Work Experience Express & Echo Day 1 and 2

I've completed a couple of days at the Express and Echo now, and I'm glad to say - I love it! 

My son was ill Monday and Tuesday, so I couldn't start till Wednesday, but I can go in Monday and Tuesday next week to make up the time. I've been put in the news team with Hannah Hope, John 'Fletch' Fletcher, Tom Bevan and Gordon (who I only met today so don't know his surname). I started off being given some press releases to turn into fillers between 150 and 300 words. They ranged from being about 8 yr old Brownies looking for ex-members to Skate Parks in Teignmouth, to talking to someone who had put together a fundraiser for his friend who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. 

It's interesting to see the varying responses to the press. Some people like agents for the Hotel Barcelona in Exeter are VERY cagey and won't give away anything. Even when I said we were wanting to do a positive article. Contacting people about news is very much like sales, you have to ring them and ring them, never leave a message unless you absolutely have to. Once you've left a message you take away your right to keep ringing back lol. 

This afternoon I went into Exeter for Hannah's 'What we're wearing' feature which appears in the E&E on Saturday's. She asked me to take four photo's of 'fashionable' people walking around Exeter High Street and get details of their name, age, occupation, where they bought all their clothes, their favourite shops and any style icon's. Initially I was a bit nervous, mainly as I don't have much of an idea about 'fashion'. Funnily enough, the people I thought really were 'cutting edge fashionable' wouldn't speak to me lol. I ended up interviewing people who mostly shopped in Primark, New Look, River Island and Topshop. They all seemed quite chuffed to appear in the paper. I was getting a bit desperate to find some people who would take what I thought Hannah might think were 'good' photo's. So after I'd taken photo's and got details of six of the general public I accosted two Sales Assistants and asked them if I could take photo's of them. The first a guy from Moss Brothers, the second a woman from Jane Norman. 

I was quite disappointed with the quality of my photo's. After looking at the photo's I noticed most of them weren't smiling warmly. Most looked terrified in their first photo lol, so much for me putting them at ease. All those seasons watching America's Next Top Model - wasted! :D Apart from all that I did actually enjoy doing that 'assignment'. So I HOPE Hannah Hope likes my photo's. 

Anyway, it has made me think if I want to be a journalist I really need to address the poor quality of my photo's. Unsure exactly how to do this outside of reading books and getting photographic magazines. I can't afford another course and don't have the time.