When the pandemic first hit, and stay-at-home orders were issued back in March, all of us at Visual Terrain were very disappointed to have to cancel our internship program. A couple of months in, having become comfy with Zoom, and sitting in on dozens upon dozens of webinars, it hit us: Bring back our internship program, online! We had received nearly a dozen internship applications, and the field this year was unusually strong, so it was great to be able to invite all of them to participate, plus a couple of additional candidates that were referred by our design team, professor colleagues etc.
On July 23, we kicked off the Visual Terrain Virtual Summer Camp 2020, with the first of seven workshops with 14 students. Each week, one of the Visual Terrain lighting designers presented a different topic:
| Week 1: 1000-foot Introduction to Architectural Lighting Design | Steven Young |
| Week 2: My Journey to Light, Learning to use Light as a Story Telling Device | Kate Furst |
| Week 3: Quick and Dirty Photoshop Renderings | Rose Malone |
| Week 4: How to Present Yourself and Your Lighting Design Work | Steven Young |
| Week 5: Intern & Young Designer Portfolio Reviews | Led by Christina Martin |
| Week 6: Q&A Table talk with VT-ers | Led by Nicole Eng |
| Week 7: Keeping a Positive Mindset Under Stressful Conditions | Jesse Fryery |
In the end, buoyed up by the human connection, the enthusiastic and insightful participation by all the students, and the sense of hope and resilience presented by Jesse’s final session, we bid adieu to our campers. We look forward to doing something similar even when the pandemic is over.
We wish the best of luck to Amanda, Amber, Amy, Baxter, Caro, Chloe, Chun-Yen, Hannah, Jake, Jeremy, John, Kana, Luz, and Omar! We look forward to crossing paths with you again, and want you to know we are here if you have any questions, or just want to let us know where you are in your journey.
A special shout-out to Christina Martin, who organized the curriculum, herded the teachers, updated the students, and kept the summer camp running like a well-oiled machine. Counselor Christina (Team Purple), along with Counselor Kate Furst (Team Green), rallied the teams and kept things fun and lively!