[ Applause ]
-Wow. Hi, everybody. Thank you, Tom.
Thank you, Brian.
Thank you to the Seattle Public Library and its foundation.
I got a little nervous.
Thanks to every one of you who are here.
I'm new to town.
I came in here in about mid-September.
And I think that one of the things that I came here for,
the biggest reason why I came here,
probably the same reason
why you're here is the amazing photo department
at The Seattle Times.
That's why I'm here. That's why you're here.
It's really something special.
And I think that's what I want to offer to you
in my newbie status is that this is something
to not be taken for granted.
Photography at its core is magic.
Somehow in digital or film or in tin,
a handheld box freezes in time forever our very reality.
Our memories, our inspiration, our fear, pain, joy,
or history, that evidence that we are alive,
that we dream, we live, and that we take action.
We bond with each other.
Photojournalism at its core is a service.
It is a gift from these magicians
who choose it to put their talents to use in order
to inform, inspire, educate, and delight us.
The visual journalists at The Seattle Times
do that on an elite level and they do it every day.
I want to tell you that not everywhere has it so good.
This is a special group of extraordinary people who
have committed their lives to telling stories with pictures.
As an institution, The Seattle Times
has persevered through the challenges
that face our industry with dignity and grace.
The Blethen family's commitment to stay on the mission
of keeping the paper strong has borne fruit
and to do its work at the highest level for you,
its loyal readers.
That support has yielded results.
The Seattle Times photo department has been elite
for decades,
but unlike many others around the country,
it has stayed that way.
That's special.
Tonight is a celebration of that gift
and, again, I thank you all for taking part in it.
I also want to call out a special group of people
who don't always see the spotlight for their tireless
and endless work that they do and they are exceptional.
The Seattle Times photo editing staff, Brandon Garcia,
Nicole Pasia, Mindy Ray, Travis Ness,
managing photo editor Colin Diltz,
and Deputy Director of Photography Bettina Hansen.
You amaze me every day, and I thank you for what you do.
So tonight, I hope you all enjoy the heck out
of this celebration.
We will hear from those --
from three of our talented journalists about
how they do their incredible work,
followed by a Q&A where we look forward
to hearing from you directly.
And to cap it all off,
we have two framed prints
that we're going to give away with the raffle tickets
that you got on the way in.
And please, if you don't already,
consider subscribing to The Seattle Times,
and tell all your friends to do the same.
In the conversations that you have about the world around us
and how it's important to stay informed,
make that a tangible part of your dialogue
with people about how to stay connected with this type
of information, because it doesn't come easy
and it doesn't come free.
We can't do this without you. And with that,
I'd love to give you the Seattle Times Pictures of the Year.
♪♪
[ Applause ]
There's a lot more than that that they did last year.
It's amazing.
I'm truly blessed to be here
and thank you all for sharing this night, it's really cool.
Our first up presenter is someone
who has stepped up at the last minute
to fill in for Ivy Ceballo,
who we had hoped to present to you tonight,
and she fell ill, unfortunately.
She's doing okay,
but we're going to have her slotted in for next year,
so count on that.
Ken Lambert has been with The Seattle Times since 2002,
and every day he goes out and makes our jobs more interesting,
more surprising, more fun, more reliable.
He's the guy that goes out
and makes the day happen every single day.
He does it without complaint.
He doesn't ever cause a problem, he often solves them.
And he's here tonight to share with you
a little bit of behind the curtain of
how it is that he does this incredible work so consistently.
Ken Lambert.
[ Applause ]
-Wow!
I love Seattle Public Library,
and I love coming here and speaking to you.
This is the second time I've done it in person.
I'll start with this.
This is just up for one reason,
and that is when I was in high school,
which was over 40 years ago,
I just want you to know that I always keep my word.
Thanks for joining this celebration
of newspaper photography.
When I was interviewed for a staff photographer position here
over 22 years ago,
the director of photography said something
that was a first for me in a job interview.
In other interviews, I had been asked
how old I was and why was I looking for a job
after staying at a newspaper for a decade.
But Cole Porter took me out to lunch at 13 Coins
and simply said, I want to talk to you about your journalism.
Wow. That had never happened.
He didn't want to talk about pictures.
He definitely didn't want to talk about salary.
And I immediately thought,
I think I'm going to get this job.
Because for me,
the photography has always been in service to the story.
Understandably, most people outside our profession
think we mostly take pictures.
And we do take a lot of pictures.
But now -- I'm sorry.
But how and why do some pictures make it into publication?
I'd like to share a little about my own experience over 40 years
and address that question.
There are two sayings that I like.
The first is I'd rather be lucky than good.
And the second is good photos aren't chosen.
Good photos are chosen, not taken.
In other words, with non-fiction photography,
we must be prepared to expect the unexpected,
and we must know what exactly
to do with all these photos we take.
As a newspaper staff, we're dedicated -- sorry,
we're deciding for you what you'll see at an event.
What goes into that process?
Obviously, it's a lot about choosing.
It's really, for me, all about editing.
These are some Seattle Times photos I've taken,
but more importantly, chosen.
I've chosen to file them to the editors,
and that first edit is called a report.
That's what I call it.
The report is a first draft,
a set of photos of anywhere from 3 to 10, maybe even more.
They're strong aesthetically, strong in moment,
and strong journalistically.
When I say journalistically,
I don't mean they have to have heavy news value,
but they need to be faithful to the story
we're reporting and fair to those in the photos.
I'm originally from Washington, D.C.,
where I had a 17-year career,
which included assignments from newspapers, magazines,
and the Associated Press Wire Service.
I've been interested in documentary photography
specifically since high school.
What I'd like to do is show you my process
as a news photographer from assignment to publication.
I can sometimes take hundreds of photos on an assignment,
sometimes thousands.
But if there isn't one clear image
that is elevated above all others, I'm kind of in trouble.
It's a picture that clearly leaves the others behind.
This is a photo that editors refer to as the lead.
And the key is to recognize it before your editor asks for it.
The other goal that I try to do on assignments
is, you can't always do it,
but you're trying to strive for making an image,
taking a picture that can only go with that assignment.
This is a good example.
I cover many, many baseball games,
but when the Mariners finally do make the post-season,
what is a picture that says that?
This gentleman took his vanity plate off his car,
or I should say vehicle.
Every photographer has their own process
for finding their lead image on an assignment,
but for me, there's only one way in.
