Welcome to the new Web site and blog of the Yakima Herald-Republic photo department. Here, members of the photo staff want to open a dialogue with Herald-Republic newspaper readers and website users. Photo staff members will share their thoughts about photography and photojournalism at the Herald-Republic . Your comments are welcome.

So let’s talk about this photo, the opening photo on our website and one that

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic Hugo Nunez shoulders a bag of just-picked yellow corn just before dawn on Thursday, July 11 near Wapato. Harvesting corn is some of the hardest work to be done now at Dagdagan Farm and Produce so it's done in the relative cool of the predawn hours with workers starting about 4:30 a.m., says Roland Dagdagan. The easier work, such as picking beans, is done later in the day. "Even though it's 104 degrees we just have to suck it up" and keep working to fill orders, says Dagdagan. The corn being picked Thursday was going mainly to local supermarkets. Temperatures in the Lower Valley again topped 100 degrees Thursday.

appeared in the Herald-Republic in July. It was hot in the Yakima Valley that week and our job, as photographers, is to figure out how to photographically portray the heat and how it affects the Valley. We could go to a pool and show kids cooling off in the water. Nope. Been there, done that. No, wait – let’s find someone on a road construction project who has to work out in the 100+ degree heat. Take a picture of a worker drinking water or wiping the sweat off his brow. Ditto. Been there, shot that. Someone else suggested going to the local ice maker and show them laboring in cold temperatures, a contrast to the sweltering temps outside. Nope – that photo’s got “cliche” written all over it.

I’ve been fortunate to live and work here in the Valley for nearly 19 years but there is a downside to that longevity – finding new and different ways to photograph the same events (like hot weather) year after year. Knowing that some people, including farmworkers, start work early to beat the heat, I figured that would be one way to show how some people cope with the hot weather. Of course this would mean I’d have to start work at 4 a.m. (we have to change our work schedules to match those of our subjects since we don’t set up or stage our photographs). Having met farm owner Roland Dagdagan on a previous assignment, I called him and he generously let me hang out with his workers early in the morning as they harvested corn. The workers were, as always, generous and fun to hang out with and I got to practice my rudimentary Spanish language skills. They laughed at me only a little as I spoke Spanish (or at least my version of it).

The morning light was fantastic. I chose this photo because it conveyed the time of day (with the subtle pre-dawn lighting), the place (the cornfield surrounding the subject) and the work (the worker shouldering the large bag of corn). It wasn’t necessary to show his face because his body language told the story more than did any expression he had. I took lots of other photos that morning, some of which were almost as good, but I thought this one told the story more than any other. Of course this means that during next summer’s hot weather I will have to think of another way to tell the story of the heat.
–Gordon King