As the pandemic continued, it was a new semester, and I had a new job. It was January 2021 when I walked into the Hodges Hall basement to start working as a Reveille photographer. I had a general idea of what I’d be doing (taking photos, of course), but little did I know that a fairly simple job description would lead to what I consider my best decision while at LSU.
Freshman year
My first assignment for the Reveille involved taking pictures of students wearing masks; I don’t think any of those images were ever used. The first several weeks for new Reveille employees are definitely a learning process.
Luckily, things started to take off from there. I photographed a Student Government campaign, did my first photo story on pandemic dorm life and captured my first sporting event: women’s basketball.
My start at the Reveille freshman year also provides a nice parallel with my final semester at LSU and the Reveille: Both of these semesters had school closures due to icy conditions.
The Reveille has been a great place for me to grow as a photographer, but I also want to acknowledge the excellent people I’ve gotten to work with. During my first semester, I worked closely with Gideon Fortune, an entertainment writer. For a number of weeks we would travel to a Baton Rouge area restaurant for a food review. Fortune would entice the audience with his food writing, and I would take the pictures.
Sophomore year
The beginning of my sophomore year saw Hurricane Ida blow through the state. In photographing the campus after the storm passed, I could say the joy of doing photojournalism began to come through. I certainly took on a greater number of assignments ranging from football to the first vaccinations at Tiger Stadium to a silly photo story on dumpsters.
Additionally, with my first football season at the Reveille I got to work closely with fellow photographers Francis Dinh and Chynna McClinton. I can’t say for sure (I just don’t really remember), but I can guess that this helped me even further enjoy the people I worked with at the Reveille. I would look forward to our weekly budget meetings with the multimedia section.
Further into sophomore year, I would make two very important friends via Reveille work. First came Sister Cindy (no, I’m not pals with Sister Cindy). The Sister Cindy assignment was where I met Maddie Scott, a news reporter at the time. Scott turned out to be one of my first reporter friends and then an actual outside-of-work friend. Next, came Savanna Orgeron. At the time she was the multimedia editor and encouraged me to join her on production nights (the nights the Reveille designs the physical paper). Orgeron said that some other sections had deputy editors to hang out with on these nights, but multimedia did not. Joining in on production nights, I was able to meet a number of new people, including all the editors at the time, and got a better understanding of the Reveille.
Junior year
Thanks in part to my going to production nights, I began junior year as the new multimedia editor after Orgeron graduated. Starting as an editor was definitely a challenge: I had to hire almost an entirely new staff because of a number of graduates. I didn’t take on as many assignments during that semester as I tried to nail down this management thing. However, I was able to capture the first ever football game between LSU and Southern University as well as a pretty nifty picture of the Journalism Building.
The latter half of junior year carries with it the tie into great friends. One weekend in late January 2023 is what I remember as “journalism weekend.” I covered a gala and an abortion rally with the then-news editor Claire Sullivan and then-deputy news editor Gabby Jimenez. I would, from then on, work quite closely with the news section. To round out journalism weekend, I covered a men’s basketball game.
That entire semester I really got to know my fellow editors and greatly enjoyed my time at the Reveille.
Next, came summer 2023. I would finally work for the Reveille in the summer (yes, we still produce content in the summer). Fellow photographer Morgan Cook and I covered LSU baseball’s national championship season as LSU hosted regional and super regional games. It was unfortunately out of budget to send a photographer to cover baseball in Omaha (perhaps a donation from the kind readers could help with that for future photographers).
Senior year
Oh, boy, senior year is, of course, still happening but almost done (which is crazy). Photos-wise I have definitely felt the photojournalism bug. I documented when the LSU lakes were almost completely dry, a Metropolitan Council meeting concerning power outages, a gubernatorial forum and a Rubik’s Cube competition. And that was just the first semester.
This current semester, I made sure to have a class schedule that would allow me to take as many photos as possible, and I’ve been doing exactly that. To start out, I covered the state inauguration, an oh-so-wet Patrick F. Taylor Hall after a pipe burst, a couple of the ever-exciting Faculty Senate meetings, the entire Student Government election cycle, Travis Scott at the Bookstore and a number of sports including my favorite: track and field.
Oh, boy, again. Senior year has been hands down one of the best for friends. I began senior year pretty comfortable with my editor duties, which left more time for getting to know everyone at the Reveille (I mean everyone). We started that semester with an ice cream social, which let Reveille-ites get to meet one another. I got to connect with Sam Sedilo again after officially meeting the semester before. Sedilo, an entertainment writer, and I would work on most of her assignments that needed photography together: a great time.
Additionally, I’ve made an effort to spend plenty of time in the Reveille newsroom and attend every sections’ budget meetings (I’ve gone to each sections’ meetings at least once and some a lot more). While hanging out in the newsroom, I’ve gotten to know several wonderful Reveille-ites. We have a crew often hanging out there, including Oliver Butcher, Emily Bracher, Kaitlyn Hoang, Ava Francis, Tre Allen, Nathaniel Dela Peña, Chloe Richmond, Peter Rauterkus and Mackay Suire. A number of others will come and go in the newsroom, which I have been encouraging as we have a good time. (Come to the newsroom, all of my fellow Reveille people!)
So, now I should probably ask you again to donate. But beyond that, I want to say the Reveille has been one of the best, if not the best, parts of my college experience. I’ve been able to help document LSU through photos and made some of my best friends.
Diolch (“thank you” in Welsh),
Multimedia Matthew
