Many, many portraits — Elodie Reed

I’ve been feeling a little low on inspiration lately, and going back through old work always seems to help a) remind me I am indeed capable of creating things and 2) give me a sense of how I can build on the work that already exists.

Five months in at Vermont Public Radio, I can say that I have made A LOT of portraits. I’ve enjoyed practicing finding light and working with the portraitee to find what’s natural and what evokes honest emotion.

Among my favorite assignments: documenting Vermont artists for a series titled Young At Art. Katie Runde, a realist painter, saxophonist, part-time preacher and all-around Renaissance woman, was so patient and game for her portrait with the wings of Icarus she built:

Covering the Sept. 20 climate strike was also extremely cool. I asked kids when they first started thinking about climate change and why they were striking. Their lack of self-consciousness made my job a blast:

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My job at VPR is a jack-of-all-trades kind of thing - web editing, social media, a little reporting, a lot of photojournalism - but what remains pretty consistent is collaborating with my colleagues on stories. It’s a departure from my one-woman-band role in the past, and honestly, it’s lovely to share the work.

One highlight: snorkeling in Harvey’s Lake with reporter Amy Noyes, who wrote about the women researching aquatic ecology in the Vermont lake where Jacques Cousteau, according to local lore, made his first-ever dive as a kid at camp:

I also provided photo-support for reporter Nina Keck as she explored the legacy of a three-year-old debate about whether Rutland, Vt. should welcome 100 mostly Syrian refugees. Nina caught up with Hazar Mansour and Hussam Alhallak, one of the three Syrian families to move to Rutland before the Trump administration capped refugee admissions in the U.S. I spent an afternoon with Hazar, Hussam and their three kids and left completely enchanted by this kind, warm family. The resulting photo essay now lives on a page here.

While I keep pretty busy with this supportive role, I have had a chance to do some reporting (and made my radio debut!) with a silly but sneakily serious piece about what a local library fundraising with a calendar full of nude local authors says about the state of libraries in Vermont.