Chinese people, so I was very interested in this job. As such, I am grateful to have had some exposure to this business. It was a special thing to be a part of.

My bosses and co-workers were all pretty easy to get along with. For the most part, they helped me, in terms of letting me know what things I could do better, and just teaching me the basic skills of how things work. I genuinely appreciated getting to know these people, and found that I learned a lot of things from them. I still talk to a couple of them, and it is helping me to learn and to become better.

Seeing Miami was another something that I appreciated, as I had the opportunity to take in a lot of the sites of that city. It has a different culture, and it does make for a great wedding photo location, so I am happy to have had that experience. To me, this was a real highlight and I am glad to have done it.

I believe that this internship builds on my studies. The things that I am learning in school, I tried to apply. It is easy to see that there are some things that you learn that are very practical, but then there are other things that you learn that it is less certain how they will be used. I would say that I was very happy when something that I learned ended up being a part of our work, because that was a unique contribution that only I could bring.

I would go back and work for them again. In my mind, it was a glamorous business, and you are working to create glamor. As something that I have always wanted, I could see myself wanting to go back and do more there. Plus, I did well, and any time there is a positive performance with good feedback from people who know a lot about the industry, then that is something worth pursuing.

To summarize, I worked at Verbena both doing negotiations in deals, and in helping as a photography assistant. This…