♪♪
-I thank the Times for joining the Library in our commitment
to enrich this community with stories and information.
The Library and the Times keep the history of Seattle
and keep us informed about our present.
We have a long offered access --
we have all long offered access to the historical, physical,
and digital edition of the Times,
in addition to the many other historical
and news resources at the library.
The ability of everyone to share stories, learn from the past,
and stay connected to trusted information
are critical for our democracy, and maybe even more today
with the things that we see in censorship and book banning.
So, thank you all for your support.
This event is a great opportunity
to look back at the photos
and stories that defined each year in our city.
I'm really looking forward to tonight's program
and hearing from some outstanding photojournalists
and videographers.
I want to give a special thanks
to Phil Roey and Danny Gawlowski at the Times
who were doing all the work behind the scenes
again this year, and Times publisher
and CEO Frank Blethen, who is here tonight.
I got a chance to speak with Frank.
Thank you for coming tonight.
[ Applause ]
Now it's my great pleasure to turn over the program
to Angela Gottschalk, Director of Photography at the Times.
Over to you, Angela.
-Thank you, Tom.
And thank you to the Seattle Public Library
for having us back here to present
our Annual Pictures of the Year show.
As Tom said, it's been four years
since we were here in person, which seems like way too long.
Seeing all of you out there is super gratifying
and it's just really great to be back.
Whether you're a longtime subscriber or new
to consuming news on various Seattle Times platforms,
we're really glad you're here.
The Seattle Times has been owned by the Blethen family
for the last 127 going on 128 years.
That's a pretty impressive-- It's a pretty impressive
run of strong committed local journalism
and one that we're proud of and grateful for.
So many things have changed as the city and surrounding areas
have evolved along with the technology
used to produce our work.
However, our mission remains the same
as we strive to enlighten and inform our Audience
by providing a steady diet of news,
features, sports, and other coverage.
Tonight we're here to celebrate a commitment to photojournalism.
Photos are usually the first thing that readers see
when they open the paper or look at our website.
The impact can be unmistakable and long-lasting.
In the split second, it takes to record an image,
that visual has the capacity to grab your attention
and pull you into a story
that you may not have even known you were interested in reading.
It's our job to place you right in the midst of the people
and places that make our city and surrounding areas unique.
We want you to experience life's joys and sorrows,
tender moments, and harsh realities along with us.
We also want you to be awed by the beauty and richness
of the Pacific Northwest wonder on display.
Be it from up in the air on or in the water,
or in someone's workplace or living room,
we aim to introduce you to faces in our community
and help you get to know people
that you might not meet otherwise.
We also want to give you a variety of views
such as those cherry trees on the UW Quad
from high above or salmon beneath the stream,
or in the case of this year's pictures,
we had mermaids in a pool.
There is so much heart and soul that our visual journalists
invest in documenting the diversity
of the Pacific Northwest through dedicated prep work,
involving research, light, timing,
and many other details, as well as the ability
to transcend any number of challenges in the moment.
Our photographers work tirelessly to bring you
a strong visual report every single day.
Beyond their efforts,
our photo editors and photo production staff
hold it all together behind the scenes.
Sometimes they're the unsung heroes
so I want to be sure to acknowledge them tonight too.
This evening you'll get to hear from Kevin Clark,
the most recent addition to our photographer team
as well as Jennifer Buchanan.
We'll also be giving away a couple of framed prints,
and we'll have a drawing for those at the end of the show
after our question-and-answer session.
I want to thank you all again
for coming and for supporting local journalism.
It's great to have you here.
Now, let's look at some awesome photos.
These are our pictures of the year.
♪♪
Thank you.
Now, I'd like to introduce Jennifer Buchanan.
Jennifer is a joy to work with and an amazing photographer.
I know you'll enjoy her presentation.
-Hi, everyone. It's nice to see so many of you here.
So, so many of you, not intimidating at all.
News photographers are good at being wall flowers,
the less you notice us, the better so it
probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise
that some of us aren't very good at public speaking.
Now, that we've lowered your expectations.
A little background on me.
I started that at the Times about two and a half years ago
after a decade at the Everett Herald
and seven years photo editing for MSN, being in the Seahawks.
People have asked me ever since I got this job how I like it,
my answer is this, this is my dream job.
Every day is a new challenge, a new assignment,
a new fun thing to do.
I feel incredibly lucky to have been plucked out
of an enormous applicant pool and asked to shoot photos
that help tell the story of our region for a living.
I have wonderful co-workers who every day challenge me
with their own work to be better.
Special shout out to Dean Rutz,
who along being with my shooting partner
for all the big sporting events, loves to explore
and eat his way through away cities as much as I do.
Dino, I think we ate too much brisket in Texas
but I have no regrets.
My editors are superb and always work so hard
to make our jobs as easy as they can be.
I am beyond honored to work with everyone at the Times.
And this is not my first stint here.
I was a tech in the photo department
when I was in college, doing some photo production work
and maintaining the film processors.
Yes, I'm that old.
I'm a native Seattleite and a good Northwesterner.
I love being outside in the mountains, I love skiing,
biking, running, gardening, and fishing with my dad.
Oh, and I love dogs because, hello, dogs.
I believe most of you know me as a sports photographer
and it's true,
I would say the majority of my work here is sports
but that doesn't mean one of the most fun things
about this job is the variety;
it's not just sports, it's not just news,
it's not just features, it's everything.
Any given day, you can find me shivering knee-deep in seawater,
having just discovered a hole in my waders
but nevertheless, photographing opening day
of razor clam season on the coast.
I got lucky with the light that day.
Not often do you see that kind of quality in January?
The next day, it's off to Eastern Washington
in the dead of winter to watch a bobcat racing in away
from a trap after being released by researchers.
Starting before 7:00 a.m. on a frigid morning,
we rode snowmobiles deep into the mountains
with lynx researchers.
Over the course of a day on snow,
we ran a trap line of 37 live traps.
No lynx that day, unfortunately, but there was a lonely bobcat
who is pretty pumped to be released from his trap.
This assignment was a great example
of how we dedicate precious time and money
to important and often overlooked stories.
And in my book, any day outside is a good day,
even if that day is super-duper cold.
Relief, happiness, honor, all of these emotions,
and more were written on the faces of this crew
that had paddled over 1500 miles in 19 days
to arrive on the sandy expanses of Alki Beach
after the canoe journey.
I had never seen as many evidence markers
than what I saw at the shooting at Rainier Beach Safeway.
For the record, they went up to 94.
A lone police officer surrounded by a crush of yellow tags.
Gun violence continues to ravage our communities with shootings
at schools, rec centers, street corners,
and, yes, even grocery stores.
Ah, the Macklemore photo.
This is a lucky photo and one that I almost didn't take.
