Department of Natural Resources, CJC Program

My name is Arlen Caplan and I am Senior Photography Major. This Summer, of 2017, I was a photographer for the Conservation Jobs Corps program at the Department of Natural Resources. I had found out about the opportunity through a couple of my friends who had done it previously and said that it was a good experience. I applied and had an interview just a few days after submitting the application online. I’m not necessarily “sure” about exactly how I “secured” the position but I’m assuming it has to do with a good interview process. When I was applying to colleges, I applied to over 25 different ones and had about 20 interviews so I’ve gotten fairly comfortable with the whole process. Getting back on track, the CJC program was started nearly a decade ago as a way to provide a job, and in turn a sense of safety, to struggling youth during the summer. They’ve made it their mission to not only show these kids the importance of our state’s natural resources, but to keep them off the streets and earning honest money at a young age.

My direct supervisor was Frederick Banks, known by everyone as “Fred”, and he is essentially the lead coordinator of the CJC program. As he would put it, “My boss’s boss is the Governor”. He has been with the program since it’s fruition and has dedicated his summers to organizing his subordinates to help create the program I interned for. My responsibilities included traveling around the state in order to help photograph/document the work being done on the land by the kids and their crew captains. I drove roughly 3500-4000 miles and took nearly 1200 photographs. My biggest accomplishment was the creation of the final showcase of images at the kid’s graduation ceremony from the program. From start to finish, I compiled 2000 photos and edited down to roughly 200 photos and 3 short video clips to create a presentation for the kids at their final ceremony. It was over 10 minutes and the kids were ecstatic to see everything they had worked so hard on over the course of the program. Dealing with this is probably also my biggest take-away from the whole experience. Being tasked to work with thousands of files and create a product that best-showcases the experience was incredibly difficult. I had to learn to cope with a deluge of material and work with my boss to create a nearly perfect piece.

After this internship had finished I learned what it was like to be a traveling photographer. I learned about all the preparation that goes into such a task and how to keep myself motivated. It wasn’t easy to wake up Monday-Friday to drive over 100 miles to photograph but I knew thats what it took to make money photographing. Additionally, I learned how valuable file management is. Similar to the Upload Name requirements through this MICA internship site, I had to be incredibly attentive when I was saving all the images at the end. Thousands of images from 4 different cameras is not only a lot in terms of space but also when considering a workflow process. It takes a lot of time for the images to load, let alone be edited digitally and sequentially etc… Through everything, I’ve learned about the importance of being diligent and applying that to my practice. I learned to be a professional worker, how to handle a very heavy work schedule, how to apply my knowledge of photography for others’ satisfaction, how to effectively handle and manage large amounts of material and how to work with my superior to generate a creative presentation.