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ALUMNI REVIEW
Jon McGlothian (EMBA ’97), Co-founder and president of The Mt. Olivet Group
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Photos capture glamorous career By Gabrielle Maxey
As a photo editor for AP Images, Julia Weeks finds herself on the front lines of premier entertainment and sporting events. It may not have been a glass slipper like Cinderella’s, but Julia Weeks did lose her shoe at a ball. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute gala to be specific. As a photo editor for AP Images, Weeks (BA ’06) edits photos in the field for movie premieres, Fashion Week and awards shows in New York. The annual gala celebrates the opening of the Met’s fashion exhibit at the Costume Institute. In May she was running photo memory cards for AP photographers outside on the red carpet to an editing station inside the museum, where she and her team edited the photos. “My job was to retrieve the memory cards while the celebrities were entering the museum. I had to wear a (couture) dress and everything. Before the event really got going, I was hurrying up the stairs to where one of our photographers was, and I lost my shoe. I found it quickly, but at the cost of a few good laughs from photographers and them telling me to get out of the frames of their photos.” The Met gala attracts A-list celebrities like Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gisele Bundchen and Cate Blanchett. “They turn out in full force to get a sneak peek of the opening. The celebs dress to the nines in beautiful gowns and walk up the steps of the Met Museum, where they’re photographed entering the fashion exhibit.” W W W. M E M P H I S . E D U
AP Images photo editor Julia Weeks shakes hands with AP CEO Tom Curley after accepting the Oliver S. Gramling Scholarship to study digital marketing at New York University’s School of Professional and Continuing Education.
This spring Weeks marked her five-year anniversary working at AP Images, a division of the Associated Press. AP Images provides editorial and creative photographs, videos, graphics and interactives to professional image buyers. Weeks edits, color corrects and writes captions for images sent from photographers in the field for posting online. She has to stay on top of breaking news stories to create featured events and showcases on the homepage and social media. Weeks processes raw content from photo shoots that have been identified as major events. This can involve working overnight shifts posting images from events like the Academy Awards, Emmys, Grammys, Screen Actors Guild Awards and President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009.
Weeks’ job puts her in contact with AP staff from bureaus around the world. She gets to interact with Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers. Weeks also serves as a liaison between the AP Images sales team and AP photographers to fill requests for photos. Their customers include newspapers, magazines, book publishers, online sites and individuals who want to purchase personal prints. While she’s busy as an editor, Weeks tries to find time to do her own photography. She has photographed singers Rihanna and Norah Jones in concert and shot the University of Memphis basketball team at the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic at Madison Square Garden. “That was awesome since I’m a huge basketball and Tigers fan,” says Weeks. “Sitting on the sidelines at Madison Square Garden was such a surreal FA L L 2 012
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