Back in March, we learned the day of that
Macklemore would be performing a free show
that evening at Neumos on Capitol Hill.
A few days before,
the Seattle rapper had caused a bit of a stir
when he released his worldwide tour schedule,
and the Emerald City was notably not on it.
I've often heard that Neumos is a great place to see a show,
but what I'm guessing fans like about it
is what makes it challenging to photograph in,
there are no photo positions,
no pit, no mixing board to stand in front of,
it's just you and 700 very hot,
very sweaty fans inches from the artist.
I debated about staying for the full show.
I knew I had to upload photos that evening
for the online gallery.
Should I bounce after a few songs
or should I stay to see if Macklemore
did something awesome for his hometown crowd?
I opted for the latter and was sure glad that I did.
After the very last song of the encore,
Mac went crowd surfing, not so much surfing as it was walking.
He stepped off the stage onto the waiting arms
of his most devoted fans, and for a split second,
their hands were backlit by the house lights.
Dozens of people reaching up to hold up their hero.
It's one of those photos that when you're taking it,
you have the possibility --
you know that it has the possibility to be good.
But this one is particularly lucky.
I was exposed for the stage lights,
when Macklemore left the stage,
I compensated by reducing my shutter speed on the fly.
What had been 1800th of a second on stage, quickly became 1125th
as I spun my dials down as fast as I could.
How on earth he and the fans are as sharp
as they are will remain a mystery to me.
It was luck. You've got to love super fun portrait subjects.
This is Bernie Griffin, former managing director
of the Fifth Avenue Theater.
She is retiring after more than two decades
at the helm of the musical producing theater.
I only knew her for two hours but by the time
I was done photographing her, I felt like family.
Okay. Now, for the Blue Angels photo.
Everyone wants to talk about this one and rightfully so.
I think it's pretty awesome and was happy to have gotten it,
although plain enthusiasts will tell you
that this is not a unique photo.
This photo is a physics lesson most of all. Okay.
I know you're all glazing over but hear me out.
After conferring with people much smarter than I,
here's the best I can do in explaining what is happening.
The cloud forming near the back of this F/A-18
Super Hornet is called a vapor cone,
it is a visual representation of the sound barrier.
The aircraft is exhibiting transonic flight
in which the air at the front of the aircraft is supersonic,
above the speed of sound and the air
at the back is subsonic, below the speed of sound.
Had the pilot increased his speed,
the cone would have slipped off the back of the aircraft,
hit the vacuum that had formed there
and a sonic boom would have occurred likely
shattering quite a few windows on Mercer Island.
The relative high humidity of this August day
contributed greatly to the cloud formation.
I love it when I can slip some science into photography.
My editor Bettina Hansen had tasked me
with making a photo for daylight savings
and had the idea to photograph the King Street Station Clock
Tower. I took my bodyguard, husband
Joe, with me down to Pioneer Square
that night. We spent the first hour
or so doing long exposure airplane trails
and I was quite happy with some of those.
Then an almost full moon began to peek out over the horizon.
And in-camera double exposure
was needed to get the exposure correct
for both the clock face and the moon.
For reference, the moon was about five stops
brighter than the clock.
I like repeating themes in my photographs.
How about circularly -- how about circular onions
delicately placed on top of a bed
of circularly arranged steak in a circular bowl?
Summer means the Longacres Mile at Emerald Downs.
And if only someone would tell them to run the mile
even just 30 minutes before its normal start time,
we could see amazing light like this.
As it turns out, the sun sets behind the grandstands,
sometime between the end of this,
the Washington Oaks race, and the post for the Mile.
This photo was taken by a remote camera
placed underneath the rail,
pre-focused at 17 mm, and shot at F16.
The high F stop means that the iris
that controls how much light comes into the camera
is very small causing the sunburst effect.
Remote cameras can come in quite handy for events
that happen very quickly like a horse race.
And in horse racing, you as a human being with a camera
can't just hide under the rail and shoot photos,
horses are above all fright animals
and will shy or startle.
The last thing I would want is a horse to throw its Rider
because they saw a human lying under the rail.
In the fall of 2022,
I was entrusted with an amazing opportunity.
Boeing had invited the Seattle Times
into the widebody facility in Everett
to document the manufacturing of the very last 747.
We and the New York Times were the only two outlets
afforded this opportunity. Due to a Boeing-imposed embargo,
these images were not allowed to be published
until the weekend before the delivery,
which was February 2023.
Over the course of late nights and long days,
I was able to witness the construction
of the very last Queen of the Skies.
This is a time-lapse of the final body join,
which takes place during the overnight Boeing shift.
It takes about 6 hours for it to all come together.
I got home around 3:00 a.m. During the final body join,
the nose and F sections of the aircraft are craned in
and attached to the wing box section.
747 engines are huge, they weigh over
14,000 lbs a piece.
And there are, of course, four of them.
It's not every day you can fly a giant tail cone
which contains the auxiliary power unit like a kite.
People built these incredible machines,
not just with cranes but with their hands.
And spectators dwarfed by the sheer size of the Queen
wave as the distinctive hump
emerges from the assembly hanger for the last time.
The sun sets on the final 747
as it comes in for a landing at Paine Field
during a test flight.
Mount Rainier resplendent in the background.
So, I'm sure most of you know my byline
and don't often associate it
with photos outside of the sports section
so I know what you're here for, it's the sports photos.
We're going there now.
May all of you experience the same amount of joy
as a high school football team
winning the state championship. Or rookie Jake Bobo
scoring a touchdown in the good light in the best uniforms.
I wish they would wear these all the time.
When the Seahawks traveled east to the Meadowlands for a Monday
night clash with the Giants,
no one knew that they would tie the team record
for sacks in the game with 11. Here Bobby
Wagner appears to smile as he wraps
Giants quarterback Daniel Jones in a huge hug.
At the end of the game, the discussion with my editor
wasn't if we should use a sack photo for the sports cover
but rather which of the 11 sack photos we should use.
A brilliant headline by assistant sports editor
Kelly Ward highlighted the cover the next day.
It's a good cover. Who doesn't love a mere image?
And sometimes after shooting player introductions
for the thousandth time,
you make a nice frame which is, of course,
why you shoot the same things over and over for that one time.
And other times, as luck would have it,
the winning touchdown comes directly at you.
The ball just at Jaxon Smith-Njigba's fingertips,
his legs in lockstep with the Philadelphia corner
who will never catch up.
And Coach Pete was always fun to watch
and always fun to shoot.
Infectious energy that coaches half his age don't have.
Seattle will miss him.
We are so lucky to have such a photogenic charismatic player
like Julio Rodriguez.
Every game there is the potential
to witness something new and unique involving him.
He plays the game with such passion and joy.
He's also easy on the eyes.
