(photo: second from right)
Biography
Damaso Reyes, 28, has been a photographer and writer for over eight years. He began his career as a stringer for the New York Amsterdam News where he was an intern and later served as Southeast Asia Bureau Chief from 2001 to 2003. He currently serves as their European Correspondent. Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Damaso attended the Department of Photography at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has worked for institutions and his work has appeared in publications including the United Nations Development Programme, The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Far Eastern Economic Review, New York magazine, and Time Asia. Previous assignments and projects have taken him to countries including Rwanda, Iraq, Indonesia, Jordan, Haiti and throughout the United States. His images are also featured in the monograph Black: A Celebration of a Culture and the book Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers go to War. Damaso is also the principal photographer on The Europeans, a long term photographic documentary project examining the changes that Europe and its people are experiencing as the European Union expands and continues its integration process.
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Final Report
I have to say it was with some trepidation that I entered the Unter den Linden offices of Vanity Fair Germany this summer. Would my German be good enough? Would I have the chance to work on some interesting stories? What would I really learn about Germany? All these questions and many more were racing through my mind. I had spent the previous seven months living in Germany so I felt that I had some idea of what awaited me but this was Berlin: the big time and I couldn’t wait to get started.
My experience at Vanity Fair was interesting but I think atypical. First, it is a weekly magazine which of course means much longer lead times combined with a fast production pace. As Frank suggested, the first two weeks were spent explaining to people that I was in fact not an intern but a fellow and I was capable of working on stories. Much of those first days and weeks were spent working on small stories, doing research and getting a sense of the office my coworkers. I chose Vanity Fair because it was a new publication and this was a double edged sword. On the one hand I feel like they were more open to different kinds of story ideas; on the other hand they were still very much trying to find their identity during my fellowship which of course was sometimes a frustrating experience.
My direct supervisor was a Burns alumna which I feel was a big plus. When I started she told me that I had the freedom to explore my own story ideas whether or not the magazine was interested in them. I had the opportunity to pitch a lot of story ideas and the magazine was indeed receptive to a few of them, but far fewer than I had hoped. While having the freedom to work on my own ideas and projects was liberating, Vanity Fair might not be a good fit for someone who is used to a lot of close supervision or editing. In fact it often took a long time to get feedback on the material I was producing, which I found frustrating. I also feel that I might have been better off if I had the ability to write in German. While the magazine translates material from the American version there was something of a prejudice against it.
I feel like during my fellowship I did learn a lot about how a German magazine works; something I couldn’t have learned any other way. The work environment was very relaxed for the most part and my coworkers were helpful and supportive. Like so many other Burns fellows before me the thing I wished I had more of was time. Another month would have been invaluable since you really spend the first month adjusting to a new culture and way of working. The option of a longer fellowship for those who can take the time would be very valuable to future fellows, especially if they happen to work at a magazine. More than anything being associated with the name Vanity Fair opened a lot of doors and made a lot of interviews possible, which of course assisted my stories.
Overall I feel like I had a very positive experience. Being the first fellow to work at Vanity Fair certainly was challenging; at first many of the editors had no idea of what to do with me. I imagine future fellows will have an easier time and I would encourage future placements there. A fellow who does go to work there should be independent and aggressive because there won’t be a lot of hand holding going on at 10 Unter den Linden.