kate rosenbaum
portfolio spring 2017
Dear Ms. Hart and Mr. Thompson: I am hopeful that you will consider me for the position as a staff writer and photo editor in the 2017-18 edition of The Shadow. I have been interested in publications and photography for many years and believe that working as an asset for The Shadow will provide me with the opportunity to display my passion for writing and photography. As I reviewed the requirements for a successful yearbook member, I found myself relating to certain aspects that are cherished within a yearbook staff team. I am persistent and am capable of completing all assigned tasks under the strict deadline that is associated with creating a yearbook. Furthermore, I am organized, both with managing my time and my tasks as a student and staff member. I will show my dedication and devotion through the work I produce over the course of the creation of the 2017-18 yearbook. I think my skills and interests would be an exemplary match with the traits that you seek from a staff member. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Kate Rosenbaum
Objective: A position in which I would be able to demonstrate my passion for publications and photography in general working alongside The Shadow production team. Experience: The Shadow Yearbook Staff Member (August 2015 - present) Photographed students and school-wide events for weekly coverage. Gathered information regarding specific story and mod topics to contribute to the production of the 2015-16 edition of The Shadow. Wrote and designed stories and mods for specific yearbook spreads. Skills: Able to maintain an organized work ethic. Impeccable teamwork skills. Able to receive criticism humbly. Will eagerly learn from my mistakes. Responsible and trustworthy individual. Education: Cactus Shadows High School, Cave Creek, Arizona Class of 2018 GPA 3.6/4.2 Staff writer and photographer for The Shadow. Activities: International travel. Photography in spare time to broaden my knowledge. Performing artist at local coffee shops and events. References: Available upon request.
self-analytical evaluation Spring semester, similar to the fall semester, the yearbook staff was faced head-on with challenges in all aspects of producing the best book possible for our school. As a staff, we were forced to adapt to the circumstances and new implementations that were introduced at the beginning of the year, including a new adviser and publishing system. These challenges, amongst many others, proved difficult to overcome, but also helped the staff grow together and learn from our experiences. In comparison to the previous year, I personally think the staff is a tighterknit group, which is beneficial for communication and efficiency. As for new knowledge, I learned how to better operate E-Design and Photoshop with little guidance other than my peers. My leadership skills also broadened as I continued with my role as a team leader. Overall, I believe my “success” as a team leader helped to shape my drive to obtain the position as photo editor for the upcoming year. In my previous portfolio self-analytical evaluation, I had stated, “For future deadlines, I will be stricter and more regimented in regards to my team members and their completion of the assignments they were assigned.” I definately tried to commit to this goal for deadlines 3 and 4, but was faced with undriven team members and a lack of initiative, putting me in the position of having to redo a lot of assignments. It was quite challenging to work as a team leader because I struggle with not being in complete control of all that is required to be done; however, this opportunity has definitely helped to improve my skills with being head-strong and expressing what I want to happen. This year, I experienced, not personally, but through stories in other publications, regarding plagiarism and
truthful journalism. These experiences helped to justify the importance of good journalism skills and ethics. As a team leader, I automatically undertook the role of a dedicated staff member, having the task of designing spreads and managing other staff members. I have stayed after school countless times and spent many a lunch period sitting at computer designing my spreads. Also, with the advantage of E-Design, I spent a great portion of my time outside of school working on yearbook tasks from home. Following deadline nights, I usually joined the editors to help them review and copy edit spreads before submission. I am very passionate about creating a worthy final product for my fellow classmates, which is one of the reasons why I am very dedicated to this specific publication. Yearbooks are timeless creations and should be well-designed and the best possible publication. This semester, in particular, was difficult, because even though the new staff members were familiar with the class objectives and requirements, I struggled with keeping my team members mitivated to produce new and exciting content. One of my greatest weaknesses is specifically confrontation and dealing with situations that require direct criticism, which was sometimes not beneficial with my role as a team leader. In order to overcome this negative trait, I had to learn to face my fears head-on, which was a matter of gaining confidence. Following the fall semester, I gained confidence and became more “harsh” as a leader and tried my best to keep my team members accountable and on task, even though motivation was lagging as the semester progressed.
re fle ct io n #1 In terms of significance, I struggle with pin-pointing one specific piece on my spreads that was of true importance; however, the fashion spread as a whole in deadline 1 was one of my proudest final products. This statement still remains true during the spring semester, as I found myself to be most passionate about that specific topic. I spent a good portion of the beginning of the year working on that spread, simply because it was something that was particularly interesting and was a passion of mine. I created the layout of trending clothing items, wrote the main story on Cava Apparel, and designed the photostrip that showcased students and their personal style choices. This spread was not difficult to create, it was just a matter of designing the final product and creating a spread that was visually pleasing. I enjoyed gathering information from students in regards to their fashion senses because the topic was something that I am passionate about and already implement in my daily life. I am aware that the final product goes against the minimalistic theme of this year’s book; however, this spread is time-specific and is one that I believe will be interesting and easy to read. The content is light and is focused on the more visual aspects of the spread, which I believe to be a positive aspect when flipping through a yearbook. Overall, I find myself satisfied with most of the content I produced, disregarding spreads such as newspaper/yearbook which lack photos and quality content. This downfall was on my behalf, as I should have taken the initiative to make my team members get photos to correlate with their assignments.
deadline 1
main story
design/ photos
design/ photos
main story
design/ photos
photo
photo
deadline 2
design
photo
photo
design
design/ photos
design
deadline 3
design/information
captions
design
photos
main story/ photos
timeline
photos
photo
photo
photo
photo
deadline 4
main story
mod
captions
deadline 5
main story/ photos
photo