10+ Questions for Sarah Rose Larson.
Sarah Rose Larson has been a big part of my return to Linn-Benton Community College. She sat in the back of my first class back from a 40-year absence from Linn-Benton. Larson was there as a resource for my fall term Photojournalism class. She encouraged me and everyone in that class.
She tutored one of the photographers that she mentions during this interview. I had some of my photos posted on The Commuter website along with others in my class. Larson serves as The Commuter’s photo editor, providing good feedback on our photos and encouraging us to post photos on our journalism blog.
Larson, an LBCC student working on her own degree, has been in all the journalism classes that I took this year. Larson is an excellent writer as well as a photographer. I was honored to get the chance to interview her and get to know her better.
How long have you been at LBCC?
Well, I am a full -time student. I'm in my second year at Linn-Benton Community College. I am a photography major. And so I'm working towards my BFA with a focus in photography.
Did you get into journalism or did you evolve into it?
I also am extremely interested in journalism, something I never thought I would be. So I've been taking a lot of writing classes for journalism. I first became interested in journalism through the photojournalism class that Rob (Priewe) talked me into taking, and from there, I just realized the value of it. So I really believe that that'll be a part of my career as well. In the next year, I'll be trying to freelance a little bit for publications.
What is your role at The Commuter?
I'm the photo editor at The Commuter. So that means that I help decide some of the photos that we'll be using, and I shoot a lot of the photos.
And you’re a tutor to young/new students?
I am also an academic tutor here. So I tutor for a bunch of classes, photojournalism, various art classes, and really have enjoyed that. That's been an incredible opportunity that's made me realize that I love sharing information, I want to call it teaching, but that I love being able to see people grow and get excited about stuff with them. I get so excited about anything with photography. And then just seeing people expand their understanding and grow in that way has just been a really cool surprise for me.
Is The Commuter the only place to see your photographs?
Actually no, there were two of us selected for the artist residency for Linn-Benton Community College, for the Art Department and that's starting now. I'll create a body of work with help from my mentor and the curator for the galleries, Andrew Douglas Campbell. And I'll do that work throughout the summer. And then that will be hung before fall term starts in Chinook Hall and that's starting now. Myself and Charlie, who does incredible paintings, and so the two of us will be able to have our work available in Chinook Hall on display for a year from that hanging date. That sounds exciting. I like that it has been a bucket list thing for me that I thought I would start applying for in two years. Then when I was approached about being considered for it, I just started crying. It's yeah, it’s just such, such a gift and such an encouragement to me for sure.
How did your youth steer you into photography?
I think I was 12 and I was going to Oregon with my dad for the first time. We're traveling through Oregon to go to Seattle to meet some family. My mom got me this little pink point-and-shoot film camera, just because I had always wanted to be creative, so I took photos the whole time. My dad was a hobby photographer. He had this old Pentax 35-millimeter film camera that had a ton of lenses. So he was a long-suffering photographer with me, this budding 12-year-old who wanted to stop everywhere and take photos, the same way I am now. But as a child, it was my first roll of film, and I remember I got home and my mom developed it for me at the pharmacy. The idea that I could see something that I wanted to remember or explain or capture in a certain way, and do that with a camera, that just was like, that was it.
What has been your biggest obstacle to overcome to be the photographer you are today?
The expectation of wanting to make this thing I can see in my mind, and I can't do it. I get frustrated. And so then when I always had that as a child, once I started being more critical of my work, which I've grown a lot, actually, in Ann McGrattan’s classes the last couple years, or last few terms. I've grown in my expectations for what I could create making things out of materials.
Losing your father early in life, did that change anything about your journalism goals?
I think when you lose someone, of course you're going to take the things they said to you more seriously. He said things to me that I was “Like yeah, I know.” Then once he was gone, I was OK, what did he tell me? Because that was the last advice I'm ever gonna get from him is what he said before he died, right? So when he died, I had to think back on what other wisdom have you given me? What advice? What did you want from me? What life did you want for me? That is what I wanna know! I was working and going to school when he became sick. I had to drop out of school because I was traveling down there to be with him.
