Please help us welcome our new intern, Kelly Creedon. Kelly is a Roy Park Fellow in Visual Communication at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication (our old stomping grounds). Most recently, she was the editor-in-chief of Whole Hog, this year’s edition of UNC’s Powering a Nation multimedia reporting project. We asked Kelly a few questions:
Tell us a little about yourself:
Well, I grew up at the Jersey Shore and did my undergraduate degree in journalism at Loyola College in Baltimore. After college, I moved to El Salvador and worked in community radio and non-profit communications for about five years. While I was there, I decided I wanted to be doing more visual storytelling work, so when I came back to the US, I took a semester to study photography at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. I spent the next few years working independently doing mostly documentary photography and, eventually, starting the transition to video. Last year I had the opportunity to come to UNC Chapel Hill and study visual storytelling with some really incredible mentors and peers, and it’s been great.
What draws you to documentary storytelling?
I’m drawn to the challenge of helping educate and inform people about social issues and working to create positive social change in the world. But I think what I love most about this work is the opportunity to enter communities and engage with people in a really intimate way. It’s such a gift that people let us into their lives.
What’s your next move?
I have one more year here at UNC and I’m looking forward to pulling everything I can out of my professors and peers while I’m here. Building that kind of creative community has been one of the best things about being here and I’m looking forward to continuing to grow that circle once I leave.