Being a communications and marketing intern at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council entails researching, creating, copywriting and sharing the art-related content on online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and website homepage. This is also referring to 1-2 associative images per day that are being embedded with the social media posts, news articles, and monthly newsletters. From the very beginning of my internship experience, I was impressed and fascinated by how professional the communications team at my placement company was at handling the images, reaching out to the artists for permission as well as attributing the artists and the photographers alike.
At the beginning of each week, I am usually given a social media schedule that includes daily posts for all social media platforms and website news post updates. If the schedule is not already determined, then we do the online research on the alumni artist news and find the appropriate events/shows to promote. In this process, image selection is one of the early and the most important stages since LMCC strives to keep the overall look of its platforms fun, colorful and dynamic.
For every single image the organization has used for the social media post, there has been a rigorous practice of first getting permission from the artist/groups and then the accurate attribution in the image credit section at the bottom of each post. Since one of the goals of my internship organization is to promote the work of New York City artists, most of them are already within our network and can easily be DM’ed through Instagram or via email for image/repost permission. However, we sometimes had delays in responses and because of that, had decided against posting about the artist/show without getting the permission first.
The photographs I have taken of artists-in-residence at LMCC Arts Center at Governor’s Island have been shared multiple times on our and other NYC art residency-related pages and they all have been credited to me.
The same thing with the 10K followers celebratory graphic post I have created for Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, my name was credited at the bottom of the post which shows the professionalism and artistic appreciation from my internship organization.
In the case of an unknown photographer, we always say “Image courtesy of an artist (name)”.
I have learned so much from this rigorous practice of image selection and attribution that when using images in the future, I will always strive to adhere to these same rules in whatever direction I choose to go in my career path. Seeing my photographs/work being attributed to me has made me realize how important it is to always mention the author, not just for legal matters but out of sheer decency as well. Perhaps, I would never truly experience this special feeling without taking initiative in actively participating in this internship, taking photographs, or producing graphic work for various communications.
