Oak Spring Through an Intern's Lens
Macey Wissell
This summer, the Oak Spring Garden Foundation welcomed interns into many of our different departments; the Garden, the BCCF, the Library, the Biodiversity Management Team, and Communications team. This blog is the final project for one of our communications interns, Macey Wissell. Scroll below to read her reflections on her time at Oak Spring as well as several galleries of photographs she took during her internship.
Hello, my name is Macey Wissell! I am one of the communications interns during the summer months of 2022 at Oak Spring. I attend the University of Mary Washington, a rising senior, majoring in communications.
During my time here, I had the duty of helping with social media which includes blog posts on the website, curating ideas and posts for other social media platforms, and attending different events to capture the moment.
Paper Making Short Course:
One of my favorite parts of this internship was having the opportunity to take photos. I have always been interested in photography, which grew at UMW taking several photography classes. I am so grateful to be able to expand my knowledge, experience, and creativity by using my camera (Canon T6 Rebel) to help complete different projects. I was able to see the garden through another lens. Taking walks in the middle of the day when the weather was nice, I was always searching for a frame to take a photo, a landscape, bird, or flowers. I could capture the true beauty of what was surrounding me the whole summer, it was the perfect mix of technology and nature.
Birds:
These photos are by far my favorite photos I have ever taken. I began to want more out of photography too, I want to try different lenses and learn more about photo editing. I’ve never taken photos of wildlife like this before and it was simply fun. It’s easy to take great nature photos when the landscape is already beautiful. The photos of the barn owls are my top favorites that I have taken here. I love owls, and witnessing 5 owlets before they fledged, was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. I will never forget that, I have lived now and I can die happily.
Landscape & Buildings:
Some other things I would like to say about Oak Spring Garden Foundation...
I immediately became enamored by the fact that Rachel “Bunny” Mellon decided to use her wealth for something so extraordinary. She’s like the Elon Musk of the garden world. She’s inspired me to follow my passion, to devote so much of my time and effort to what drives me to get to the end goal. I am very grateful to have learned about her history, I didn’t know who she was before and now I will carry on her memory and share with others what I have learned. She brought diversity into the garden world and created a fairy tale garden of her own. I hope I get to be a gardener as she was.
I learned new facts about insects and plants from most of the staff here. I want to personally thank Rea Manderino, the ecologist and collection specialist here at Oak Spring, for aiding me in getting over my fear of bugs, at least lessening the panic I experience when one flies by. Bugs are actually fascinating, I never would have had that perspective if it weren’t for Rea. Thank you to Josh, the Wildlife Conservation and Management Specialist, for inviting me to band birds and showing me that fancy camera. Those adventures with the kestrels and barn owls, I will always hold close to me and remember those moments for a lifetime.
Insects:
Every morning I would pass by the garden staff and receive a friendly hello and wave. I envied them, I wanted to be outside in the dirt as much as they were. What I didn’t realize was how much time and effort they truly put into making the garden spectacular and preserving its beauty. For that, thank you to the garden team for always being so welcoming and doing the ‘dirty’ work.
A very appreciative thank you goes to the communications and programs teams, Max, Danielle, Jules and Emily. You all taught me how to think of the audience when creating projects and for offering edits and advice to me. I had to think of the way I wrote captions more in depth. Being thoughtful of the captions to go with the content on social media also opened my eyes that not all social media is superficial, posts don’t always have to ‘sell’ a product in order to market the company or foundation.
Other Wildlife:
Oak Spring is the niche I would prefer to be in for a work environment in the future. I have no idea what I want to do when I graduate college, but after this summer, I do know that I want my future career to be similar to this internship. I want to make a difference with the access to the technology we all have. I want to help in the conservation of the environment and inspire others to do the same. If you are considering applying for this internship, do it. You won’t regret it and you’ll never forget it.