Gino Suarez in his noodle bat, in reality,
a broken bat in the process. During Felix Hernandez Mariners
Hall of Fame induction, Ken Griffey Jr.,
always the jokester, lined up a photo.
It's not every day a kid can take a selfie with the king.
The All-Star game was in Seattle this year and I for one,
will be happy to never ever cover one ever again.
Normally, the easy task became monumentally hard.
Lots of things that week went sideways.
And this photo is a perfect example.
During the major league baseball draft,
this was my assigned photo position.
A teleprompter directly blocking the face of the commissioner.
Fans just waiting to jump up out of their chairs
and block an already flawed frame.
So, Major League Baseball threw a crate of lemons at you,
make funny lemonade.
I actually broke free of my assigned position
for the majority of the draft
and photographed it from closer to the stage
where I wouldn't be blocked.
Sometimes what we photographers hate about outfield
advertisements, bright eye-catching colors,
makes for a bright eye-catching graphically pleasing photo.
This photo was shot from center field.
Big events like the All-Star game
often have space limitations on normal shooting positions.
We put Dean Rutz in the first base photo well,
and Kevin Clark in third.
I chose center field if only to see something different
and I got it.
The new swiveling view screen on my cameras
allows me to put one directly on the court or the ground.
And in this case, merging a basketball player
with her reflection during a Sweet 16
Game at Climate Pledge.
The UW women's softball team was down six to nothing,
entering the seventh
and final inning of their game against McNeese.
There were three outs left in their season
if they did not score six runs.
Teams in the history of the NCAA tournament in that situation
were five and 903. So, what did they do?
They made that six and 903, scoring seven runs
and walking off with the most dramatic win
I have ever seen.
I love all the faces in this photo.
The players surrounding their coach.
Normally a celebration photo has quite a few backs
and not as many happy faces.
Seattle and soccer said goodbye to Megan Rapinoe this season.
In her farewell game, a record women's sporting event crowd
packed the stands to see her play.
I grew up playing soccer, it was my sport.
When Brandy Chastain ripped off her jersey after slamming home
the winning penalty kick to win the 1999
World Cup, I was amazed, elated, proud, and above all, empowered.
She had done for women's sports what no one had done before her.
Enter Megan Rapinoe,
she is the star of a new generation of women's --
United States soccer players, men or women.
It is not a stretch to say what she has done off the pitch
for the advancement of women's sports and social justice
is greater than what she has done on it.
But Rapinoe's fairy tale exit
was not to be, as she blew out her
Achilles three minutes into the championship game in San Diego.
The Reign would lose to Gotham two to one.
I was dehydrated and my head
was pounding from the altitude in Denver,
when the Seattle Kraken defeated the Stanley
Cup champions, the Colorado
Avalanche in the first round of the playoffs.
The Kraken players came pouring
Off the Bench as the horn sounded on game seven.
The coaches embracing in the background.
The NHL playoffs are insane.
There's nothing quite like playoff hockey.
If a regular season overtime game goes to 10,
the intensity and physicality of the playoffs go to 11.
Spinal tap, anyone? Okay. Good. In the second round,
the Kraken faced a Dallas team that looked beatable most games
but ultimately, they lost in seven.
How do you illustrate a team leaving a conference?
Enter the Dog walk. Before every home game,
the UW football players walk arm-in-arm across the field.
I could not have asked for a better weather game
to shoot this photo. The long line of players
and their shadows crossing over the Pac-12 logo
as they literally and symbolically walk away.
In what was a preview of the Huskies joining the Big 10,
the Dogs traveled to East Lansing
to take on Michigan State.
The Huskie offense made highlight rail catches
and I made the mistake of eating a concession stand hot dog,
perils of the media mill, and it was not a highlight.
A storm was building over Montlake as the Huskies
opened the very last Pac-12 season.
Rain sometimes makes everything more magical, even a drop back.
I love it when people in my photographs
aren't touching the ground. The Apple
Cup this year was decided by a last-second field goal
by a walk-on kicker
who subsequently was put on scholarship
in the locker room directly after the win.
Kalen Deboer was all smiles after the game
as he walked off the field, the Apple Cup trophy behind him.
Who knew, other than maybe the athletic director
and Deboer himself that it would be the last time
we would see him at Husky Stadium?
So, the next photos are technically from this year
but they finish out the 2023 season
so I hope you'll forgive me.
Washington advanced through the Pac-12 title game
with yet another win over Oregon.
Always a good feeling to be Oregon.
And drew a tech -- and drew Texas
for a New Year's Day clash in the Sugar Bowl
in New Orleans. I do love weird photos.
Rome Odunze is some sort of magician
catching that ball with his knuckles.
The joy of a turnover.
And the swat, securing the Huskies win.
The Dogs celebrated on the field as Dean and I ran to
and from the photo room in shifts
to get our photos out for our print additions.
And when I say ran, I mean we sprinted.
After the celebration began to die down,
I ran as fast as I could to the photo room
to transmit the last play.
Dean shot the trophy hoisting and also ran in.
I ran back out to photograph the Huskies leaving the field.
And then you guessed it,
sprinted back into the photo room.
It was a race literally against time
as deadlines loomed left and right.
But we made it and had celebratory beignets at 2 a.m.
For a really good look into
what happened in the office that night,
I highly recommend reading our executive editor's piece.
You can go to our website
and search "Sugar Bowl" and "squeaker".
Next up, the college football championship game,
fortified by pie in Baton Rouge,
there's a theme here, it's food for photographers.
Fellow photographer Dean Rutz and I road-tripped
the five-and-a-half hours from New Orleans to Houston
through the bayou and oil refineries.
The Dogs were all smiles as they were introduced to the crowd.
But it quickly became clear that the normal
Huskies I had seen all year long weren't here.
Odunze made drops on balls that he caught earlier in the season.
He and quarterback Michael Penix,
normally completely in sync, were not on the same page.
And the Huskies couldn't get their ground game going.
Dillon Johnson having been injured late
in the Sugar Bowl against Texas.
Penix got hammered by the Michigan defense,
coming up injured on this play in the fourth quarter.
It was hard to watch him yell out in pain after every snap.
UW walked off the field
in a hail of Michigan-colored confetti.
And because we don't want to end on such a sad note,
here's the crew for the national championship game.
Card runners Robert and Nathan on the outsides,
and Dean and myself.
And that was my 2023. Thank you so much for watching.
[ Applause ]
Next up, I'd like to introduce my good friend
and identical twin, Kevin Clark.
-A little bit about me.
I started at the Seattle Times in 2022,
as the latest hire at Seattle Times.
I came from the Everett Herald
after eight years of following Jenny,
so my good friend and twin.
Let's get started.
So, starting off, we're going to talk about Joshua and Stephen.
They're climate and forest activists.
And this is a trip we took with our environmental
reporter Isabella Breda to Pe Ell, Washington.