Let the subject matter tell their own story.
I know it sounds kind of zen, but it works.
I see myself there mostly as an on-site first editor
and logistics expert.
My edits start through the camera.
I try not to force the photography.
I don't look for pictures, I look for story.
Because if I understand the story,
the pictures will shoot themselves.
Often, I just don't take any pictures.
I ask a lot of questions.
This is a situation where,
if I'm covering a mother who is homeless,
the first instinct is to show
that she's in a tiny house village.
But my first question is, if she has kids
and we're doing this story for Mother's Day,
can we photograph her picking her kids up from school?
I filed this report on Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist
Madison Rayn Abeo,
who has danced in more Nutcrackers than anyone else.
The event is a rehearsal,
and I'm not posing Madison for any of the photos,
but my edit is a collection of portraits.
I don't know which photo the editor is going to pick
as the lead,
but if they ask for my opinion, I have strong opinions.
But I also acknowledge that an editor is doing their job
and their job is not to make me happy.
But let's go back a bit.
Here's an image over 40 years -- from over 40 years ago.
It's taken on Tri-X, black and white film,
one thing to keep in mind
is that news photography changes over time.
The technology itself changes the images.
And even the ethics change. But one thing doesn't.
It's documentary photography in nature
and rooted in either the portrait or the snapshot.
That's my strong opinion is everything that I do
is rooted in the portrait and the snapshot.
This image of a D.C. high school performing group,
they're performing the music of Stevie Wonder
for a summer production of Street Theater.
I think this is both a portrait and a snapshot.
I took it as a teenager myself
and I consider it a breakthrough moment in my development
because it was what I call a "salvaged image."
What I mean by that is
I created a new noteworthy image with impact
by cropping out a fraction of the whole negative.
The negative itself didn't really --
it wasn't useful as a photo, it didn't read.
So I took a part of it.
The way I actually shot the frame
was not really aesthetically pleasing.
I didn't take this for a newspaper.
I took it because my girlfriend at the time is in it.
But if I had been working for a newspaper,
I think it would be considered for a lead,
although the shape would be challenging for a page designer.
The second image is from a protest at a US Army Depot
in upstate New York.
Remember the no nukes protests of the 1980s?
I consider this my first news image of note.
It shows good use of available light
from my favorite source at 5 a.m., a television camera,
but offers little news value.
And here was the aha moment for me.
The photo editor at the Daily Orange News student newspaper
at Syracuse University took the image
and paired it with an arrest image.
And these two photos would, going forward for me,
establish the power of editing for the rest of my career.
It helped that each photo represented each side
of the issue -- protester, counterprotester.
The top image is cool to look at, and it grabs the attention.
The other has elevated news value since it shows an arrest.
The challenge, can we combine the two ideas into one image?
The lead image should be both graphic and newsworthy.
As I became a professional in 1985,
I was assigned to cover a rodeo during an internship in Kansas.
I thought I had done a good job as the intern,
but again, I was about to learn something
about the battle between photojournalism's demand
for aesthetics versus content.
Even though it ran on the front page,
I received criticism from some of the staff photographers,
who, when I quote, said, "This is nothing but a groovy image."
That gripe wasn't about it being a good documentary photo.
It was about the lack of journalism, a groovy image.
I had never heard the term, but I never forgot it.
Later generations would rebrand that
and call a picture like this eye candy
because of color photography taking over.
So since 1985,
I've been trying to combine aesthetics, moment,
and news value, i.e. content, into my edits.
While working at the Associated Press in D.C.,
they called the edits that I would file to New York, reports.
That's when I started using the term myself.
I don't just file pictures,
I file a report which is edited to track the story
and contain a lead image.
And why do I get to have this power over the editors?
Simply because I'm there.
Here's an example from last week,
a story about fairy ridership that's gone up.
My editor gave me a heads-up that it's aimed
as the lead story in the local section for print.
Part of my instructions are to concentrate on the fast ferries
because they're an important part of the story.
So a lot of people ask like how do you even know
where to go or what to do?
We're all emailed assignments,
and some of them are very good, like this one,
which has a lot of information and links.
Other ones aren't so good, they barely say anything.
And you have to do what I call decoding.
You have to start googling and trying to find out more.
So sometimes I'm emailed the draft of a story
and here's my report that I sent to the photo desk via Slack.
I tried not to go overboard.
I tried to make all the pictures different.
The first two pictures represent the fast ferries,
actually the first three pictures.
So my edit includes a range of photos for all three platforms.
Broadsheet, online, and online is like a scream and deal
if you didn't know
because there's a lot more photos online than
in the print edition.
So print edition is nice, but also you got a subscription
that will take you to the website
and you get a lot of photos.
Just an aside here,
I didn't know it at the time when I took it,
but that's one of our investigative journalists,
Mike, in red there.
[ Laughter ]
So this was my favorite picture,
and it didn't really make print
and it didn't really get a lot of play online,
but it made social media, so I was a happy camper.
Oh, I should just say, going back,
the most time-consuming part for me is writing the captions.
And it might seem like we just take a lot of pictures,
but the captions do take a lot of time,
they have to be accurate. Each of these ferries,
I had to double-check, you know, the name of the ferry
and where it originated.
The Kitsap Transit...
The Kitsap Transit, you see at the bottom,
their website was completely wrong
because what they were actually doing is saying
the initial route that the ferry was on,
and some of those ferry routes had changed.
So let's turn to some POI images and their reports
so you get to actually see the whole edit,
not just, you know, the one picture.
So this is Irina Rose of West Seattle
popping out of Elliott Bay
after her swim on Christmas Day last year
as a major atmospheric river is in the forecast.
And that was really the assignment was
to do some weather photos for the atmospheric river.
And here is my Christmas Day report.
Just four photos, there weren't a lot of people out.
And the two umbrellas to the right, to the extreme right,
that is Irina's husband.
And so I started talking to him,
and she was swimming,
and I wasn't even going to photograph Irina.
But we started talking, and at some point he said,
you know, you could photograph my wife swimming.
I said, okay.
But, you know, a picture of somebody swimming,
that's not so interesting.
So, but then she started doing these big pops out of the water,
and she was thanking the Lord,
and she was saying Merry Christmas over and over again.
And I'm trying to turn to her husband and her husband said,
"This is all part of her routine."
So I was like, "Oh, okay."
"She does this every time."
