Week i went to two events. One was about Photography design at City tech (Meet the pros) , the other was more about entrepreneurship and how to keep up and mentorship (BE.IN Symposium).
Christine Blackburne was the special guest at this MTP event (meet the pros). She is a professional photographer who shoots mainly small objects that can be set up on a tabletop, or how she said it ” i’ll shoot just about anything that fits on a table top, and i’ve shot more makeup than you can scrape of a kardashian”. At first she spoke to us about how she struggled to get where she is at right now and assisted many photographers for about 7 years. What i took away most from that was that by assisting all this photographers she knew what it was that she enjoyed about photography and what she didnt want from photography. She showed us a lot of her work and even some of her collaborative work with professor Eli which was very interesting. when the event ended she was immediately swamped by so many students who wanted to continue asking questions. I left but i felt like i had gotten enough insight from her talk to help me in my career.
The very next day I went to the BE.IN symposium at one of the LIU buuildings. the talk was not about design, it was a discussion featuring key innovators of major companies on the brooklyn tech triangle. Some of them were Ted Southern from final frontier design, Elisa Padilla from Barclay center and Jesse middleton from WeWork labs. they all shared their experiences and how they came about making it to where they are now. A lot of them explained how they didn’t go to college for what they currently doing. they also stressed spoke about how to find something you love and enjoy doing. Jesse Middleton talked about asking questions, because the worse answer you can get sometimes is just a no. But at least you tried and you know the answer. he also mentioned that he is very approachable and available for anyone to ask him questions about mentorship work or anything. At the end of the event i was able to approach Jesse and talk to him very briefly. I introduced myself and told him how i was interning in the WeWork building at Dumbo. i also mentioned how i was looking for a new design internship for the summer, he told me to email him my info and he”ll pass around my stuff to some people who could help. I thanked him and left the event feeling very hopeful.