Has anybody ever heard of Pe Ell, Washington?
Thank you. Because I had never heard of it before.
And it was an adventure. No roads.
Well, very few roads and very few trails.
We hiked into the woods to get this photo.
And honestly, I love this photo
just because of the majesty of the forest
and just the concern of these two activists
about Washington State selling rights to log this land.
It was an interesting story
and I was privileged to photograph this.
Now, word about climate and camera gear,
and always you have to pay attention.
If you look above Steven's hat,
you'll see how the sky is a little bit fuzzy.
That's rain on my lens.
When I was shooting this, I didn't even notice.
I didn't even pay attention, didn't even cross my mind
until I got back and was editing photos
and saw a series of blurry images,
sometime on the face, sometime here,
and I didn't know what it was and I went to my bag,
picked up my camera and my lens is just full of water.
I'm like oh. But this came out and I really enjoy it.
Also, I enjoy it because it is almost
a direct replica of a photo I took with my daughter
when I took her on an assignment into the deep woods
and she stood similar to Joshua,
just looking up at the majesty of the trees.
Now, this is one of my photos that I got a lot of comments on.
This day, I called in sick to work. I had a cold.
I'm pretty sure like many of you've had already
or just coming off of. And I told Bettina at the desk,
"I can't make it in to work. I'm feeling awful."
So, I'm at home and I hear -- okay, a common occurrence,
not too big a deal.
Okay. That's too. Maybe I'll keep an eye out.
Three times more and I checked the app for that.
There's an app for that, by the way.
And sure enough, there's a fire on Lake City Way.
And I go down, I was like, okay.
I call the desk, "Hey, I know I'm sick
but there's a multiple-alarm fire,
multiple engines have rolled. I'm going to go check it out."
They said cool. No problem.
I go downhill and I park and I start walking,
and when I'm coming around the corner,
I see trails of water, streams of water honestly,
and people escorting dogs by the collars
across the street to another property.
And I keep walking and I come up on this scene.
People are scrambling.
First, the first responders are getting in the building,
coming out of the building, chopping holes in the roof.
And I see these first responders working on this husky.
When I rolled up, the husky's eyes were now closed,
and they continued to work on this dog for 5 to 10 minutes.
And the husky's eyes opened.
And then his friend came over and said, "Are you all right?"
And it's one of my favorite images. Life is in the details.
This is just a normal assignment about an initiative.
One of our special elections.
My assignment that day was to go out with some canvassers
and some grassroots activists as they went and knocked on doors.
Some people answered, some people said, "Go away,"
some people just didn't want to have anything to do with it,
and some -- one lady opened her door in a bathrobe
and said, "Sure, you can take my photo."
It was awesome. But I really love
this photo just - well, sorry, pardon my pun.
It's just because life is in the details.
This is a replica of a photo of --
if you know anything about Dennis Rodman,
when he was playing in the NBA,
one of the most prolific rebounders in the NBA.
And there's a photo of him that we have --
there's a small little business card
that we have in our house. Someone used that photo for it.
And Dennis Rodman is literally
going horizontal on a basketball court.
Everybody knows that basketball is a vertical sport, right?
So, I love this photo just for the fact that
she's going horizontal.
And it reminds me of that photo that I see.
And you can see the urgency of the coach in the background
and just the pure action of it.
And if you've never been to the Hardwood Classic in Tacoma
for High School Basketball State Playoffs, it is an experience.
I suggest everybody do it at least
once at least once in a lifetime.
Remember I said fires on Lake City?
Well, in the first, I will say, six months
of working at Seattle Times,
I've covered three fires on Lake City alone
and then another fire less than two miles from my house.
So I've covered more Fires for the Seattle Times
in that short -- short attention --
a short span of time than I have in entire eight years
when I was at the Everett Herald.
This is one of those occasions where - well, let's see. Okay.
Let me check the app, and sure enough, a multiple-alarm fire.
Meet and Aaron Clark, he was a volunteer
for military service in Ukraine.
We did a profile on him and he told us his story.
It was a poignant story,
he shared some details that I won't go into.
But, hey, you can definitely check it out
on seattletimes.com.
It was tragic in a way that he's dealing with personal issues,
he lost some friends,
some of his friends didn't come back whole,
and he personally is dealing with a number of mental issues
just from the conflict themself.
And this is a series -- this came out in a series
where he was the nicest guy, he was willing to do anything.
Did you bring your uniform with you? "Sure I did."
Did you get your backpack? "Sure I did."
Hey, they gave me a medal, got a patch.
We got all those photos.
And this photo was taken in front
of a strip mall wall in Beacon Hill.
So, photos can be taken anywhere.
If you find a nice light, clean background, you can do it.
And this is one of my favorite photos
and it just turned out really well.
Meet Colleen Echohawk, CEO of Eighth Generation.
Now, this is my favorite photo of Ellen
but this isn't the one that ran in the paper.
The one that ran in the paper was a little bit more serious.
You have to excuse me.
I say ran in the paper because I like the paper.
I also read online but when I say paper,
it's because I just like the paper.
Hey, they spend money to publish that, my work in the paper.
I think it's important. Well, in the background,
in the mural there is a painting of an orca.
And I told Colleen, said, "Hey, I was on YouTube
and I watched this guy talking about orcas
and he called them the psychopathic sea pandas."
And she -- and she bust up laughing
and that's the frame. And she said, "It's so true."
And that's the face you have there.
Did anybody know we have one of the largest Shinto shrines
in North America here in Washington State,
in Granite Falls of all places? No. I didn't know that either,
not until I came to the Seattle Times.
Meet Lawrence, he's a Shinto priest.
A really nice guy, an introspective person.
And we toured the grounds, got really nice photos.
And I have a photo of him with his hand on a statue of a frog,
which is a sign of good luck in their culture.
And after a while of walking around, taking photos of him,
he said, "I'm done." Okay.
He pulled a complete diva move. It was great. It was great.
From an introspective guy, he just says, "I'm done".
And that moment there, that moment of "I'm done"
was great, it says so much about him,
you can see the character of him,
just the age and I would say the wisdom in his face,
I guess you'd say. And I love just the moment of it
and the expression on his face. Opening day at Mariners.
I always wanted to get this photo.
Before I never actually had the opportunity
because I was actually many times
the lone photographer on these events.
So when I had the opportunity to shoot this photo,
I jumped at it and I said,
"I'm bringing my wide-angle glance
because I want to get this photo."
Because I rarely get a chance to do it.
And on opening day, we ran stories,
and this photo didn't show up anywhere,
it wasn't online, wasn't in paper.
But months later, before the All-Star Game,
it actually showed up in print.
I was like, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you."
All right. Let's talk about this.
This is an interesting story.