And I go, "How often does she do this?"
"She swims every week." So I was like, "Okay."
So this ended up,
you know, I was very lucky, you know,
it just -- this falls under the heading,
"I'd rather be lucky than good."
And it got good play online and in print.
So last April,
I covered a media tour before the opening
of the link light rail two line.
And I was given access to photograph
train operator Gina Sparrow,
who usually is working behind a locked door.
This is the report that I sent my editors.
So all these pictures are in the system,
and it's actually a very weak set of pictures.
There isn't really a lead here except for Gina.
So if I didn't get the Gina photo, it would have been ugly.
It would not be good.
But I had kind of planned that Gina was going to be the lead
because I knew the route
and I knew that if I could see through the front of the train,
I was going to get this tremendous skyline view,
but I just had to wait about,
you know, an hour and a half to get it.
In October,
I was assigned to cover the afternoon section
of a march celebrating the 10-year anniversary
of Indigenous People's Day in Seattle.
I saw Thasuku Perkins, seven weeks old,
being prepared for more marching by his parents,
Red Rock Perkins left, and Elena Eagle Shield.
Both were from North Dakota.
So I'll admit -- let's see the report --
I struggled on this assignment.
I was really looking for different pictures.
And again, I covered a lot of marches.
I was really trying to get to the nut
of what makes the Indigenous Day march different.
And I think I found it in that first picture
and my editor agreed.
And I think James was editing on this day
and he picked it for the front page, which was wonderful.
And finally, I'm always looking for new ways
to incorporate the use of drones in our coverage.
We have about eight or nine pilots now on the staff.
You know, when I started flying for the paper,
there was maybe only one or two pilots.
So on Sundays, there's not a lot of news to cover sometimes,
and I just decided to do a series on fallen leaves.
We had already, as a staff,
covered the turning of the autumn colors.
So this was kind of like the next thing.
I thought, well, I can do this because, you know,
we've already done the colors,
and now they're all falling on the ground.
So, that one of the truck was my personal favorite,
and here's how it ran.
So I was a little disappointed.
I thought, you know -- You know,
the editors are really good, you know,
they kind of do their thing, but then it made it online.
So I was like, yay, you know.
So, we're nearing the end
and I just want to show you a few more reports
and mention why photo editors are so critical
in the process of getting to publication.
I had covered both the Lunar New Year
and specifically the Tet celebrations before,
and I was changing up a few things last weekend,
this is from last weekend,
but basically sticking to a previous path of coverage
at Seattle Center.
I tried to do one thing different,
and that's that second photo.
Instead of photographing the fan dancers,
the fan dance actually in performance
inside Fisher Pavilion,
I opted -- I made the decision to do the practice outside
because I thought the light was nice.
And then the martial arts at the bottom, I did that inside.
And I had done that before.
And I had also photographed children wearing
their beautiful áo dàis.
So, I had done the lion dance.
And I just sent it off to the photo desk.
And this is what Kara, you know, my brilliant editor picked.
She went with that.
And I didn't say anything, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I think she recognized it was a really different picture.
And we still kind of got the lion at the bottom,
and then on the jump,
more lion, and wonderful --
wonderful child photo.
So I think this is the last report.
This is just a series of portraits.
And, you know, that top picture,
that top left picture is the one that you think,
okay, that took a lot of time to kind of set up
and he had a ladder there.
He's working in a studio.
So I kind of use what's around and it is lit.
I use just one flash on the camera,
and I just turn it and bounce it to the wall.
I don't carry like a lot of lighting equipment anymore.
And this is what the editors went with.
I think Colin might have edited this, I think.
Colin, did you edit this? Oh, Okay, good.
Thank you. We both were in agreement.
So this is one last report.
I want to come full circle
and show you the importance of that philosophy
of just needing like one good picture, one lead picture,
and how you don't know what it's going to be
until it happens sometimes.
So what's happening here is this is October 3rd, 2021.
Kyle Seager's last major league baseball game of his life.
He would end up retiring in December.
So it's against the Angels.
The Ms aren't in the playoffs, so there's no news there.
So this kind of, like Kyle leaving,
is kind of the big thing.
They stopped the game in the ninth inning to celebrate him.
His entire career has been with the Mariners.
And you see kind of towards the bottom,
you see JP Crawford in tears.
You see right above Kyle's hugging in the dugout.
But then there was a situation
where the head groundskeeper ripped out third base,
Kyle's base, and gives it to him.
And he immediately starts just holding it up like a trophy.
And he's starting to cry.
And he's turning away from me.
And I'm just dying, you know, I'm just like okay.
And then you see the guy on the left,
he's going to start moving over.
And then I finally am starting to get a shot
but his eyes are closed and the guy in the blue
is about to completely take me out.
But this is the moment, you don't give up.
You don't.
You just -- you pray to the photo gods.
That's what my excellent retired editor Fred Nelson
would say, right, Fred?
You would say pray to the photo gods.
Pray, pray, pray, and all you need is one.
So thank you. Thank you.
[ Applause ]
Thank you.
And now I'd like to introduce to you
a real news hound.
He's just a terrific photographer,
and his career is really young,
and he is just going all out and just doing extraordinary work.
Nick Wagner.
[ Applause ]
-Hello, everybody. Thank you, Ken.
A little behind the scenes into my everyday
at The Times is I'm online on Slack
at the same time as Ken is.
So we work the same schedules.
So I see his photo report come in on Slack,
and I'm wowed every time.
It's truly an inspiration to see your work come through.
And we covered the same Indigenous People's Day,
the same march, I had the first half, you had the second half.
And I had the same -- and I met the same family with the baby.
I was like, okay, I have a cool photo.
I'll bring it up. It was a cool photo.
Yeah, this would be good, colorful.
I see his report coming, I was like, damn it.
His photo is going on the front.
But anyways, it's really great to see so many supporters
of local journalism here tonight.
Our work is nothing without you all.
Again, my name is Nick Wagner,
and I'm by just a couple of weeks
the newest photojournalist here at The Times.
I joined the paper last May
and before coming to the beautiful Pacific Northwest,
I worked for The Kansas City Star on the Chiefs,
or as I'd come to know it,
you all probably have come to know it, the Taylor Swift beat.
Before that,
I worked for a hyper-local nonprofit news outlet
in San Antonio, and I spent my first three years
as a professional photojournalist
at the Austin American Statesman,
alongside our new director of photography, James Craig.