After he passed, I was sitting on the floor in front of the window in my apartment and it was sunny. I was leaning against the bed and I remember hearing him say, “You need to go back to school and you need to finish. I never did and you need to.”
I got a new camera. I was Facetiming a friend who's an incredible photographer once a week and we would just do a little lesson together. I decided to see if there were some classes at Linn-Benton and if there were any photography classes that I could just take one or two. There was a Photoshop class and there was a digital photography class. I went all-in, a real teetotaler person. So I ended up registering full-time and went back to school.
So I think just the fact that I'm here right now, I know he's proud of that. The fact that I'm doing it with photography and using his camera, I think he'd be a little scared about how much money I'd make, but I think he always believed in me. So I think he would and has encouraged me.
He watched the nightly news on every channel, every night, each one. I don't know why there's so many of them as each one would come on, each hour he would flip to those. That's kind of part of the reason I didn't like journalism. I don't like the nightly news. I'm not the 24-hour news cycle kind of person. The way it is now bothers me in many ways.
I think he and I would have more to relate to each other, honestly. I think at this point, if he could be here with me at this point in my life and who I am and the wisdom I have now, the openness and the education I'm getting in my interests. I think that this would have been the moment where we actually would have connected and had real things to sit around and discuss and talk about and I think it would be journalism.
Yeah, my dad was an old gruff cowboy but I can look at the evidence. Oprah always says “When people show you who they are, believe them.” So I moved up to Oregon, when I was 17, I called my dad and I said, I want to know more about cameras. My dad showed me who he was and he showed his support of me when I told him that I wanted to get a camera and I want to start doing photography. I want to get myself a better camera or a, you know, real camera.
That day he packed up that camera and mailed it to me and a week later, his old Pentax 35 showed up in the mail with all the lenses. I called him and he said, “OK, let me explain to you how to use it. Let me tell you what a light meter is.” While on the phone, I was looking through the viewfinder, figuring out how to focus it, how to get things clear in this little circle in the middle. I shot with that for years, just on film. Actually, my iPod pad case has one of the first photos I took with it, and still to this day it's my favorite photo I took on the way to Silverton.
So, I believed right then that any path I would have taken, he would have said, yeah, I believe in you and you're going to do good. Because he believed in my effort. He always believed in my effort. That was it.
Do you have a favorite photo shoot that you think is better than anything you've done or do you still think the best is yet to come?
That's a good question. Favorite photo shoot? I have several for different reasons. When I first started taking the digital photography class here, I did a scavenger hunt that was our first workshop and I ended up with some photos that I was just really in love with. So there's that one. I created for that same class a triptych that I had this vision for. It's the most work I've put into setting up and planning for a shoot and I really love how that turned out. I still want to kind of revise that over time a little bit. Just being able to create art in that way was really fun for me.
I think even recently, Catalina Contreras-Colin was one of our student spotlights I recently did for The Commuter. It is one that stands out because I have not laughed harder on a shoot than I laughed with her on that shoot. Like my stomach hurt afterwards. That's always my goal anytime I'm doing a portrait. I just want to know who they are and while I'm getting to know them and while they're allowing themselves to be vulnerable with me, being real and showing me themselves, I start shooting at that point. It's times like with Catalina and McGrattan, Lewis Franklin, I remember the conversations I had with them during the shoot. I can look at those photos and remember how Lewis was telling me how excited he gets about seeing what students create and as he says that I shot that photo.
I did that on another student's spotlight shoot with Bre Tainatango. I always want them to do movement because sometimes movement looks really good, but it needs to be something they want to do. I put this stool in front of her and I said do something with this stool and she just jumped over it. I was just like wow, we were laughing. It was just so fun. Yeah, got that. Well, then of course I was like I need to do that 10 more times.
I need anything that is their personality. I love connecting with people. I just love connecting with people in any way. So then when I get to do that, in photography, like these two things I love so much. That's the sweet spot. So I can't think of a shoot where that hasn't happened. Honestly, I think every shoot has these favorite moments because of those moments of connection with someone that I got to shoot. They trusted me when I was taking their photo of that moment.
Does that motivate you to do more?
