Job Shadow a Photojournalist: Grace Smith
For the assignment to job shadow a professional photojournalist, I chose to shadow Grace Smith at the IndyStar. She graduated in 2024 from the University of Iowa with a B.A. in journalism and cinema arts. At the University of Iowa, Smith was managing editor, photo editor, and photojournalist at the Daily Iowan, which was her student newspaper. During her time at the Daily Iowan, Smith shared that she photographed Caitlin Clark in college which helped her land a job at the IndyStar, and she continues to do so, shooting for the Indiana Fever women’s basketball team. Smith was an intern at the Denver post and has been awarded top honors in the Pictures of the Year International contest in 2026 in the sports category. She also placed in third place at the sports photographer of the year category. Smith shared that her beats at the IndyStar are high school sports and the Fever.
My shooting experience with Smith was very good. She explained to me the things that she does before, during, and after the game specifically for the IndyStar. While shooting, Smith took me around the field in the way she always does for a high school football game and explained to me what she wants to capture and what she thought the story in this game was. She envisioned the story, not as New Palestine playing football, but as the Number 2 high school team in the country travelling from Florida to play this game. I feel like, in general, I tend to struggle with photographing sports and not usually enjoy it. But this game went by quickly and I think I got some pretty good shots out of this game as well.
Seeing Smith in action was interesting and it was pretty awesome to let her explain how she likes to navigate football games. I found the way that she thought about it really interesting and it kind of made photographing the sport cooler to me that it was previously. She was so determined to get the images that she wanted, she almost got stepped on multiple times while attempting to get photographs of the winning team, IMG Academy celebrating after the game in a dance circle. She was on the ground, running around the field, sitting in place at times, and going at all sorts of angles to get exactly what she wanted.
Smith gave me some helpful feedback during the game on tagging photos in camera to make the editing process go a little quicker once you got to the computer. She finished all of her editing and uploading to the IndyStar website while at the game and did not have to do any more work outside of her assignment time. We did, however, meet at the IndyStar newsroom the morning after and went through my photos there. She told me that I had a good eye for what photographs should make it to the final edit and she helped me with some toning and cropping. She did mention that I should have had my exposure up a little bit while photographing once it got to be dark out, but this is something that I also noticed once in the editing process.
Smith gave me some helpful feedback during the game on tagging photos in camera to make the editing process go a little quicker once you got to the computer. She finished all of her editing and uploading to the IndyStar website while at the game and did not have to do any more work outside of her assignment time. We did, however, meet at the IndyStar newsroom the morning after and went through my photos there. She told me that I had a good eye for what photographs should make it to the final edit and she helped me with some toning and cropping. She did mention that I should have had my exposure up a little bit while photographing once it got to be dark out, but this is something that I also noticed once in the editing process.
Something I learned in this assignment that might be difficult or even impossible to teach in a classroom would be that you need to anticipate and learn when people will have certain reactions to things, whether that be a touchdown or a win or even a loss. I think it is really important to capture these things and that they add so much to a story, even if that story is high school football. I know this is something that a professor can easily say to people and tell them to know this, but I don’t think that it really clicks in people’s heads until they are there and having to actively anticipate it and watch for it.
Something my fellow classmates could benefit from my experience is to just not be afraid to get in there, make yourself known, and get that photograph they want or envisioned. I also think that something important to note is how Grace Smith landed her job at the IndyStar. Yes, they were hiring at the time she graduated college, but she was high above the other applicants because of her amount of experience in the newsroom as well as some connections she had outside of there. It is important to grow your connections and experience so that you can get that dream job you will want once you graduate. The IndyStar is exactly the kind of newspaper that Smith wanted to work at when she graduated and all the hard work she put in during college was what ultimately led to her getting that job and being successful in the field. Students need to be unafraid of putting in the work now so that they can do exactly their dream once they graduate.
Grace Smith's photos: https://www.indystar.com/picture-gallery/sports/high-school/2026/10/09/see-the-best-photos-from-no-2-img-academy-at-new-palestine-in-week-8-of-ihsaa-football/92178069007/
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