In total, when counting internships,
I've been a member of seven different newsrooms,
so I can say without a doubt
how lucky Seattle and Washington State
as a whole is to have The Seattle Times.
It embodies everything that a community newspaper should be.
Trustworthy, insightful, fair, accurate, family-owned --
and my favorite -- rich with striking visuals.
I got [indistinct] photography
just because I like the magic of it.
Yeah. How's this? Okay.
I'm a visuals guy, not a words guy, my bad.
So growing up, I wasn't aware of it at the time,
but the importance of these same qualities
that I just mentioned of great community journalism
were instilled in me at a young age.
Thanks to my mom and dad who are here tonight.
They escaped the dead of a Minnesota winter
and they join us here. So thank you for being here.
Every morning before school,
I'd saunter into the kitchen for breakfast
and my ears would be met with the latest news
from Minnesota Public Radio.
After dishing up my breakfast,
I'd plop down at the dining room table
where that day's editions of
both The Minneapolis Star Tribune
and The Fargo Forum awaited me.
Although I was never much of a reader,
I always poured over the photos,
specifically the sports photos,
trying to guess which photographer shot which photo
without looking at the byline.
I was amazed by the access photographers
had to some of the athletes I idolized the most,
like Kevin Garnett, Randy Moss, Torii Hunter.
That's when my love of photography
really started to take shape.
I'd eventually save up all my money from my summer job
at the golf course to purchase my own camera kit
and I started covering my classmates' sporting events,
selling the images to their parents.
Fast forward about a decade or so,
and I've never been filled with as much pride
when I get to proclaim myself as a photojournalist
on assignment with The Seattle Times.
And now I'm excited to share with you
some of my favorite images from my first eight months here.
In case you all have forgotten, you all are really,
really fortunate to live where you live.
I am just astounded every day by how beautiful it is to be here.
I shot this photo while featured hunting out at Golden Gardens,
and it reminds me of my first week in town.
I had just made this big move halfway across the country
with my dog Abe, some 30 hours.
And although it's not the exact same place,
I had this really grounding moment,
just staring out across Lake Washington
from Matthews Beach at the Cascades
and feeling an incredible sense of calm,
like I had finally found my home.
It's a feeling that I will never forget.
Speaking of calm,
I shot this image of Common Power volunteers,
Mary Wilson and Ed Chadd,
participating in a breathing exercise
after they spent their morning canvassing
for Nevada Democrats in Las Vegas.
I'm fortunate to be sent to some really cool assignments,
sometimes out of state,
where I just get to totally immerse myself
in one single story,
hanging out with the story characters
for more than just a 20-minute assignment,
so you really get to know one another.
It may not always make for the most eye-popping photos,
especially with political stories,
but the work is important.
I typically work a nine-to-six shift,
but every now and then I'll start a little early
or go a little late considering the assignment offered
by any of the great photo editors at the paper.
In this instance,
the Love For All Boat hosted by Visit Seattle
was worth pushing back my shift.
56 couples gathered on board to renew their vows
to celebrate the kickoff to Pride Month.
As we were coming back into the dock,
I stumbled upon this quiet moment.
Below deck was a little bit more loud.
Seattle-based drag queen BenDeLaCreme
performed a burlesque act for the couples.
I hadn't even finished my second week at the paper
when then-photo director, Angela Gottschalk,
called me up at the end of my shift
and asked if I'd go to someplace called Friday Harbor.
I quickly put her on speakerphone
and started googling and before she could ask
if I could find someone to dog sit,
I was cutting her off to say, "Yes, yes, send me. I'll go."
So this and the next couple of photos
were made for a story about San Juan County
switched to a 32-hour work week.
It ended up affording folks more opportunities
to pursue their passions and hobbies
outside of their nine-to-five,
like these actors with the San Juan Community Theater.
Reporter Dan Beekman arranged some interviews
before we made the trip out,
and our first visit was to meet a man working at the county's
public works department.
But this woman, Sharon Lowell,
stole his thunder when she shared
how she benefits from the 32-hour work week,
at least for me, thinking visually.
The three-day weekends gave her more time to tend to her bees
and produce Bill's honey, named after her dad,
which she sells in a local grocery store.
As a photojournalist,
it's pretty easy to say I learn something new every day.
And on this day, about my 10th day in Washington,
I learned pickleball was y'all's national sport.
And that's how Ethan Schmidt, at left in this photo,
enjoys his extra free time off of work.
I woke up early my second to last day,
I believe, on the island, to chase the sunrise,
just, again, shocked by the beauty
and wanted to capture it for myself
even if the photos didn't make the paper.
So I set my GPS to the San Juan National Historical Park.
Upon arriving,
I saw this random group of about six photographers
just chilling in a grassy field just beyond the wooded area.
I quickly put two and two together
as I heard from a woman on the ferry from Anacortes
that there were fox kits on this side of the island.
So I slapped on my 400-millimeter lens
which is about this big with a 1.4X extender
for an effective 600-millimeter lens and joined the party.
I bet you all could guess which night this was.
It's the assignment that inevitably comes
every four years for journalists, photojournalists.
All nine of the staff photographers
were spread out across the city and state
for election night coverage.
I was stationed at Stoop Brewing in Capitol Hill
where the night quickly turned from hopeful optimism
to worryful watching.
Michael and Stephanie here encapsulated that vibe.
And down in South Park,
members of the Boeing Machinist Union
gathered for a spirited rally.
But this moment caught my eye.
It's a quiet moment shared between husband and wife,
and at that point,
the strike was entering its one month of picketing,
and it started to feel like it's a marathon, not a sprint.
And I felt this moment illustrated the union's
enduring fight for a better contract
with the aerospace giant way better than any fist raised,
shouting image could portray.
I made this image down at Powell Barnett Park
where more than 100 asylum seekers made camp.
The encampment promoted -- prompted, excuse me --
Central District community members
to call a press conference,
calling on city officials
to provide funding to house the asylum seekers.
As the conference wrapped up,
I decided to shift away and explore the encampment myself
and came across these kids playing soccer.
And I've covered immigration throughout my career and it's --
I guess, you're on the outside looking in,
it's really easy to get wrapped up in the numbers,
especially in the current political climate,
but behind the numbers are children, mothers,
fathers, human beings, all in the pursuit
of the promise of a better life here in America.
