Work Experience at S Magazine, The Sunday Express.

This was quite possibly the most tiring, amazing and fascinating week ever!
I completed a full five days in London working for S Magazine (the supplement inside The Sunday Express), I would leave my house by at least 7.45am and would return around 19.30 everyday. They were very long days and boarding the train amongst lots of other people dressed in smart suits or formal dresses just added to the experience and made me feel like a very little fish in a very big pond.

The building I worked in is called the Northern and Shell building and is situated just a few minutes away from London Bridge and the Gherkin, in fact both of which I could see from the office! The building has 10 different floors excluding lower ground levels and each is occupied by a different newspaper or magazine. For example, the building is also the home of Star, OK and New magazine as well as The Daily Star and The Daily/Sunday Express newspapers.

One of the main components of a working for a magazine is not only the text but also photographs. It just so happened that the week I was there was a week in which everyone working across all the magazines were getting frantic over the amount of photo shoots that needed to be organised for a Valentines feature(s). Working for S Magazine meant that this was particularly important and much of the work I was asked to do came from The Lifestyle Editor, Victoria Gray. One of the first tasks, I was asked to do was to research and organise lots of different props and materials that could be included in the Valentines feature photo shoot. For example, stylish flowers and candles, large mirrors etc, anything that would add a glamorous and romantic feel. I then had to ring around some of the and companies and ask whether they would be suitable and try to arrange advertising details. I found this really interesting to do, it was amazing to see how much preparation was needed to commence with one photoshoot, never mind the fact that probably 2 or 3 are featured in the magazine every week. Also, from then on in, deliveries for so many props continuously came in with flowers and chocolates everywhere.

Staff working for S Magazine, were always one or maybe two weeks ahead of themselves to ensure that the magazine was always ready for the publishing deadline. Another feature I assisted with, was a Bathroom feature in which several companies such as B&Q, Marks and Spencer, Bathworld etc were advertising different en suites from a photoshoot that had already been taken. My job was to write the captions for the photographs. Now, it was probably a maximum of 4-5 sentences for each photograph. The hardest part for me was to condense down my flow of writing to include just the fancy and sophisticated adjectives and to include each item accurately.

Whilst on my work experience, I also observed a photo shoot for Star Magazine. It was a fashion shoot advertising different types of wide leg trousers that are availiable to purchase across the high street. The fashion editors were really friendly and the photographer was someone only a couple of years older than myself which I found surprising. I always had this connotation of a fashion photo shoot being very structured as though the model would have firm directions on how to pose but actually, I discovered it was nothing like that. It was a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere with people behind the scenes drinking tea and music playing and the model just posed as and how she felt right at the time. Some of the photographs produced as a final result were beautiful. It was odd, having brought Star Magazine the following week to see the photographs I had witnessed being taken.

Throughout the rest of the week, I continued to write small pieces of work, adding captions, writing small feature pieces. My jobs were constantly being varied which I loved and it was so interesting to branch off to other magazines as I had done with Star Magazine and just get a general feel for the pressure and deadlines magazine editors must reach but yet how relaxed and friendly the whole team of staff were.

For those who do not regularly read S Magazine, every week includes a few recipes written by Anthony Worrall Thompson. He frequently meets with the Lifestyle Editor, and from there a photo shoot is arranged where a chef joined by a specialist photographer will cook the food using the recipes and then take photographs to appear in the food feature. I was lucky enough to be invited to this process on the last day of my work experience. I went to the Lifestyle Editor's house and for that particular photo shoot the theme was 'Healthy Living, Healthy Breakfasts.' Not only did I get to try all the fantastic food that was made including asparagus and chive omelette (something I would never even consider having for breakfast, and actually turned out to be amazing), raspberry and kiwi smoothie and so many other delights but I was also able to witness the photo shoot happening and was also asked for suggestions at certain points. It was really was sucha brilliant experience to be invited along and I was made to feel like an important member of the team.

If you haven't already had work experience in the media industry, I would recommend it. Long hours are pretty much guaranteed but the experience and knowledge I gained from it was just so worth it. I'm hoping to go back again in summer and work for a longer period of time. I also found that working for a magazine offered more emphasis on the importance of imagery and photographs and that is something I had never really considered before. I throughly enjoyed the whole week and I am so glad it happened.