Please, please, please if you have a moment,
it's called the Tulip Wars or what I call the Tulip Wars.
It's a story about one of the biggest
and largest tulip agricultural sites,
agritourism sites in Skagit Valley, Skagit County.
And four people bought it.
One of the partners sold out and he went down the street
about a mile and a half and opened up his own,
his own agritourism site of tulips.
And so down this is a legal battle
of what's going on here, content, all that kind of stuff.
Well, so we tour both sites and I've got pictures of tulips.
And I have more pictures of tulips.
And I have pictures of people walking by tulips.
I have people -- I have pictures of people
taking pictures of tulips.
And I have drawn photos of tulips.
So, as I'm leaving, it's getting late
and I was like, "Okay. Well,
let's see what else I can do." Now, when I was in high school,
I took my only photography class.
One of the assignments was to look for something
that signifies repetition and variation.
And so, when I go out an assignment,
I'm always looking for that, repetition and variation
in my assignments in my photos.
And I was like, "Oh, those trees are nice, that's pretty good.
I wish they were in bloom. But, hey, what can you do?"
And then I started working and liked the trees,
had lined it up and then, let me bend down here
just a little, little bit, a little bit.
Oh, what do we have here? All right. Let's see.
As I'm taking this frame, people are walking through
and it slowly starts to come together.
And I was like, oh, this is great.
Let me wait and see what happens.
I'm 6'5 and waiting and I'm stalking people
as they're walking through, enjoying their tulips.
But this worked. It came out just right where they lined up
in between the trees and I think it worked.
Now, in a perfect world,
there would have been a stroller in one section,
a kid with a red balloon in the next, and a rainbow.
The women's rowing team at the University of Washington.
And it was a joy to be out on the water.
By the way, I didn't say this earlier during the --
during our rehearsals but the coach
when she wants to say, "Yay" or "Go man" she goes, "Woman!"
really loud like to tell the ladies they're doing a good job.
And I had to ask her, "What are you saying?"
She says, "I'm saying woman."
Like you say man, she says woman.
She screams it out really loud
and I just thought that was wonderful.
Well, coming to Seattle in 1991
with the Great Migration, the boats,
the ships on the ship canal are just ubiquitous,
you really don't think about them
unless you're in that world
of how actually massive these machines are.
And as we're going through,
it struck me as we're in this little bitty dingy,
following these shells, going through the ship canal,
and they're this big and these boats are this big.
And just the repetition
and variation of it and man and machine,
and just the hard work that goes into to it
makes it one of my favorite photos.
This is David Easterly,
he's a 25-year veteran of the King County Sheriff's Office.
He was shot on duty and his partner saved his life,
provided critical first aid that actually saved his life,
not a Band-Aid, I mean honest to goodness saved his life.
If he hadn't done what he had done that day, David,
wouldn't have been with us.
So, first responders, firefighters, everyone,
they came out and they lined the hall underneath 9th Avenue.
If anybody didn't know,
Harbor View is on one side of the Ninth,
and then there's a medical building on the other side.
To get through the nursing, the medical staff,
they have a hallway underneath that they travel.
It's small, it's tiny, and it's hot.
So, first responders line the hall to give him a salute
as he's going home for the first time in months.
This is the last playoff game here at --
I almost said KeyArena because when I was here -
anyway, we won't get into that. At Climate
Pledge, I was the second shooter along with Dean.
Dino! And if you can look to your right of the photo,
underneath one of those lights,
Dean is in there on the rink level.
You can see him. Hey, Dean.
Anyway, I was sitting mid-rank at, I think,
the second level of concourse and it just happened this way.
I got there early and set my stool
right there on mid-ice and to take this photo.
I didn't know this was going to happen.
This is one of those moments where you're like,
"Oh, wow, that worked out." Seattle Storm's Jewel Lloyd.
Now this is Media Day so I get there early,
I get there 30 minutes early to set up my lights,
my backdrop testing. I have lots of selfies of me
trying to figure out what light is working, which one is not.
And I brought four, one of them didn't work
so I had to put that away.
And Lloyd was still an hour late to it.
So, I'm sitting there, playing music on my iPhone
as I'm waiting. And she shows up, nice as can be
and I say, "Oh, did you bring a ball?"
She says, "I don't want to take a picture with the ball."
Okay. Every idea I had that day just went out the window.
So because when you have
a preconceived notion in your head,
it is very hard to get it out of there,
especially if it's something you want to do in this situation.
So, I said, okay. So what do I do?
I start posing with her.
And these are the series of photos that we did.
Hey, do this. Hey, what about this? How about that?
How about this? How about that? How about this one? I had to.
She was like, "What? You want me to pray?"
No, no, no. I want you to like do this.
And this one, which did not run in the paper.
One of the other ones ran as a cover.
This one didn't make it, but this is my favorite one.
Look at that smile. Honestly, it's great. I love the smile.
She's got some biceps, some guns on her, right, those are nice.
And my favorite part of it is the eye smile.
I love eye smiles and I really love it.
So, she was great. Salad Roll by Thai Ku in Seattle.
I love taking pictures of food because food can't talk back.
And it's a great chance to experiment.
Hey, what if I put my light here?
What if I put my light here? What if I put my light here?
I can do anything with it
and it won't say a word. It's awesome.
And this was taken in our classic Seattle days.
It was raining. If I pull back a little bit,
this is a metal table outside,
you'll see raindrops all over it.
And I pushed the table against the wall
where they had a series of bamboo plantings
and this is the image I got. And I really liked it.
Again, Jewel Lloyd, it's just exciting.
And I like faces.
If I can get a face over a landscape,
I would go for a face any day.
And I really gravitate toward the faces
and characters of people. Speaking of faces, again,
this is Jackie Hollingsworth Robbins and Charmaine Sly.
And they're celebrating the Tuesday election results
at Joy Hollingsworth election party, results party.
And again, just the joy of it
is what appeals to me and I just love it.
Yeah, I can't remember her name. You'll see some of this later,
but this is following an interview
by Lauren that we did.
Before I showed up, I asked for a ball
and her Jersey to be brought as props for a photo.
So, we got there early and I set up lights on,
there's an indoor soccer field.
I set up lights and all this kind of stuff,
and I didn't -- and I brought -- for some reason,
I left the light up in the interview area.
And I come back, I'm setting up,
and Lauren has taken one of my lights
and she put it on the Jersey itself.
And if you go to seattletimes.com,
you can actually see the video
and you'll see this jersey in the background
with a little spotlight on it.
That's my light, by the way. And as we're leaving,
as the interview is over and we're leaving,
and I have very few minutes with her,
she's sat down for an hour-long video
and I think I have two minutes --
no sorry, more like 10 minutes with her to get this photo.
I said, "Hey, can you put your back
against this wall real quick?"
I grab my light and move it a little bit.
