Friday, August 15, 2008

Meet Your Peers: Rebecca Malewitz


“I like to think of my home state of Michigan as the hi-five to the Midwest. Growing up in the mitten shaped state has given me several very important things: my amazing family (mom, dad, and three brothers), an unparalleled love for the Detroit Tigers, and the ability to show people where my hometown is located just by pointing to my hand.

“My experience with photography began as a kid when I got my first camera using points from saving macaroni and cheese UPC’s. It was a 110mm film bright orange camera with a dinosaur sticker. (I’m almost positive they called him Cheeseasaurus Rex and that he probably lives down the street from the Kool-Aid Man.) Other than that, I had a typical childhood and high school was a bit awkward, so let’s just skip that part.
"I started college in the fall of 2003 at Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana. I spent a lot of time “on air” at the campus radio station as a DJ, news anchor, and sports broadcaster, but the campus newspaper was my true home away from home during my college years. I was the assistant photo editor my junior year and the photo editor my senior year. My four years at Valpo also contained a couple of Habitat for Humanity trips, weekend excursions into Chicago, an attempt at ghost hunting, and a lot of other stuff that can be explained after people have met me and embraced my weirdness.

“It’s been a year since I graduated from Valpo, and living at home and working in retail trying to save money was not so fun. On the bright side, I’ve become even more determined to have a career as a photographer. I really appreciate everything my parents have done for me, and working at a clothing store has given me excellent clothes folding skills which came in handy when I moved from Michigan to Montana. I should add that my guinea pig Ollie also made the trip to Missoula. His life story could probably summed up by his love for carrots, lettuce, and the Def Leppard song Photograph. (I swear I’m not making the last one up.)

“So that’s pretty much my life story minus some boring parts and a few embarrassing moments that I choose to block out. My best friend summarized me once by saying, ‘If your camera and I fell off the edge of a cliff and you had to save one of us, I'm pretty sure you would pick me, but you would have think about it first.’ I’m a little unclear of the meaning or her remark, but choose to assume it as positive.”

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