January Favorites

It's been a busy month, in the good kind of way. I worked for three publications on a number of different assignments, food photography, the Women's March on Washington, a Sleigh Rally, among others. It's been great to see the variety of assignments that have come my way as a freelancer, and I'm loving it!

Women's March on Washington

I just returned from covering the Women's March on Washington, on assignment for The Valley News. Reporter Maggie Cassidy and I were embedded with a group of women, most of whom were Dartmouth undergrads or post-graduate students. We left Hanover, N.H. at 10:30 on Friday night and arrived in Washington D.C., at 7am. Maggie and I spent the day weaving through crowds, witnessing and documenting what we saw. Altogether, we found the mood to be peaceful, with each person we ran into exhibiting kindness and patience, including the police. We saw families, people from every age representing, and many supportive men alongside the women. We arrived back in Hanover at 6:30 in the morning on Sunday, the whole group exhausted yet empowered.

September/October Favorites

As always, September and October are the busiest times for me, photographing back to school, spots, and the daily happenings of the Upper Valley at the Valley News while photographing and editing weddings and engagement sessions and booking clients for next year. Things were so busy this year, in fact, that I made the decision to transition to full-time wedding photography and freelance work. As it's been seen on this blog, I've loved my five and a half years spent with the Valley News, first as an intern, and for the majority of the time, as a staff photographer. I witnessed the best and the worst days in the lives of those in the community, and I learned plenty about myself and my photography in the process. I began my photography career as a wedding photographer, assisting my parents from the time I was fourteen until I left college and began photographing weddings on my own. Over the past few years, I've taken the important lessons they taught me about business and managing groups of people and merged it with the documentary style I've shaped in my time at the Valley News and my love for storytelling to create a unique wedding photography style. Jeff and I have worked together to create a working style and schedule that we love, and dozens have couples have fallen in love with it as well, making it hard to do both full-time newspaper work along with wedding work. I'm still in love with photojournalism for publications and will remain active as a freelance photographer. I'll be freelancing for The Valley News, as well as other local and national publications and posting the work here. I'll also be collaborating with several small food-centered businesses to document their processes for marketing campaigns (a side passion of mine). As always, you can view my work here, at sarahpriestap.com (I'll be overhauling this site within the next month), and wedding work at twoofusphotography.com For now, here's a sample of my favorites from the past month, including portraits of student style on the first day of school, a world record attempt at a grape dropped from a hot air balloon, and former President Bill Clinton.

August Favorites

August, the Sunday of Summer. A time in our community when many things came to a close: last game of the horseshoe league, the final days of summer for students, and a farewell to water frolic. It was also the culmination of a story I had been working on for several months, chronicling the journey of high schooler Joia and her young mustang horse, Gypsy, from their first encounter to competition day at the Youth Mustang Makeover in Massachusetts. Another favorite of the month was photographing Hazel, who celebrated her 108th birthday by teaching a fitness class.