Story by Dylan Hanson | Photos by Dylan Hanson

I'm sitting in Ronald Reagan International Airport watching an American Airline plane slowly coast on the runway. We have 20 minutes till we board and by the end of the day I'll eventually be back in Ellensburg.

I just spent the last few days attending Media Fest 22 in Washington, DC which is hosted by the Associated Collegiate Press. I’m not a writer or at least in terms of writing for a form like this so bear with me. I'm the Director of Photography for PULSE Magazine so you've probably already seen some of my work.

But an opportunity like the one I had is too grand for me not to share with you the events I experienced while I was away.

10/26:

After a one way flight, a tight middle seat and about two hours of sleep, I got to Washington, D.C. We all pile into the driver's car and head to the hotel.

I'll call it the D.C. hotel. The D.C. hotel was great but it was also strange. There were 3 rooms for the 5 of us and each room had a slightly different structure and style. If you said the hotel was haunted I wouldn't doubt it.

Did we see or hear anything of a supernatural sort? No. The atmosphere of this building was strange though which was heightened by the fact we were coming up on Halloween weekend.

I walked by one room and out of curiosity leaned in when I heard something strange. I heard old opera music playing inside and there was a crack between the trim. I thankfully didn’t look inside out of respect but also for my own well-being.

This hotel however, was good and we were lucky to have it. In the evening there was a cocktail mixer in the Grand Hyatt where the convention was being held so another member and I left before everyone else around 5:30 p.m.. It was at 6 p.m… but we did not get there at that time.

Earlier in the day we had gone to see the Lincoln Memorial, The Washington Monument and The World War Two Memorial. On our way back we rented out electric scooters which I liked a little too much.

On our way to the meet and greet, some of us rented out scooters again and headed to the event. It was so much fun riding them that I said, "if we [late] are, this is the best way to be late." We rode the scooters down and ended up being taken by Google Maps to The Kennedy Center. We were let inside and found ourselves amidst a softly played violin performance.

We asked all the security guards if they knew where the Grand Foyer was? To put this into context, we didn't know what a Grand Foyer was. I guess it's an open space in a hotel or something like that. We pronounced it as (GR-AND FOY-ER). It's pronounced (GR-AND FO-YAY).

We kept asking people where the Grand Foyer was and in retrospect I wonder if they realized what we were saying but felt too bad to tell us. There was a live show at The Kennedy Center which seemed nice but we knew we were at the wrong place. We took an Uber only to show up to the last 5 minutes of the mixer. I would usually count something like this as a loss but riding these scooters really is bomb.

10/27:

This day was great. I went to a keynote on how to get your foot in the door in the media industry. I met one of the speakers and mentioned I would love to work with him even if that meant cleaning his floors.

He liked that and we shook hands, it was good.

I also saw a sports photography session that was very informative. I'm not really a sports photographer so I wanted to go to see what I didn’t know. I knew about the technical aspects that were being covered but I didn't know about the stereotypical basketball "armpit" or soccer "head-butt" shot.

The photographers leading certain seminars could be harsh at times but those were some of the most informative I’ve been to.

10/28:

At 10 in the morning, I went to a seminar on freelancing in the photography industry. It was led by 3 photographers who all freelance for the White House and various established organizations in D.C.

I stayed and talked to one of the photographers afterwards about some of my personal fears in the freelancing world. The idea of working a staff job sounds nice the security, the breath of air that might come with that.

Freelancing genuinely scares me with it being specifically that you might not know where your next job is coming from. He said to just keep reaching out, basically pester to a degree as all ambitious people should.

He was a good man. I shook his hand and then went to Woodward and Bernstein's keynote. Going to this keynote was interesting especially to hear these two men who had such a large impact on the United States, with uncovering the WaterGate scandal.

The fact that I was sitting there as these now older men talked on stage was a bit strange but delightful.

10/29:

This was the best day of the trip by far. At 11 a.m. we went to a keynote which had John Quiñones, Roland Martin and Bill Whitaker.

Bill Whitaker was someone I recognized because I remembered scrolling through YouTube as a kid watching his 60 minutes interviews.

I wanted to meet Mr. Whitaker so I came over to his meet and greet section after the keynote. I didn't want a photo at first but I just wanted to thank him for the inspiring speech.

I let everyone else go in front of me and as the time passed and I got closer, the suspense built in my mind. I started to overthink what I was going to say but decided at the last minute to take a shot.

When I shook his hand we spoke for a second and I thanked him for taking the time to talk to all of his fans with such sincerity. I then asked if I could get a photo of him with our issue of PULSE. He said yes, but once he was done greeting the last two guests.

At this time the event workers were packing up the room, rolling out tables and folding chairs. It ended up just being Bill Whitaker, another journalist who had been in the industry 20 years longer than I've been alive and me. As I listened to their conversation I realized I was in on it, arms folded, with people much more qualified than myself.

After the journalist said goodbye to Mr. Whitaker, we started shooting. I was nervous.

He was flipping through magazines and he ended up on a story I had done photos for about Female Minorities. He pointed to the first page photo and said "did you take this photo?".

I said yes and he talked about how much he liked it which surprised me. THIS MADE MY DAY. I'm someone who thought they would be a highschool dropout so to have someone I respected compliment my work meant a lot.

CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO!

PULSE Goes To DC: Dylan's Diary