I admit, I'm not the strongest portrait shooter there is,
and for that, I have a love-hate relationship,
but sometimes they just all come together,
as is the case in this portrait of Michael Rowley,
who is part of a pilot program
that rewarded him with gift cards
in exchange for reducing his alcohol use.
I didn't expect much when we first met
because he seemed a little shy, camera shy,
but just a little bit gentle instruction
and his expression matched the story.
Sports.
To be honest, it was very -- a big adjustment
to go from shooting nonstop football in Kansas City,
back-to-back Super Bowls,
Rihanna performed, Usher performed.
That was cool.
I come here, I shoot two games,
because Jenny Buchanan and Dean Rutz, they kick ass every game.
You guys see their photos, and it's awesome, awesome to see.
So I was super happy when I was a lone photographer
in one corner of the end zone.
Interception occurred. It was against the Bills.
It ended up not mattering, and I was a lone guy.
I was getting just pelted with rain.
I was like, oh, this stinks.
And then this happens and they run right to me,
and, like, heck yes.
I'm the only one there. Heck yes.
And they just ham it up for me.
It was perfect.
And then every now and then --
if I wait around just long enough at a scene
with a photo in mind,
a willing yet unsuspecting participant will enter my frame
and make the image for me.
This was definitely one of those times.
The piece is called "John with Art."
You can imagine what the art is by artist Robert Arneson,
and this is at the Seattle Art Museum.
It provided just enough intrigue
for Sydney Martinez to peek into the toilet bowl.
The slight lean, her toes picked up off the ground,
her polka dot dress -- this just makes a fun,
light-hearted photo I love to get whenever I can.
Even protesters clad in black block
can make for a light-hearted photo.
I came upon these two swinging near the quad at UW
as they hung out near the pro-Palestinian encampment
as conservative leader Charlie Kirk spoke on campus.
The fun, of course,
later turned into a tense confrontation
as protesters blocked attendees of Kirk's event
from entering the Quad where the encampment was stationed.
But I'll take these lighthearted moments anytime I can get them.
As one day at work,
it brings smiles and the next can bring heartache.
This was the case outside of Garfield High
after 17-year-old student Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot
and killed while trying to break up a fight.
I've covered a lot of gun violence from murder-suicides,
officer-involved shootings, church shootings,
school shootings.
In 2013, as a senior in high school,
my math teacher turned on the news as national TV networks
streamed scenes from Newtown, Connecticut,
outside of Sandy Hook Elementary.
The images of the children crying
as they were escorted away from the school
were seared into my brain.
And although it will never be easy to cover any act
of gun violence,
it is important that us as visual journalists
are there to document the effect of it.
At the risk of sounding incredibly self-righteous,
if not for local journalists,
then who will show the world what is happening
in our own backyards?
Murphy-Paine was killed June 6th
and still no arrests have been made.
And children aren't even safe on summer break.
13-year-old Jayda Woods-Johnson
was shot and killed while shopping with friends
at a mall north of Seattle.
Her shooter, 16-year-old Samuel Gizaw,
turned himself in that night.
He remains in custody with bail set at $2 million.
So work can bring about a roller coaster of emotions.
So long as you're able to get through the dark days,
there's usually light around the corner.
Like getting to go out with Samish DNR,
Natural Resources Techs,
as they track the health of kelp forests in Rosario Strait.
It's assignments like these
where you realize just how awesome this career is.
I can't think of any other job that would put me in places
to experience and learn about things such as
how important the kelp forests are in the kelp carbon cycle.
Using unique tools like a drone launch from the deck of a boat
or an underwater housing to get up close
and personal with kokanee salmon
as they return to spawn in record numbers.
On the Lower Elwha River,
about 10 years after the completion
of a $350 million dam removal project,
members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe
fish for coho salmon.
I joined environment reporter Linda Mapes
to the fishing opener
as we reported on the tribe's efforts
to restore the river to its natural state.
Here Vanessa Castle proudly holds this fish she caught,
and as tradition demands, gifted to a tribal elder.
Stehekin.
I remember this assignment like it was yesterday.
I was spending my late night at the gym
when now deputy director of photography,
Bettina Hansen texted me about the Pioneer fire
and its march towards Stehekin.
I feel like I thrive in breaking news situations
where nothing but uncertainty is a guarantee.
Uncertainty meaning
the Washington Department of Natural Resources media folks,
who are there to assist media in telling stories,
suggesting for me to just set up shop in Chelan
some 50 miles away downriver,
shoot some photos of the smoke plume.
That wasn't going to cut it for us.
So, I chartered my own course, packed my bags,
booked a ticket on the Stehekin Clipper,
and went out for some tried-and-true
boots-on-the-ground journalism.
And I lucked out, thanks to many willing residents who,
among the chaos of protecting their property
against the flames, enabled my reporting.
Craig Stevens, who I met when I first arrived in Stehekin,
graciously opened his home to me
after learning I was planning to pitch a tent.
We broke bread, talked about his family ties to Stehekin,
and then in the morning,
paled in his pickup to attend a daily fire meeting, seen here,
where I shocked everyone in attendance
when I introduced myself.
The fire captain for whatever reason was just like,
"Let's go around the room,
and everyone can introduce themselves."
All residents, everybody, comes to me.
I'm usually like, no, no, no, no,
I'm here on an assignment, blah, blah, blah,
you don't need to know who I am.
And I was like, whatever, Nick Wagner, see you at all times.
Every head spun around like that, breaking necks.
And it made sense.
I realized how tight-knit the community was,
and they were curious who this outsider was,
and what my intents were,
and it was to be there to tell the story.
After the meeting,
Craig introduced me to Mandy and Joe Kitchell.
Mandy gave me a comprehensive tour of the Stehekin Valley,
including a stop at the Stehekin pastry company,
which fueled my reporting with a cinnamon roll
the size of my face.
Joe built the Stehekin Clipper that I rode in a town on
and he also built this dingy, which he took me out on
to get a different perspective
as firefighting aircraft attacked the flames.
And they attacked from sun up to sun down.
It's honestly hard to make a bad photo in such a beautiful place.
For those who've been there, you already know.
And when the day turned to night,
the steep mountains surrounding Stehekin
were glowing deep orange. Hours before making this photo,
I fed my reporting photos and videos back to the office.
Again, lucking out with internet access
as Starlink enabled my transmissions.
