The Story of a Young Journalist, Writer and Illustrator Inspired by her Love for Polaroid Photography
Desislava Stoeva is a 22-year old Bulgarian from Stara Zagora, majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Bulgaria (AUBG). Furthermore, despite of her age, Desislava is the president of the university club TEDxAUBG and an artist, who wrote, designed and illustrated a book by herself as part of her capstone project and inspired by her travelling stories and love for Polaroid Photography.
Moreover, Desislava decided to write this piece, because she has been devoted to travelling and photography for the most part of her life and has a very good experience, “it is a passion of mine and I think that a capstone project should be something in progress, not something you pick up for one semester “, she said. Desislava is also interested in design and layout and this is the reason for her to illustrate and design the book by herself.
The title of her book is “1:1.348 Polaroid Stories”, which means the correct dimension of the Polaroid Instant Camera that Desislava uses. This type of instant camera is characterized by smaller images than those of the standard Polaroid camera. Actually, Desislava decided to choose this interesting title, because although the size of the photos is pretty small and can be compared to credit card size, capture moments, emotions and feelings that cannot be edited or duplicated, “Those small images are powerful and matter the most “, she said.
The content of the book and the stories inside are chosen also very precisely. Although, every story is different, all together form a finished piece with particular and clear message to the audience. The message of Desislava to her readers is to be open for the beautiful world around them, “wherever you go and travel, whoever you meet, always be open for the beauty and the stories around you”, she said.
Desislava had the main idea about the content of her piece, but the process took a whole semester of hard work during the second half of 2018, before her book was officially published, “Definitely it is not a last-minute procrastination”, she said. First of all, she wrote the pieces, and met a lot of times with her advisor Professor Laura Kelly to discuss the format and the topic. Then she left the pieces for a certain period of time and did the design and illustration, and at the end she went back to the stories and edited them.
Desislava said, the project was challenging but at the same time very interesting, “I enjoyed every second of it”, she said, but of course she met a few difficulties and obstacles on the way to success. The most difficult and surprising part for her were the little details in the meaning of the paper quality, thickness of paper, how to be bound and the sizing, “In order to produce a book and have it printed out, there are so many details”, she said.
JMC Department Chair Lynnette Leonard states that, capstone projects are individual, very different from each other and bring together everything learned by the students through the four undergraduate years in university “it requires student skills and knowledge from multiple courses been brought together”, she said.According to Leonard, the project of Desislava is very personal, but in the same time successful, interesting and inspirational, because her motivation was her personal experience, “in her project, Desi involved a certain amount of passion and personal interests”, she said.
Dayana Kaymakanovais a senior at AUBG majoring in International Relations and Politics and Journalism and Mass Communications. After graduation, she wants to focus on her professional career as political journalist.
