As you’ve hopefully seen, one of my projects for this year is a photo column. For me, it’s a huge opportunity and challenge. This is my first column. After several years of admiring the work done by photojournalist columnists around the country, I decided to give it a try.
In developing my idea for the column, I was struck by two ideas. The first was that whenever I tell my physically distant friends and family that I live in Washington state, I always get the same reaction. “Wow, I bet it’s wet there.†Their only concept of Washington is of western Washington: lush, green, and urban. I wanted to begin to describe the Washington I live in, its quirks, its character, its landscape and people. To try to describe, in pictures, my community – sageland and hops, rather than orcas and Microsoft.
My second thought was that I should start this exploration soon. I’ve lived here now for just over two years. Things that used to surprise me are slowly becoming comfortable and mundane. Places that are new, surprising and interesting slowly become so much a part of my everyday experience that I hardly notice them any more. I want to continue to look at my home with the eyes of a newcomer, to be fascinated at the commonplace.
So over the next 12 months you’ll be seeing the Yakima Valley through my eyes. The column will appear in the “Life in the Northwest” section monthly in print, and will also soon have it’s own home on the photo department’s website, which I hope to update more often.
Some entries will be a single photo, others will have video or slideshows. Each entry will explore the link between place, THIS place, and the people who live here. In the next 11 months, I want to paint a portrait of the Yakima Valley.
In picking situations to photograph, I am sketching out the shape of her. In editing my photos and videos I am choosing the nuance of line, here ragged as the ice along the river’s edge, here soft as cherry blossoms falling to the ground. And in the faces and stories of the individuals I will meet, I hope to discover the colors of life here: the earthy brown of everyday struggles, the brilliant glitter of a child’s sudden laugh.
It will be my portrait, painted with my experience.
I also welcome any suggestions for people and stories to photograph as part of this column. Please leave a comment below or email me with contact information at sgettys@yakimaherald.com.
–Sara Gettys
I heard about something similar to this on a news segment