After three days of reporting I was beat,
definitely not nearly as much as the firefighters
doing the real work for 12-hour shifts.
But it is draining wearing all the hats as a one-man band
on a remote assignment.
But that's not to say I didn't enjoy my time.
I even made a new friend. This is Craig's son, Ryder.
He was a hoot to hang out with.
He loved shooting photos of the flames at night
and would compare them to mine.
After supper, he yanked me onto a push-up
and sit-up competition.
And that's what it all comes down to in this line of work,
at least for me, is access.
Ninety percent of the challenge is gaining somebody's trust,
especially on breaking news assignments.
If I show up in somebody's world, it is often
during one of the most stressful parts of their lives.
So being able to connect on a human level
and ensure that their story is safe in my hands is paramount.
With that, I turn to our own backyard
in the aftermath of the bomb cyclone.
I shared a drone image before
and our lead drone photographer Ken does this really well.
We do journalism from the air as much
as we do it from the ground.
We don't just fly to fly.
We fly when there is value-added reporting.
I may not have even found this scene without my drone,
as I was a street over, shooting some other damaged homes.
And when I was done flying in the sky,
I refocused my storytelling on the ground,
showing some of the people most affected by the storm,
and showing the helpers.
And of course, showing how life goes on.
Even among the madness, life goes on.
To close,
I returned to one of my very first assignments for The Times,
back out at Friday Harbor.
Nothing truly brings me to the state of euphoria
quite like Mother Nature.
As I made this image,
I let out a primal scream
that probably would have scared Bigfoot themselves.
Itself, I don't know how you refer to Bigfoot.
Seattle crowd here. So I was -- yeah,
I was just screaming, I was screaming my head off
and I was delighted to hear everyone else echoed my screams.
I feel like I just had to break the ice,
and then everybody else went wild, hooting and hollering,
when the sky just really started to open up and dance.
And then to return home from Friday Harbor
and see the Sunday paper,
not just waiting for me in my driveway,
but waiting outside the homes of many of my neighbors,
that is a surreal feeling.
And maybe, just maybe,
there's a young kid sitting at their dining room table
dreaming to one day have the greatest job in the world.
Thank you for your attention,
but mostly thank you for your support of community journalism.
It's an honor to tell your stories.
[ Applause ]
It's now my pleasure to turn you all over to Ramon Dompor.
Ramon is a video journalist at The Seattle Times
and he's here to share some of the video work done
by the team this year.
-Okay, hello. Hi everybody. It's been a few years
since I was standing in front of all of you.
I don't have nearly as much of a presentation
as Ken and Nick have, so I'll keep this brief.
But I am Ramon Dompor.
I've been a video journalist at The Seattle Times
for a bit over seven years now, and in that time,
I've been very lucky to work alongside
our lead video journalist Lauren Frohne,
and a very inspiring cast of reporters and photographers
at The Seattle Times
while reporting stories about protecting the communities,
ecosystems, and wild places
that make this corner of the world unique.
Our two-person video team works on everything
from breaking news to in-depth, multi-part projects.
These video stories offer viewers
a first-person perspective on pressing issues
to understand experiences outside their own
and to linger in overlooked corners of our community.
It may surprise some of you
to learn that very little of my job
actually includes filming around the city
or from one of the famously scenic venues
around the Pacific Northwest.
Filming constitutes maybe 10% of my job.
I spend the other 90% of my time at my desk,
editing, responding to breaking news,
and slowly building out story ideas and connections
with the people generous enough to trust us
in sharing their stories.
The times that I am able to bring a camera out
into the field,
I'm grateful to experience this place with my own eyes
and spend hours learning about each person I interview.
In 2024, we walked through legacy and old-growth forests,
waded through the Hoh, Skagit, and Skokomish rivers.
We saw art that defied gravity,
preyed on our fear of the undead,
and found beauty in darkness.
We looked back on our region's complex history,
remembering those lost in the Oso landslide 10 years ago,
and learning how the Boldt decision has affected more
than just the right for tribal members
to fish in their own home waters.
We met people who work tirelessly to preserve
the communities they've built over generations
and build new communities through love and acceptance.
So to close out the year,
we compiled some of our favorite reporting
in a reel with contributions from all of the visual staff
at The Seattle Times.
And this is our 2024 Year in Video.
♪♪
-The demand for wood products
here in the state of Washington is on the rise.
-Legacy forests are carbon war courses.
-There are some things more important
than just obeying a law.
We've got to do something to save the planet
and save these forests.
-It's going nuts. -From a cultural standpoint,
it really was significant from our history
to fish for steelhead.
Our ancestors had never envisioned that the runs,
you know, would diminish to the extent that they have.
-This fish has been taking this journey
into this alien world out in the Pacific Ocean,
and then suddenly we connect. We all have the same goal.
How do we come to agreements to actually make it happen?
-I love to see the accomplishment,
the aftermath of a kid saying, "I'm not doing that.
I can't do that. I don't know how to jump rope."
And then the aftermath, like, "This is the best day ever."
-Fear is so primal. It's so basic.
And being able to express fear without putting yourself
in danger is exhilarating.
-Even if the performer is up there just like having
a catharsis, like having --
it's almost like therapeutic for them,
it feels like it does that work for the audience as well.
-The last thing any mother needs to know is like,
when you ask for help,
the people that's supposed to help him is ultimately the one
that sends you to his death. -He's not here with us,
but he can feel at that wall.
He can feel what we did for him, we do for him.
-There's like a landslide and everything's gone.
The houses are gone.
-Are there any injuries?
-All the homes in Steele Drive are gone.
-Why did it have to happen?
Why did it have to happen when it happened?
-We want people to understand what this community was
and who lived here and to tell the story.
-Grief and the ocean go together.
You know, they talk about a flow state
where you're fully in the present.
You're not thinking about anything,
but you're like in your body surrounded by the water.
-For 100 years, the Indians were not allowed to fish.
A complete deprivation of the opportunity to survive,
to take care of ourselves.
-Most people actually don't really pay attention
to addiction until it comes into their world.
-They belittle youth when they say, "I have this problem."
-The only reason I got sober was
because my mom reached out a hand to me.
-I started noticing the transition
from there being needles on the street
to fentanyl foils getting on the street.
It's like seeing people's humanity and understanding
that a lot of people are struggling.
-Community is like everything to me.
