A Student’s Point of View: The People Behind the Scenes
Hi everyone. Happy Winter. This is Ashley Crichton writing again for RIT photo! I’m excited to return to sharing my experiences at school. Winter break was good and then we were back. It has been a blur. This semester, I want to dive a little deeper into people that support students in the photo program but aren’t our professors. There are so many people working behind the scenes to help us succeed. As students we often don’t even realize how much they do. For this post, I will write about Julia Samuels, the facilities coordinator and David Walter, the operations manager. They both work in the RIT Photo facilities, oversee the cage, the studios, and everything else in the building to make sure we have access to all the equipment we need.
The first person that comes to mind when I am looking for help at the cage is Julia Samuels. Julia was recently hired to replace Amanda Kearney. Julia graduated May 2018 and is excited to be at RIT in this role.
The cage is a big part of every student’s life and she makes sure everything goes smoothly and is accessible to students who need gear, access, or simply a shoulder to lean on. She is always there to answer any questions we have about the cage. I end up talking to her a lot when I’m trying to do some crazy project and need to get special permission to use equipment I don’t usually have access to. She also helps people check out equipment for an extended period of time if they need it. She also has the power to undock people which, in my opinion, is the most magical power anyone in the world could possess. She will only undock you if you have a valid reason to be undocked. She has saved my behind several times wielding that power appropriately. She can also help you get access to equipment if you’re docked and can’t get undocked. Being docked and not having access to equipment is the most stressful thing that can happen to a photo student, and getting help like that can literally save your project. She is one of the nicest and most helpful people I have ever met, and she really works hard to make things happen for you if you’re in a pinch.
If there is every anything that Julia can’t do, David Walter, the Operations Manager, can usually help. As students, we interact with him a lot less than we interact with Julia, but he still does so much to contribute to the RIT Photo operation. Before I started writing this blog post, I didn’t even realize how much he does. He is responsible for keeping all of the facilities in SPAS running smoothly, including the cage, the 25 +darkrooms, the 30+studios, and too numerous to count computer labs. He is also in charge of helping to get new equipment for the cage. This means he works with the companies like Nikon, Canon, Sony, Capture Integration, Zeiss and many others to create a process to have equipment consigned to the school. This means we have all the newest equipment being used out in the industry. Over the last few years, he has worked really hard in building a relationship between the school and Sony, which has resulted in the cage now having all of new, amazing gear made by Sony. He’s always excited to help get the students the best gear possible to prepare us to go out in the world and be professional photographers.
They both also manage one of my favorite traditions at the RIT Photo School, that is the displaying of student work up in various hallways. I can remember the first time I came to RIT to visit and walking down the halls looking at the terrific work that was hung there. At the time, I was amazed by what RIT students were capable of. Now my work is up on a wall and it makes me feel like I have accomplished something special at the school. The little things like this that Julia and David make happen every year is just one more way they encourage our growth as photographers and support the work students produce. They both do so much more than I was able to share in this post and we are truly blessed to have them here to help us. There are other individuals that are also part of the facilities staff that I could not interview but also play such an important role in the community here. These people include Robert Van Winkle, Mark Sage, Bill Springer and Bill Wadekis.
About Ashley
Ashley Crichton is a 3rd year advertising photography student from California. You can read more about Ashley by following this link.