Then actually -- then I grabbed one of Lauren's lights,
I moved it over there. So, you can see Lauren's light
on the right and mine on the left.
And Megan, being the professional she was,
she just worked it. She did it.
I mean she did the whole runway model. It was awesome.
And this was the better photo.
There was the other one, it came out okay.
But this is the one they used
and this one is actually the commemorative poster
that was published for her retirement announcement.
The Boys of Summer, the Trident I think is wonderful,
I really do and I really enjoyed it.
When they lose, I don't care;
when they hit a home run, it is awesome.
I've seen some great photos that come out of
when they just celebrate a home run in the dugout,
everybody's happy for that player.
And this is one of them. JP Crawford,
which is probably one of my favorite baseball players.
He's really excited and just the joy of everybody celebrating
with him is just touching.
Gulgun. Okay. This is exciting. Okay.
This is the CEO of the
and their office is in King Street Station.
And as we're taking pictures in the gallery space, brand new,
and she's very proud of it, in the gallery space, she says,
"Hey, you want to go up to the top of the Clock Tower?"
And I go sure. I can't request that because
I don't want to be liable and all that legal stuff
but if she says I'm like, yeah, let's do it.
So, come to find out the door is in their bathroom
so we hike up
these galley steps, and then we go through.
And it's -- if anybody remember that old video game Donkey Kong
where you go over and up, over and up.
Six times we did that.
And as I'm walking, I said, this is going to be cool.
I love my job.
I love my job. I love my job. So, we're walking.
And this is an experience like --
has anybody ever been to the top of the Clock Tower?
There's one. So we get up there and it is amazing.
And it's four faces of the clock and it's great.
And then, to top it off,
there's these spiral staircases that you can go up.
And then if you walk a little bit further,
you see this little Hogwarts door.
You open it up and you're outside on the rail of the peak.
Did I tell you I love my job?
It was awesome. You can't -- it's great.
And this is the photo I got on the spiral staircase.
I said, Gulgun, come on over here.
And she was so wonderful. Landscape.
This is after the big national game, the College Game Day.
Michael Penix when he -- when they defeated Oregon.
Yay, I'm a Husky so this was pretty good for me too.
This was following when Oregon was leaving after they lost,
Michael this --
Not many people know this. You know how quarterbacks
at the end of the game if you've ever watched football,
they meet in the middle of the field.
Well, the Oregon quarterback did not do that.
He went straight to the locker room.
Michael came from the other side of the field
and he beelined to the quarterback
to do the traditional thing.
So, it was wonderful. And then making his way back,
it was crowded and everything. And I got this picture.
Yes, I know you can't see his face
but I think the emotion and the urgency of people around him
I think makes that image. Meet Benton.
Now, I know this isn't - well, yes, it is.
This is one of my favorite photos.
It says a lot by saying a little.
I love the juxtaposition of this image.
What do you mean by that?
I mean look at the joy on Benton's face.
This is a child who has just discovered how to laugh.
He has a number of disabilities and challenges
ahead of him and his family. And this is a therapy swing
that they've installed in their house.
And he has a physical therapist that come to his house
at least three times a week.
And they put him in his swing and he just laughs and giggles,
which is apparently really new to the mom.
And I just love his face, his baby-smooth skin.
But helping him out is a strength in the age
of the older generation to help him succeed.
And I just love the quality of that image.
Yeah, it's not it's not going to, you know --
if it doesn't pull in your heartstrings, that's you,
but I like this photo.
Can I get a holler for Pete?
I've shot a lot of coaches -- I'm sorry.
I've photographed a lot of coaches
and I've never seen anyone so excitable
on the sideline as Pete Carroll, and he will be missed.
This is a bookstore opening in Fremont.
And you get your standard people looking at books,
people browsing books, people buying books,
you get some colorful books, book details.
But off in a corner, in the children's area,
this young lady is just sitting there reading
and her partner comes over, drapes over her shoulder
and she reads next over top of her.
And I must -- I just quietly with my camera
took these images. And I just --afterward,
I just walked up I said, "Wow, that's great."
And I introduced myself and I said this was --
I just love this photo. Can I get your name?
And they were like sure.
And apparently, this is very poignant to her,
she's of the LGBT community,
and it was a book explaining that she read
or it was she was reflecting on her experience as a child,
and she was crying. Tina Langley.
Like, again, I love faces. I love body language.
And I found myself just not photographing action
on the court, just tracking Tina
because she was always going to give me something.
And she's like I don't know. For a coach is great. I love it.
Quiet moments at a rally. This is one of my favorite.
And again, going back to my photography classes,
you always look for leading lines
and things that lead you into images.
And a nice quiet photo and I love.
It's just quiet and I like quiet things.
Speaking of quiet things,
my job was to take a photo of 28 bottles of Costco wine.
And individually.
So, I have all these bottles of wine and not a sip to drink.
Thank you. So, what do I do?
Well, let's see how do I make this look somewhat appealing.
Oh, we have these boards. Let's see with this.
And this came out. I really like this photo,
it has a lot of textures, colors,
and everything like that, and the lighting is great.
I see all my mistakes, but overall,
I'm kind of happy with it.
And again, Tan, one of our food writers,
he got to taste test every last one of these.
It's actually now the holiday section of the Seattle Times
and you could track it down. And I didn't get a sip.
My wife went out and bought a couple though.
This is one of my favorite assignments.
This is the silent book club readings from West Seattle.
It's a growing occurring across country.
People get together at 7:30, on the dot, all noise stops,
and you read from an hour
surrounded by your fellow readers.
And at 8:30, you pull out your beer, your wine,
and you start talking about whatever you want.
And it's great. It was awesome.
And at the end, they gather all the books
that people are reading and post on social media.
And this is when they gathered the books.
And again, faces, emotions, and I love it.
And as an introvert, I walked into this assignment going, yay.
Again, a variation and repetition.
I know this old theme, but hey, it's me I like it.
A quiet moment.
A visual for the homeless deaths in Seattle in King County.
And I'd like to close with Pete and our local star Beast Mode.
He smiles more now than he ever did as a player.
I guess that's what retirement does.
And at least I hope it does,
I hope you smile more in your retirement.
I hope I will too.
I'd like to close by saying I love my job, I really do.
It's the only job where one day you could be taking pictures
of a sugar beet farmer in Eastern Washington
and the next day you'll be standing 10 feet
from Ken Griffey Jr. in the Kingdom.
I actually did that as an intern at the Seattle Times.
I photographed a homeless Elvis impersonator one day
and I photographed the President of the United States the next.
And I've done everything in between.
I love my job. Next up, I'm going to bring up
Lauren Frohne,
one of my two favorite people at the Seattle Times.
Why? I love shooting video. Love it.
I want to be Stephen Spielberg. I hate editing video.