Like I could just sit and hang out with the homies
at the skate park for hours and just chat,
not even necessarily about the skating.
Just being in the safe space to just like be ourselves.
♪♪
-Ken says he has --
Ken said he had three corrections in his entire career
at The Seattle Times.
I need to make one right now.
We have a brilliant night photo editor,
and she's working right now so we can all be here.
She is -- she has more experience at The Seattle Times
than I have a whole career of.
She leads our Seattle Seahawks coverage,
you know, all of our sports.
She makes autonomous decisions all the time.
She's a leader and she's a champion.
She's a brilliant photo editor.
Cara Brannan, thank you.
I'm so sorry that I didn't list her earlier,
and I needed to fix that.
You guys want to come up and do a little Q&A?
All right, now -- check. All right.
So, now's the time of our programming
where we'd love to hear from you.
We'll have a couple of volunteers
in the audience going through to hand a microphone
if you want to just raise your hand and have some patience,
we'll get to you.
But if you have questions for these folks,
right now is a great time to ask.
Who wants to start us off?
Can you hear me okay? Great. -Right here, right over here.
-Great. Oops.
-What happens when you need to cover women's sports?
-What happens when you need to cover women's sports
when you're all men?
Jenny, can you get down here?
I'd like to just -- Jenny Buchanan.
Jenny, everybody. Jenny, get down here.
-Is this on?
I'd like to apologize to everybody
about the representation on stage tonight.
I feel like I am very privileged to work
with an amazing group of, you know,
women journalists in our newsroom.
And I promise they're represented much more strongly
on the photo desk than you see here tonight, but, yeah.
-Maybe we should have all the photographers come down here.
-I'm for that.
-We'll show you some representation.
Ellen.
-We've got Ellen Banner in the house.
We've got Karen Ducey in the house.
We've got Jenny Buchanan in the house.
-Come on down. Come on down.
-It's a great question, and thank you for recognizing
that we are all male up here tonight.
We were hoping that Ivy could be with us,
but we obviously are not giving a proper representation
of The Seattle Times tonight.
-So I had a question about how the title of an article
will inform your picture,
and whether or not you've ever had the experience
that your photos did not match or work with the title
that they chose for the article.
-Did you ever have an experience
where your photo didn't really match very much
with the title or headline of the article?
-I'm curious.
You don't usually know the title of the article
when you're sent out on an assignment.
So sometimes a title would inform
what you're going to shoot, I would think.
-Yeah, how do you make pictures
if you don't know what the title of the article is going to be?
What do you know how to make pictures of,
or what the picture should be?
-That's a really good question.
That's a really good question.
And I've often asked my editor or a reporter,
give me the lead, what's the headline, you know?
And the fact is, sometimes we get into a story,
we don't know where it's going.
We don't know what the story is, but we just work on a hunch.
And I think that's just the nature
of the business sometimes.
And hopefully, by the time the senior editors get involved,
the news editor especially,
she's going to make sure that the headline
and the pictures and the story all go together.
-Hi, my name is-- oh, wow, that's cool.
My name is Josiah Johnson,
and several of you
have commented on seeing these really tender moments
or devastating moments,
and being there, and having the honor to take those photos.
And I'm wondering if there's anything that's too private,
or that you would see as unethical to capture,
that you would take a photo of.
-Is there something too tender or intimate
that it would get to a point
in which we would stop photographing
because it's too much?
-I think that kind of always crosses my mind,
especially in heart-breaking news situations,
shootings, as I alluded to.
But a lot of the time,
at least I come to this,
is would putting my camera down be a disservice?
I understand you have to have,
you know, empathy to the situation,
and it can be really difficult at the time
because it's oftentimes a really powerful image
unfolding right in front of you.
And for us --
I guess I don't want to speak for everybody, but for me,
it's really hard when there's such a visceral photo to be made
and it tells a story like that.
But that's also not to say if somebody sees that,
or I go up and I ask for their name for a photo caption,
and they prefer it not to run, then I'll respect that.
And there's other images to be made.
And I'm not going --
I'm not -- that's not the end of my career right there.
I think it's just the case-by-case basis
and going by feeling and being a human first
and a photojournalist second.
-It's a really good question.
I always think that there's a situation
where the public might not realize that just
because we take a photo doesn't mean we'll publish it.
But sometimes the mere act of taking the photo can cause harm.
It can cause hurt feelings.
It can be triggering.
I know even during the protests around the,
you know, George Floyd time
and a lot of the protests here,
this was a new generation, a younger generation
that I had not encountered before in a protest situation,
I had come in my career really very influenced
by the Civil Rights photographers.
And this was a whole new ball game.
And I had to listen to people who were in their early 20s
telling me that this was inappropriate.
We're talking advocates for homeless sweeps
did not want us to cover that.
Also, literally any of the protests
shutting down the highways.
This could all be a situation
where if you didn't have a dialogue --
there were also people because of social media
that were very concerned with doxing
where they would be recognized, and all these came into play.
But the one dialogue I remember having was,
and this was possibly manipulative on my part,
but it was something that I think the people
I was covering needed to consider
that they're 21, 22 now, and I just asked them,
someday you might have children, even grandchildren.
You're making history right now.
You're making history right here in Seattle.
Don't you want them to be able to see what you did?
And I just left it at that and some said, you know,
just don't show my face or, yes, you know, they would listen.
So it's a process, it's a dialogue,
but it's important to not just say I'm the press and,
you know -- that's kind of the way
I was when I arrived here 22 years ago.
I came from D.C.
Whereas, I had never had people put
their hands over my camera lens.
That happened here, you know, and I was changed by the city,
you know, I think it's a wonderful thing.
-Yeah, I was just going to say that for me,
I mentioned very briefly,
I only spoke for like 30 seconds
but the 90% of the job that isn't filming for me,
you know,
a lot of it is relationship building with the people,
you know, who are sharing their stories with me
and making sure that they, you know --
that I don't do them a disservice,
that I'm not going to, you know, misrepresent the way
that they're going to tell their story.
So when those tender moments do come, you know,
we've already had that conversation.
You know, I ask them like,
I know that this is, you know,
particularly sensitive time for you,
you know, is it okay if I'm, you know, in that space,
you know, sharing that time with you?
Is this an important part of the story that you think,
you know, needs to be captured and shared?
So that conversation has been had.
It's not just up to me.
And I think that is a new part of journalism
that hasn't always been there.