Oh my gosh, yeah. I forget how much I love photography until I pull my camera up to my face and then something takes over in me. I can't even explain it, that it surprises me every time.
Is there an area of photography that you love the most?
I love sports photography so much. Every time I'm in the dugout shooting, like, oh my gosh, this is all I want to do for the rest of my life. I love it so much. This is so fun. Something happens to me. It's like if you really loved roller coasters, but you can't really remember how much you love them until you're on it again. That's how I feel. I know I love it but when I'm shooting a game, I remember how much I love it. And that's that's the way I approach sports photography is the same way I do portraits – who are these people? What is important to them right now? How are they feeling? What's happening? Who is this team when they come together? What are their personalities? When are these moments happening in the game that made them feel those things?
When you show them the photograph, they're so grateful. They love that I was able to capture that moment. To me, when you make that big hit or steal or a great catch, you hope someone took a picture. That makes it really fun. Each team has a different personality. Once I get comfortable with myself, they'll turn to look at me. You know, with that “Did you get that” look. I've always wanted to be in the background. I don't exist. Do not let me be a distraction. I want to be so respectful to the coaching staff. But, it is kind of cute and fun, when you see that they recognize that we're in this together in a way. I'm also here to support Linn-Benton athletics and to support you as an athlete. Then of course, when I get home, I get a bunch of Instagram messages from players wanting whatever happened that day. Makes me smile.
With all your responsibilities, how do you find time to tutor new students?
Well, it helps that I can be, this is my job, even though it's very, very part -time. The Tutoring center’s Cherie McIntyre, I cannot say enough good things about that woman. She's an incredible leader for us, but she also knows that when you work, while you go to school and everyone knows you're a student and that your needs are going to be different. So she makes it work for whatever works for us, and that sometimes changes for us tutors. Like we might sign up to be open a ton of hours in a term and two weeks in, realize our class load is way too heavy. We go back to her and say that I need to cut this down to fewer hours.
So I'm an embedded tutor for digital imaging. I'll have to look up the actual title of those classes. It's the Adobe Photoshop class and Illustrator for Laura Hughes. It was in fall term, when I'm an embedded tutor for that class, I make sure that my schedule not only works out but I am scheduled in that class. But it is a lot lighter because I'm in the classroom those hours a week.
What was the hardest student to tutor and and then which one succeeded the most that you're most proud of?
I think whenever you start tutoring someone new, especially if you're going to tutor them regularly, I've had one-offs where they just need me to go over a presentation they have or have you look at their slideshow and make sure it's lining up. Or sometimes I'll have instructors who offer extra credit if they get tutoring and so that, you know, I won't see them again. But there's other people I tutor that when I meet with them the first time, I know that this is going to be kind of a regular rhythm for the term, we’re just getting to know each other in a trust-building phase.
So I think for every student I've ever tutored, that it’s most difficult on that first day. I'm the most difficult, they're the most difficult. We're learning each other, we're learning to trust and there's a lot of misunderstanding behind the idea of having tutoring, especially if you haven't had tutoring before. Because there's this idea that people who are failing get tutors or people who don't get it are getting tutors and that's not it. The tutoring is available here as these peer tutors who come alongside you, who walk out the material with you.
We don't have the answers, we're not the teachers, we're here to make it so that you get the most out of that class, and if there's a spot where you get stuck, because we all get stuck because we don't know it all. That's why we're learning it, then we're here to get unstuck with you. And I think that once people realize that, it really starts getting easier. I learn where their challenges are with what is hanging them up.
Sometimes it's just confidence, sometimes there's like one part of the way the class is structured that isn't working well for them. I think with every person I meet with, it starts out challenging and then we get in this rhythm and then it's super fun. I love getting to finals week and seeing what we did. And I'm so sad when, especially the ones I get to meet with a few times a week, I'm so sad when we get to finals week because I'll miss them. We've done so much together. We've gotten so far. What was the second part of the question?
Which one surprised you and became one that you are most proud of?
So I had a student that had to do a presentation and had really, really bad public speaking anxiety. The idea of doing this presentation was brought up in the first session we had at the beginning of the term. The presentation was at the end of the term. So, we made sure they were scheduled to be the last person to present because there were people that are presenting throughout the term. So they'd have the most time to kind of prepare and wrap their mind around it.
