Jonathan Suarez ’26, a communication studies-public relations major with a minor in studio art-photography, spent last summer as a videography intern with Hartford Athletic, a United Soccer League championship team.
“Essentially, what I had to do was be there and create content,” Suarez said. “Go to games, go to practices, go to sponsoring events — basically anything the team was doing. It was mainly video, but some photography, too.”
According to Hartford’s videography and social media manager, Bryan Padilla, Suarez edited videos shot at events, games, and practices, and contributed to the club’s social media and marketing efforts.
“If there was a practice, he would head over and get videos and occasionally photos … to edit that same day to push on social media,” Padilla said. “On game days, Jonathan would be with me to begin the day … planning what we wanted to get for content, which included pregame promotional activities and b-rolls.
“We would also delegate video tasks. For example, we would decide who would be making the ‘Sidelines’ video, if the team had a good result, or what area of the field we would want to be in.”
A highlight of Suarez’s internship was collaborating on a stadium promotion with Daym Drops, who is described online as an “American food critic and YouTuber.”
“Hartford invited him to do ‘Daym Drops Night,’ where he went around to four or five different food vendors and created an outrageous food combination to sell at one game,” Suarez said.
“I had to do a lot of communication with him and some food vendors to try and figure out when we were going to schedule our video shoot, what the … food was going to look like, and what the promotion video was going to look like.”
Padilla was impressed with what Suarez brought to Hartford Athletic’s marketing team. “Jonathan has a high standard for the quality of his work,” he said. “He thinks about the nuances of video, the stories that are told, and what emotions he can create with his work.
“I was pleasantly surprised by his creativity and ability to pick up tips and tricks. There have been countless videos where he earned the praise of not only myself but the marketing department and Hartford Athletic staff.
“Jonathan brought fresh ideas and a drive to learn more about his art. I wouldn’t have gotten the work done as quickly and with such high quality if it wasn’t for Jonathan’s time with us.”
Padilla added, “Jonathan left a lasting impression on this club and is welcome to come back in any fashion. We enjoyed his work, but even more his presence. He was constantly coming in with a great attitude and personality.”
Suarez found the internship online, with help from his advisor, Dr. Jimmy Roux, a communications professor at the University of Lynchburg.
“Shout out to Dr. Roux, for real,” Suarez said. “He helped me get this. I was sitting in his office one day, trying to figure out what to do with my life. He was asking what I was looking for.
“We hopped on Indeed and started looking for photography and videography internships, and we noticed that Hartford was looking for candidates.”
With his internship application, Suarez included photos he’d taken while working for John McCormick, the University’s former campus photographer, who retired earlier this year.
“He let me borrow a camera freshman year and I’d go to his office and he’d teach me stuff here and there,” Suarez said. “He asked if I wanted to shadow him on some assignments, freshman and sophomore years.
“Last year, John came up to me in the dining hall or somewhere and offered me a position of being one of his student photographers. Ecstatic as I was, I said yes right away.”
Suarez said working with McCormick “elevated” his photography skills “by 10 times.” He shot photos at the University of Lynchburg’s Claytor Nature Center and at Late Night Breakfast, Doggies in the Dell, and other popular events.
One of his photos was even used on the cover of an important recruitment brochure. He said working with McCormick enabled him to take his photography seriously and be “able to take such a cool picture” and “have the resources to edit it and do what I do.”
With a good handle on photography, Suarez started his internship last May with the goal of “learning how to do more video.”
At Lynchburg, he’d made some videos for the athletics department, including what he describes as “a nice little video for track and field” that “received a lot of attention from people,” but he had much to learn about editing and videography skills.
“When I first went to the internship, I knew the bare minimum of how to use my editing software,” he said. “But now, I know how to do so much: changing colors to other things, making my video work look cinematic, freezing the video, mixing audio, and a whole bunch of advanced stuff that it takes people years to learn.”
Suarez was able to do this, he said, because he “had all the resources there to learn how to do it” and because he wanted his videos to “stand out” — not only from other videographers but from work he’d done previously.
“I wanted all my videos to stand out. When you see a similar video, back-to-back, it gets boring, but once you start adding certain transitions — once you change up the colors, when you make your video unique — it stands out, and doing that keeps retention.
“They keep watching and coming back to see what I’m doing and also what Hartford is doing.”
Padilla noticed. “I couldn’t have been more proud of Jonathan’s improvement over his time with us,” he said. “Coming in, I saw so much potential. He did great work, even with less equipment and experience, but I knew there was a lot more he could achieve with the right help.
“He was able to turn out work faster with fewer revisions … towards the end of his time with Hartford Athletic. He improved his storyboarding and storytelling. His technical skills on camera improved as well, getting colors right and consistent.”
In addition to videography skills, Suarez said he learned “how to communicate better with colleagues and outside resources,” and made personal connections he hopes will be useful after he graduates from Lynchburg.
“I made a lot of connections while I was there — a ton of connections and possibly lifelong friends — and … those connections have connections,” he said.