Guess whose job is it to edit video?
Hey, Lauren, come on up.
[ Applause ]
-Thanks, Kevin. I'm just going to speak very briefly.
I'm Lauren Frohne, lead video journalist at the Seattle Times
and I've been on staff here for going on 10 years.
Each year, our small video team
produces dozens of video stories.
Videos in a newspaper, you might be wondering.
Yes, for more than 15 years the Seattle Times
has produced informative,
engaging video stories, visual projects,
and short documentaries that feature characters, issues,
and slices of life from our many diverse communities in Seattle
and throughout the Pacific Northwest.
We publish them along with our print stories
on seattletimes.com. My colleague Ramon Dompor,
who's in the audience over there.
Wave, Ramon. Hi.
He and I film and edit the majority of the video
stories these days with major contributions
from staff photographer Erika Schultz.
And every photojournalist contributes to our video work
whether it's short complimentary feature clips,
drone footage, or breaking news coverage shot on iPhones,
and everything in between.
And I think I can speak for both Ramon and myself
in saying that collaborating in the field
with our photographer colleagues is a highlight of the job,
and not just because we can steal
each other's lights, Kevin.
Very shortly, we're going to have time for a question
and answer session with our staff,
but first I've edited a brief compilation of our video work,
showcasing some of the topics
and themes we tackled throughout 2023.
We dove into issues about land use, dams,
and native sovereignty.
We've interviewed sports stars, we rode in a vintage hydro
and immersed in Seattle's cat culture.
We also spent a lot of time on boats
and standing in water apparently,
according to these photos.
And we also produced stories about difficult topics
like youth, mental health, segregation, injustice,
with community members letting us into their lives
and telling their own stories in their own words.
If it leaves you wanting to watch more,
you can visit seattletimes.com/video
to see all of our video stories.
So now, I present the year in video of our 2023. Thank you.
♪♪
-We have a saying -- [speaks native language]
everything is connected.
♪♪
-Our spirituality, our way of life,
and who we are depends on the health of the Klamath Basin.
We know that the river can repair itself
with the removal of the dam.
-Eventually the Lord calls all the dams home.
When I thought about my daughter being trans,
I was scared at first and I thought about how hard it is
to be a trans person in the world, especially now.
Before I could worry for her.
I saw her open up and just kind of explode
with so much like personality and energy.
-It's fun, it's unlike anything you've ever done.
It's awesome.
-Pinnipeds are top predators and we do know
that they eat a lot of salmon.
You know, are they part of the problem?
-Mount Baker is a very magical place.
It's a very special place.
We were the first to have -- to welcome snowboarding.
It was like where it became an option in the mountains.
A lot of people are starting to realize like accessibility
and just inclusion. We all belong here.
-With a cat, you have to kind of be on even playing ground.
You're doing what he wants. It's more of a partnership.
This cat is going to be a holdable cat.
This made me realize how crazy we are as cat people
like going to the cat convention like how obsessed we are.
That is the cat Luminati agenda, by the way.
Cats are going to be the number one pet globally one day.
We are going to talk to some Allstars.
I'm not sure we're going to get to show the hair of Konny.
We'll never know if he thinks cream cheese
twangs on a hot dog or not.
-I know what it feels like to be in pain
emotionally during birth, emotionally after birth.
As a community doula,
I'm just there for people within my community
so they don't have to birth alone.
I don't think it was even possible at the point
when I was a kid to even dream
of what was to come playing on the biggest stage,
being able to play all over the world.
It has been a dream for sure.
They don't know what to do with Black students.
I had done everything I was supposed to do
and it wasn't good enough.
Integration has obviously given me some opportunities
but it has also made really clear to me
that some of those opportunities I had to take,
some of them I had to find,
some of them I had to journey through.
-I haven't really recovered like I'm in a nightmare.
Why isn't there any justice for me?
-The thing about Northern State
is it's a complicated place.
-A lot of the history of Northern State
was lost right down to the people.
-How many of them are like Nolean that are just gone?
She's in there. She's in there somewhere.
I just got to find her. She had nobody to speak for her.
She had no voice, she had no rights,
and she was real.
Every cedar tree is very important
to the Native American population
because they help root us to who we are.
Our people were the first stewards of this land,
you know, we knew what we could do
and we knew what we couldn't do.
-Their culture and our culture are very similar.
They really deeply, deeply care about taking care of our planet
which closely exactly aligns
with the tribal values that we have.
How important it is that we don't empty
our world from resources
and then use those resources to drown our world with trash?
We're all doing this for somebody else's future,
it's not about us.
We need change and we need solutions.
We have to stop leaving scars behind,
know that takes so long to heal.
♪♪
-The question is of all the moments
that you covered this year,
are there any that you put your camera down
and decided not to cover or any,
that you are kicking yourself because you missed it?
-I many times have missed assignments
but it's not because I wasn't capable of shooting it.
For the most part, we leave that to the editors,
our job is to record.
And then we take that to our editors
and they make their decisions.
There are some images that we take say of crime scenes
where it is kind of graphic and we still take those images
but we don't publish those on purpose.
I will give an example. There was a suicide
that was deemed a suicide last couple months ago.
Someone jumped off the overpass into the tracks.
I was dispatched. I took photos of the crime scene but we --
our editors found out that it was a suicide.
We didn't publish that, we didn't go with the story.
There are some lines that we don't cross.
And I appreciate the work that our editors do.
But our job is to record history,
and we get together and we come to a consensus
about what's to publish and not.
-So, from a sports photographer's perspective,
I miss photos all the time.
And, yes, I wish I had gotten a lot of those photos
but that's kind of the nature of things
where sometimes you just don't get them.
And a lot of the times as a sports photographer,
you have to be like the athletes that you photograph.
And if you make a mistake, you have to forget about it
because there's no use in dwelling on what you've missed.
-Yeah, I feel like it's innumerable amounts
of missed moments but my motto is like with video,
it's like if you didn't shoot it, it didn't happen.
So, you just move on.
-The question is how much gear you haul around
and how you manage that with all the different lenses
and lights and things.
-Well, I have one of those folding wagons from Costco,
that comes in handy. And then I usually --
I have like a waterproof duffel bag
because it's kind of like unreal
how often I find myself in wet situations.
I guess it's not that surprising around here.
But I have this waterproof duffel bag
that helps me just carry like my camera and stuff.
And, yeah, the wagon really comes in handy.
-You were next. -Yeah, go ahead.
-All right.
Honestly, the traditional gear is two cameras,
two lenses, maybe a third in a bag that we carry.
So you might see a photographer with two --
a camera on each shoulder,
and then maybe a bag with a flash and another lens in there.
So, a short, a long, a medium, and a flash in a bag,
maybe a backpack or a waist pack.
That's usually my standard gear, standard outfit.