So leading up to that, I don't have a lot of experience. I don't know how to help people with public speaking. I just know for myself, what works. I know I've been through therapy, so I know how to help my own anxiety. I know to raise your arms above your head. I know some techniques and I know that the more you picture yourself doing the thing and walking it out, the less anxiety you'll have in them, the more you'll show up and be successful. So at the beginning of each session for a few weeks, we had prepared their presentation. They had worked through that and they had done a really good job preparing it.
They had made all their own choices on what was interesting to them about that and why they chose the slides and the photographer they chose. Then at the beginning of every tutoring session for a couple of weeks before their presentation, we would go into the classroom, we would turn out the light, we would turn on the projector and I would sit down and they would try to present and they would have anxiety and it was rough but I believed in them. I knew that they could do it.
So I left my class the day they presented and I ran in and I sat in the back and they blew my mind. Like I knew they'd be fine, but then they killed it and came up with stuff on the fly that was just brilliant and made so much sense. We hadn't even discussed that and I was like, oh, that's such a good point and, yes, I was screaming at the end, laughing and it was just so impressive to me and also just so rewarding, just so incredibly rewarding to see that I got to see that happen for someone. I got to see them work through something that was so hard for them and so scary and seemed so impossible.
Then to sit in the back of the room and just watch them overcome and just kill it. It was so good! I think the biggest thing I do as a tutor is I'm a cheerleader. You know how to do it. You just need someone to come in and show you. Sometimes it's just making a to-do list. Let's go over your grade and let's see. I do that a lot. Let's go over what you need. Let's see what you're missing. What do we need to work on? Let's just get organized.
When we do that, then it's you've got this. I tell them, “You're not as far behind as you thought. You know what you're doing. You've got it.” Sometimes it's being creative. I go on shoots with people and I get to see them learning to use their camera. Sometimes we're just working out their creative ideas they have in their mind. How can we make that actually happen? It's so rewarding and I have learned so much too, just from working with Laura directly like that.
So it's a different experience tutoring, but otherwise, I get so much out of it and I love it. I feel like I want to do that for other people. I don't know what your future has in store. I don't know what opportunities will come from this thing you're doing. It's not my place to tell you that's not a good degree to get or a good job to get or a good thing to be excited about or a hobby to have. I want to believe in your effort. I want to see what is exciting to you, what effort you are putting into something, and I'll back you a thousand percent on your effort and believe that it’s going to be good.
Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you would like to say?
Step away and take a break and get some therapy. Get into therapy. I think everyone should be in therapy. Don't put it off. It's worth it. You can drink one less coffee a day or something and afford it. So get into therapy. At one point, my therapist said, you've done all this work that you've been good at but just because you have the skillset doesn't mean you need to go back to it again. That may have been that season in your life and that's done. That gave me the freedom to be, well, what would I want to do if I wasn't doing that? I was focused on photography more now that I had time. Oh, I can say, too, with that Pentax camera, part of a series that I want to make for my residency will be on that same Pentax camera.
How do you think you're going to be remembered by future journalism students?
I would hope that I would be remembered as someone who encouraged everyone around them and believed in them. That I helped make the pie bigger because I think that there’s, at The Commuter, our journalism classes here, the community and my cohorts, a feeling we have that is just so supportive and so incredible.
I've heard, when I've been at conferences with other collegiate journalists, that there's a competition of who gets this story and who gets that cover. Whereas, I’ve come alongside the people I work with and the students that I am in class with, and that we've all given to each other and encouraged each other and celebrated each other's wins more than we've wanted something for ourselves. I feel like I've been able to be a part of that. I hope they'll think of me as someone who was a great photographer, who helped them become better photographers, who was honest and true and just somebody who helped them have a better experience here at Linn-Benton..
At a Glance:
Who: Sarah Rose Larson
What: Photo Editor for The Commuter, monthly magazine at LBCC
Where: Linn-Benton Community College
Web Connections:https://www.instagram.com/sarah.rose.larson/
Sarah Larson in people - Facebook
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