JLN Year 2:
Engaged Learning
My Engaged Learning Experience
Jaguar Leadership Network
Emma Seewald
What was my Engaged Learning Experience?
My engaged learning experience was media specialist and YMCA Camp Potawotami. This position takes place during the months of May though the month of August, while there was 10 weeks of summer camp ongoing. My position consisted of taking photographs and videos all around the camp of all the different activities, uploading photos for families, curating a photo book for the staff, creating videos to show campers and family, and many other tasks. My reasoning for choosing this experience was because I plan on going into photography work after college, and this position gave me many different experiences that will be helpful to me in the future. Some of those experiences were working with deadlines, quotas, and communication with clients (parents).
Scan the QR code to see some of the photos I took over my time as media specialist.
During the beginning of the summer the staff has nightly volleyball games, this was a beautiful sunset during one of the bonding games.
What prior experiences helped me in my Engaged Learning Experience?
Before I worked at camp this summer, I had done a lot of candid work with photography high school and some college events. I am also a photography major, so I have experience working with DSLR cameras. This really helped me ease in to my experience as I felt comfortable working with the campers to capture great memories. The position that I took for my engaged learning experience relates to the rest of my career and educational experiences through photography. At the end of my college career, I hope to go into photojournalism, which requires strict deadlines and quotas that I will have to follow. This engaged learning experience required both, leaving me with working experience on how to time manage. Another thing I learned was on shooting multiple things at once. With photojournalism, I must be able to photograph many events where there are many different photographic opportunities. Because there are a lot of opportunities present to be photographed, I have had to learn what is better to get in the moment and plan out my time and opportunities through this experience.
What community connections did I make during my Engaged Learning Experience?
Within my engaged learning experience of being at children and teen summer camp, I was able to meet many different children and young adults. Because I was able to meet a wide variety of children and young adults of all ages and backgrounds, I also met their family and guardians. Because of this I learned how, with my impact, I could allow all those children no matter who they were or what they did before camp to have the same amazing experiences. This impacted my beliefs as it has confirmed my career choices in the future. The reasoning behind this is because I know that no matter what I will cover, I hope to give an even voice to everyone and that I can treat everyone with the same amount of respect regardless of cultural, socioeconomic, or other differences. As a photojournalist I know that I will need to be unbiased in my work. Throughout my experiences over the summer of photographing their experiences, I feel as though the reasoning for me being unbiased is even more important. At the end of the day, we are all human and deserve respect whether we are a child having fun during the summer or an adult reading the news about what is happening in the world.
The leadership team snapped this photo during our beginning of the summer training. Our team worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help make camp run.
My roomate during the summer, Jenna, and I snapped this picture after the last camper left during the 5th session of the summer.
This was our 2023 staff photo without a couple people who had to leave earlier in the season. This was a fantastic group of people and I learned so much from every one of them.
What did I learn through my Engaged Learning Experience?
Before I worked at camp this summer, I had never had the opportunity to do any video work for a professional environment. But over the summer, that changed, and I was able to capture many different experiences through many different video formats. During the beginning of the summer my boss, the program director for the camp, gave me a brand-new GoPro camera to use. I was able to mess around with it some and get used to its functionality. On top of that, during the spring prior to camp I was asked to help choose the new camera for camp to use, and I chose a camera with high quality video capabilities. As the summer progressed, I was able to capture videos of everything from going off ziplines to jumping on a water trampoline and everything in between. I am very excited about learning this new skill as I may have to document the world through not just still images and with these technical skills, I feel much more confident in doing so.
What impact did this engaged learning experience have on me?
The impact that this engaged learning experience gave me was the ability and confidence to go out and ask people to smile and pose and take reliable photos that people will enjoy. I also found that the photos I take allow a connection with the people around me. As stated previously, I have not had in world experiences in photo before this engaged learning experience. But now I feel much more confident in my skills of working with customers, as well as my photographing abilities. I believe that as much of an impact I made on myself, I have also made on others. Both the guardians of the children as well as the children themselves rely on me to be there to capture the memories that they are making. For the guardians during the week and for the children for the rest of the year in between when they will make it to camp next to create more memories. These photographs will also last throughout the entire year as they are how we are able to show the general public what camp does and the impact it can have. Hopefully allowing those who may have not had a camp experience before start visualizing themselves at camp for the next year.
My brother, Connor, and I snapped this picture as he was getting ready to get picked up at the end of the week. I was so proud to see him be a leader at the camp that we grew up going to.
During the photography class I taught during the summer, one of the counselors helping me snapped this picture of me doing my thing.
What am I going to do now based on this experience?
My next steps now after finishing my engaged learning experience is to start on my search for my next experience. I learned a lot during my time at YMCA Camp Potawotami but I would now like to learn more about media in a news sense. Instead of covering information, this engaged learning experience had me covering what the campers were doing during the day. I would like to do something similar to this but instead of it being one place, I would like to cover different locations and different events. But I would love to be able to share the photos I take with the public and have an audience be able to see the experiences that I see. SO with all that in mind I now plan on finding a photography internship. My hope with my next engaged learning experience is that it will have a focus in a journalistic/documentary style. I also hope that I will be able to learn even more than I was able with this first experience.
My biggest takeaway...
My biggest takeaway from this experience is the fact that my beliefs in what I want to do with my life were solidified. I have always thought that I want to photograph events and moment. And with that, take a majority of candid photos. Through this experience I found that I did actually enjoy what I was doing, which was taking mostly candids of kids enjoying their time at camp. Through that solidification, I know now that I want to continue to create photos that capture memories in real time.
The word Potawotami means keepers of the fire. Because of this our end of week tradition is to make memory sticks that go into the fire to live on at camp forever. This photo is from the very last fire of the summer.