Meet Samiha Khanna
I got to do my first real reporting work for this project yesterday afternoon. I drove over to meet with the mentor I'll be following for my story, Samiha Khanna, at her workplace. Khanna used to be a journalist who often covered crime stories for the News and Observer, but now she is working in the public relations department for Visiting International Faculty Program. According to its website, one of the purposes of VIF is to bring in international teachers into schools to "promote intercultural understanding" in American students.
So I packed up my camera and voice recorder and drove to the VIF in Chapel Hill to take pictures of Khanna at work. I could just take pictures of Khanna and her student pair during their time together, but since this is supposed to show the public how they can also get involved, I thought it would be better to also show how you can balance life and work and also still be a mentor.
It's hard to be like a fly on the wall as a photographer in a quiet office building when your camera makes a wonderful "click" sound everytime you take a photograph and you are standing on chairs and leaning over cublicles to try to get a more interesting angle. I think that's definitely one aspect of my work that I can be trying to improve, but as a fellow journalist and as one who is passionate about this subject, Khanna was very curteous and willing to work with me.
I'll be going back to the Durham Performance Learning Center on Wednesday morning to take pictures of Khanna and her student together. More to come later.
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