And if it's not my waist bag, I have a sling bag.
And I'm just going to say I shop for a lot of camera bags.
I still haven't got that quite bag right.
I mean, my wife says, "You're getting another bag?"
Yes, I'm getting another bag.
This one just doesn't do it right.
And if you're a photographer,
you know exactly what I'm talking.
Oh, there's a lot of head-shaking in here.
She won't talk about this but I will tell you,
sports when I do a lot of sports,
I'm the third string,
they don't like for me to say that
but I'm the third-string shooter when she's sick or Dino's sick
or they're out of town, I have to fill in.
So, I have --
-Rough life. -What?
-Rough life. -I know, right?
Free food at Seahawks, which is actually pretty good.
So, we -- also there's the two cameras that we carry daily,
and then there's actually a third camera
and a larger lens that we usually carry,
and then there's another lens
you usually have in your waist bag
or in your pocket or something like that.
And sometimes if you're feeling --
really feeling froggy, you have a strobe.
So, yeah, there's -- it can get hefty
but it's something you get used to.
It's similar to a carpenter with their tool bag,
their toolbox, their tool belt.
It's just something you get used to.
-The question is what are the guidelines for editing photos,
cropping, and such?
I will say from having worked at the desk for many, many years
that when we're editing photos, we're as far as the moment goes,
you know, we're looking for those peak moments,
those moments that really tell the story.
And sometimes cropping a photo will get a reader
just right into the subject matter that we want them to see.
We don't do much at all, you know.
Technically, we don't change a whole lot,
maybe light and dark and things.
But other than that, when we crop photos and such,
we do it to either fill a particular space
and, you know, sometimes when you know that a photo
is going to be a main lead photo,
you're going to maybe let it be a little bit wider,
a little looser than if you know
it's going to fill a small space,
in which case, we want to crop it a little tighter.
So, the question is for the paper tomorrow
and the number of photos in it,
how many are actually taken that don't make it?
Hundreds? Thousands?
It depends on the day and what we've been shooting
but at the very least, hundreds into the thousands.
If you're at a ball game, Jenny can speak to that.
-So, at a Seahawks football game,
I will shoot over 10,000 pictures.
Of those 10,000 pictures, I will only look at a couple hundred,
and you will only see eight.
So, that's, you know, the extreme range of things.
But that's kind of how sports works.
We take -- the vast majority of my pictures
are absolute garbage. It's just how it is.
If you get one good photo a week on the sports beat,
you're like I made it.
You're good. So, the question is with the happy moment,
sad moments, the range of emotions
that you photograph, how do you deal with that?
-You go with them.
I will say you smile with them, you cry with them,
and at the end of the day, you say thank you,
thank you for sharing your story,
thank you for allowing us to do this.
Because you have to remember the people that we photograph,
they're not getting paid for this.
They're volunteering their time, their story, their name
for whatever we're there for.
So, you go on that Journey with them.
Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's happy, sometimes is glad.
And I've been to funerals where I cried my eyes out.
I've been to people's homes where I've laughed so hard
I thought it was in front of a stand-up comedian.
So, everything in between.
So, you go with them on their journey
and say thank you very much.
-I would say one of the challenges of like video
storytelling is when you do have those sad
or, you know, impactful stories you kind of have --
you end up watching it over and over again.
Like the interviews you do, you go through them again
and again, and that can --
I think part of it's just recognizing
that it can have that sort of vicarious effect on you.
And I think, you know, the type of work we do,
I think the variety really helps.
So like after you've worked on something that's pretty heavy
or emotionally taxing, you can pivot
and go to the Seattle Cat Convention like
and that's nice, that feels nice,
it's like a shower for your brain and your heart.
And our bosses are really understanding about that too
and make sure that we're not getting inundated with
like negative stuff all the time because they understand.
So, that's a key thing as well.
-The question is what inspired each of us
to choose photography as a career?
-Shooting pictures is fun.
It just -- there's no other way to describe it. It's the best.
And none of us are here for the money, that's very clear.
But also we're not here -- we're not starving,
we're making a living doing what we love to do
and we do it every day.
I can't imagine -- you know, obviously,
I'm in this career and having a wonderful time
but like someone is paying me to go take pictures.
And that that just blows my mind.
It's the best. It's absolutely the best.
And I haven't photographed the cat convention
but I should because I think that would be amazing as well.
-My story is a little bit more easier.
I was going to be a writer, I was going to be a journalist.
And when I was in high school, all my teachers said
I should be a writer. One day the Eighth School
came to Nathan Hale High School in '94.
And she said, "Hey, here's your assignment
for the school newspaper, and go write a story about it."
And, by the way, here's my Canon Rebel,
go take a photo of it for your story.
I had never used that thing in my life.
I didn't -- my brother was in the photography class
so he was going to develop my film.
After playing with this thing and making it go zzzz.
And I had no idea what I was doing.
I got maybe one or two pictures on some black and white film,
gave it to him to publish -- to develop
and got back in this picture of the Eighth School
in the school newspaper with my article that I wrote
and I went "Oh, I better learn photography."
-I guess my answer is similar to Jenny's where it's just,
it's a really interesting way to interact with the world.
I guess like -- and you kind of go through ebbs
and flows I think in the work of like,
you know, what am I doing with my life,
I think like anyone else, you know,
and like creative pursuits and everything.
But like recently, I was filming an assignment,
you know, from a fishing boat in Elliott Bay
and I was just like my job's so cool
like I would never be doing this
if it wasn't this like very interesting job that I have.
So, it really -- I found like in grad school
that it really opened up the world in a different way
and led me to experiences
I wouldn't otherwise have and open my perspective.
And, yeah, it gets a little bit addictive.
-My question is have you had those aha moments
where you know it's meant to be
and taking pictures for a reason?
-That's a really hard question.
I think the aha moment comes from
when you get back from your assignment
and you look at your stuff and you're like,
"Wow, I didn't mess that up." Like aha that there's the photo.
And it's a great feeling, it's very gratifying,
you've done your job well that day.
But that's a difficult question. Give me more time with that.
-I'll give you a recent aha moment.
Did anybody see the Sunday paper?
This past Sunday, I had the cormorant story.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So, if anybody didn't know,
printing is expensive, ink is expensive.
When someone wants to pay you to create for your images
to print expensively on paper,
something that is going to last for a long time, archive,
that's an aha moment like oh, wow, I did that,
that's me that they're reading about.
That's me that they pushed my images
to go along with the story that thousands of people
are going to read in a physical newspaper.
I want to give a quick example. I was reading this book
and it's talking about how digital can be changed
where when you print something on paper it cannot.
And I think that's so important to me.
That's why I enjoy working for the paper
because that's my aha moment
when I see that big cormorant in the Sunday paper,
aha this is why I do that. And I love it.
-All right. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
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