📸 Viewfinder 06/14/26

Is now an appropriate time to take a picture? It’s a question I ask myself all the time as one of Cascadia Daily News’ three photojournalists. While the answer is almost always yes — I don’t think I’d be employed if it were no — there are times when I fear how a shutter release will memorialize a moment and whether it’s my right to memorialize it at all.

That fear kept me from pressing down on my camera’s shutter button a few weeks back, when former executive editor Ron Judd announced his firing to a room full of my colleagues. The news felt personal, like it was meant only for the people in that room. As the sinking feeling of a great loss settled in my stomach, though, I thought about the thousands of readers who would be just as shocked to eventually read about what we were being told in that moment. I realized then that Ron’s announcement is news.

It’s not a photo I’m particularly glad to have taken, but like with much of the other work heralded by Ron and produced by my CDN colleagues, I’m glad it exists — and I’m glad it’s part of the record for both the history of the publication and this community.

Welcome to “Viewfinder,” a new subscriber-only newsletter written by CDN’s photo staff. Once a month, we will bring you a behind-the-scenes view of the thought behind and process of making the images we publish. If you have questions, comments or ideas, email me at [email protected].

From a visual perspective, Ron’s influence in the newsroom was always most felt during Ski to Sea. His experience covering the Olympic Games served as the base for what is now a well-oiled multi-person reporting machine stretching from the top of Pan Dome to the shores of Bellingham Bay.

While most stories you see reported within the pages of CDN are illustrated by visual journalists Finn Wendt, Andy Bronson and me, our Ski to Sea coverage employs the talents of about twice as many photographers. This year, that included work from CDN’s own Isaac Stone Simonelli and Cocoa Laney, former intern and frequent contributor Eli Voorhies, CDN alum Hailey Hoffman, and Ron Judd himself.

Here are three frames from this year's iconic race that stood out to me.

Awards season in our industry is coming to an end, and while our reporting team swept the 2025 Society of Professional Journalists’ Northwest Excellence in Journalism contest, our visuals team picked up a few wins as well, the most exciting of which was a first-place win for Finn Wendt and Cococa Laney’s “Made in Cascadia” video series. The series explores the many makers in our corner of the state and brings the passion for their crafts to digital life.

Check out these “MIC” stories and videos to learn about the cooks, carpenters and chocolatiers who bring color to Cascadia.

I was also honored to receive a first- and second-place win in the contest's feature photo category for two moments last year that I believe highlight the joy public servants find in their jobs.

While exciting on its own merit, Finn’s win foreshadows greater things to come for CDN, mainly in the form of the newsroom’s first 40-minute documentary, which brought the Lummi boys basketball team's second consecutive championship season to the silver screen. More on this from “Respect the Rez” producer Finn:

FINN: Last Monday, the first episode of our four-part documentary series “Respect the Rez” went live. You can find it on the project page. If you didn’t make it to our two sold-out showings, we also added one more screening at the Pickford on Grand. Buy tickets here.

Watching the project go out into the world is almost overwhelming. “Respect the Rez: Inside the Lummi Blackhawks’ Title-or-Bust Season” took over the lives of sports editor Nick Zeller-Singh and me for the past nine months — I've never dropped a kid off for their first day of kindergarten, but I imagine it feels something like this.

When Nick and I walked into the meeting to pitch this project, I didn't expect a thumbs up. I had scaled-down ideas in my back pocket, ready to go. But our then-bosses Ron Judd and Rhonda Prast didn't need to hear them. They saw the value of a community-driven story, understood the scope it would require and gave us 40 minutes of run time to tell it right.

I've never worked at another newspaper, but I know dedicating that kind of time and resources to a format atypical to a local newsroom is not something done often — or ever. That's what CDN is all about, and it's why I love coming into our downtown Bellingham office every day.

I'm proud of what emerged from those months of work. Thank you to the dozens of names in the closing credits, and especially to Lummi Nation School principal Heather Leighton and head coach Jerome Toby for welcoming us with open arms — and to all the boys for letting us crash their post-game chicken shop stops.

I’m incredibly grateful to Nick and managing editor Jaya Flanary for the shared commitment and dedication to this story; we’re just three twenty-somethings that made something I think is pretty darn cool. That doesn’t happen just anywhere.

Check out part two, out tomorrow, where we learn what “rez ball” is and how Coach Toby uses it to the Blackhawks’ advantage. Plus, the team’s tip-off of the regular season against Lakewood, the reigning 2A District 1 champions.

Negative Originals: A thorough investigation into how photography and, more importantly, photographic manipulation, can ossify preconceived ideas of status, class and race within society. Juanita Solano Roa's Negative Originals weaves together decades worth of history in Colombia's Department of Antioquia as told and sold by two portrait studios that used early negative retouching techniques to lighten the skin tones of the region's upper class as a way to reinforce the cultural hegemony of the time. And all this just in chapter one.

NPR’s The Picture Show: A photo-heavy NPR interview with Seattle-based photographer Akash Pamarthy, about his work with the Sikh communities around Ohio passing traditions to the next generation. It's a vibrant (and for me, aspirational) look into a culture that is also very present in Whatcom County.