Grace

Living to see the day

My time during this historic election was spent with Grace, but make sure to call her Mrs. Linkhorn. I was corrected several times for calling an old woman by her first name. Sometimes I lapse on the cordiality. Through her historic, 101-year-old life, Mrs. Linkhorn has witnessed both world wars, the Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam era and now the election of America's first African American president. I had the pleasure of following her through several functions. I watched her make a speech supporting Obama in a dark bar on MLK Blvd. I watched her press in her vote at a crowded Ward F polling station. When photojournalism is done well, it holds witness while others do not. In this case, the momentous feelings of our history's newly written pages felt much smaller and personal. I witnessed someone cast a vote rather than win an election. Her story is small in comparison, but I could feel it connect a long road of history.

This story was particularly challenging, learning how to make a layered piece with new equipment, within a new system. I made more mistakes than I care to count, and am trying to help build a multimedia department from the ground up. The Journal does not have a large voice in this new world of media, and I am still trying to find my own. This piece may be a cast into empty waters, but it feels like a new mistress to try; exciting, and hell of a lot of work to go after.