Occasionally I  dive deep into our photo archives to find file photos to illustrate stories.

This is also a chance for me stroll down memory lane and look at photos I shot so long ago. I clearly remember some of the photos taken 20 years ago and some of those photos I’d clearly like to forget. Let’s just say the quality of those photos isn’t…quality.

There’s only a handful of those long-ago photos that I still like. Of those, one remains a favorite.

We were doing yet another wine grape harvest story and I was looking (and hoping) for a different way to shoot a different harvest photo.

Alberta Bernabe harvests Cabernet Sauvignon grapes at the Elephant Mountain Vineyards Oct. 10, 2000. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)

Funny – I still remember the day and my thought process at the time. Not satisfied with “larger” photos, those which included the farm worker, I decided to take a different tack and shoot just the hands of a worker. The bunch of grapes, clippers and the weather-beaten hand with a duct-tape bandage tell me a story of that farmworker and his work that day.

And  I remember that at the time, it was a pretty bold photo editing move to run just the photo of the hand. Nowadays, that would be a routine photo editing decision. It’s safe to say our visual sophistication has grown since those days.

Looking back at those old photos is also a way for me to gauge my progress and growth as a photographer. And while I’m not at the level I’d like to be (I don’t know if I ever will) it is good to see that my work has matured and simply gotten better over the years. Which is a good thing.

–Gordon