But it's a part of giving a certain autonomy to people
so that they can control the way
that they're represented in media that -- you know,
they haven't had that ability to do so in the past.
-There is a bit of a --
I'll call it a burden that a photojournalist carries,
that they are there not to be comfortable all the time.
They go through a great deal of discomfort
in order to be the person who's able to be in the places
that we either cannot go or will not go.
And so they bear witness for us in those ways
and have some difficult decisions
to make about when to use imagery
or not in a lot of times.
That we talk about access and sometimes access
can mean uncomfortable things.
And then sometimes an audience
or a viewer may actually feel
that discomfort arrives even in a different context or threshold
than a subject or a photographer.
And so, these are waters
that we trust these photojournalists to navigate
for us in a lot of ways.
And so, when we talk about credibility
and why it is that it matters to have an organization
that's credible, you're trusting that they did a good job
and that they followed these ethics
that you're hoping that they do.
-I have a question.
My original question was going to be the one
that that gentleman asked,
but you guys answered that really nicely, and so,
I have kind of a less deep question, which is
how many pictures will you take on any given shoot?
-How many pictures do you take on a given shoot?
-Well, personally, it really kind of varies.
Like on that portrait report, it was maybe 100 pictures,
but say a Mariners game might be hundreds of pictures
because it's every inning
and you're having to file every inning.
If you wait to file everything at the end,
you're gone, you're lost, you'll blow the deadline.
You just have to keep it rolling
and you might have shot hundreds of pictures by the fifth inning,
and then the game completely changes in the sixth inning,
and you've just thrown -- you know,
none of that stuff is going to get used, you know,
maybe in a photo gallery.
So it really varies on the assignment.
And then some photographers might, you know, you know,
Stehekin, you must have shot thousands
because it was many days.
-I think I used to be a much heavier shooter,
motor driving and everything,
but I've become much more selective.
It just makes it easier for me when I go in to edit,
instead of having to look at thousands of images,
I can look at hundreds and get through them quicker,
especially not shooting as much sports.
I have much less external hard drives to burn through.
So, when the cameras nowadays can shoot 30 frames per second,
you can fill them up like that.
So I've become much more selective with my shooting
and when I'm clicking the shutter.
-This one's kind of funny for me because I mostly do video,
but occasionally I'll be on an assignment
where we can't send a photographer
and I'll be asked to do stills and video at the same time,
and I'll take maybe 15 photos
and I'll send three to our editor.
And I'm like, I'm sorry, this is all I have.
-Okay. Interesting question, nuance here.
I've heard a couple of you use the term "to make photos,"
right, that I was picking up.
James, I think you said that,
Ken, I think you said that as well.
Is that intentional?
Are you talking about composition?
Is that a different way of looking at photography
as opposed to something that one of us might say,
"to take photos"?
-What's the difference between using the word
"to take a picture" or "to take a photo"
and "to make a picture" or "to make a photo"?
-Well, it originally went back to public relations for us,
you know, because if we took a photo,
it sounded like we took something
and then we started saying,
"Oh, you know, we're not going to say take a photo anymore,
let's say make a photo."
Because then, you know, that won't imply that.
But, you know, now it's just really loose.
I mean, I think a lot of people
consider their photography of family members.
They say, "I took a photo of my family member."
But I think some photographers think that they're,
you know, creating something,
so it's more of -- I think they're kind of interchangeable.
-I think words matter.
And so, I think that at some point along the line for me,
when I was exposed to the learning process
of getting involved in all of this stuff,
I was influenced by a lot of trains of thought,
and there was a thought that said,
elevate the value of how you think about what you do,
then you will behave in that way.
And the way that you behave in the nuance
will have reverberations and impacts on everything else.
So the mindset that one adopts by considering
that I'm having an intentional process
of making something rather than going and extracting
or cheaply grabbing is a mindset
that I attempted to adopt in the way of my thinking
so that I could try to be elevating the quality
of what I was trying to do.
-All right, we have time for one more question,
which is right here. -Shout out, shout out.
Shout out to Ken for mentioning Tri-X.
-I am generation Tri-X.
-Quick question. [ Speaking indistinctly ]
-We had a good one down here. The question is,
is there anybody up here going to be the one photographing
when Ichiro Suzuki is inducted into the Hall of Fame?
-No. No, they're just not here.
-We will be there, The Seattle Times will be there.
-Yeah, I think it's going to be one of two photographers,
I'm going to say.
-Up here. -Sorry.
My question is just along the lines of
when you're capturing a story or like something
that has both positive and negative sides to it,
how does like the photos like say like the wildfires,
for example,
where the shell-shocking image is the fires,
but the more powerful story or the more impactful story
could be the community coming together to fight it
or showcasing how much resources.
How does like the photo decision-making process
of getting that center shot come into play?
-Repeat the question, sorry, I wasn't quite capturing.
-The question was about balancing.
In this instance, the Pioneer fire in Stehekin.
And there's these shocking images
but there's also the community aspect as far
as rallying around one another
to help save their beloved community.
Correct? Okay.
Yeah, I probably didn't show the widest take from that shoot
as far as what we published but a lot of it -- the story was,
and the story that the residents told me that wasn't getting out
was that they were there
and they were helping protect their properties,
their businesses, their livelihoods,
and whether that's cooking thousands of meals
for the firefighters,
clearing brush that would ignite just like that
and just cause even more damage.
So that was a part of us being boots on the ground
so we could see it for ourselves
instead of having to rely on public relations teams
whether or not what they were telling us was true.
So I think in our report
and what we published kind of had showed both sides as far as,
you know -- it was a dramatic scene, right?
The mountainsides were all burning, steep cliffs,
hard to reach, hard to knock down those fires.
But at the same time,
the community members who stayed back were fighting
and putting up a valiant fight.
And I think we portrayed that well.
And it wasn't just -- this story was unique.
And one of my favorites,
because I was --
it wasn't just like hard-line journalism that I did.
I also wrote like a point of view piece
where it was more or less a love letter to Stehekin
and how much it reminded me of my small town,
where I come from,
where it takes a village and everybody rallies around another
and it was a really like heartwarming,
beautiful thing to see in such a stressful situation.
So I think the editors and everyone at the paper
and the feed that I sent back
did an appropriate job of telling that story.
-I think that's it.
Y'all, thank you so much for the thoughtful questions.
[ Applause ]