Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Huffman.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m a local photojournalist & cinematographer that focuses on dignifying the people I’m documenting! I believe words & images can shift reality. They provoke movement, stir compassion, break stigmas, tell of truth, and generate thankfulness. This captivated me when I was in high school, and I began searching for ways to make the world better through these two mediums. I’ve had the opportunity to do this through hosting street interviews, creatively directing an art & theology publication, documenting for local businesses, and co-creating a live gallery in Boston. If we can bridge gaps with the understanding through art – then let’s! I’m based in Columbus, OH, but have formerly worked in Chicago, IL where I received my Bachelor’s studying theology and photojournalism at Moody Bible Institute. I’m currently a News Reporter for a hyperlocal newspaper, The Messenger, but also have experience being a Creative Director of an Art & Theology Journal Publication ‘Thin Space’, an Editor in Chief of Moody Bible Institute’s ARCH Yearbook, and an Executive Director of an evangelistic photojournalism ministry called The City’s Gospel. Above all, I want to dignify people. I allow individuals to speak for themselves as much as they can, create imagery with integrity, and deeply value honesty with each depiction. I feel so passionate about honoring these individuals and their personhood over their circumstances or the content they’re able to provide. I believe in this so much I dedicated a final thesis to it in college, and you can read excerpts on my website’s ethics page. I believe that content produced can do good, but I never want to miss the opportunity for good within the documenting process!
As a freshman in high school, Instagram was relatively new, and it almost immediately became a pillar of what it meant to socialize. At the time, a feed was pretty exclusively for photos of people’s social lives. I remember feeling like it would be a waste if I never took the opportunity to ever talk about different issues that mattered. I decided to post a small blurb that challenged the way people negatively thought and spoke about their bodies, and the response was at a level I had never seen on my page. It opened my eyes to the power of words and images and planted a dream to figure out how to continue to use that power for good. I decided to go to college to develop those skill sets and learn how to use them, particularly for what I loved most: the Gospel. Jesus had such a beautifully dignifying approach to how the spoke of and treated people. The Bible says in Genesis 1:27 that humanity is created in the image of God. The Latin ‘Imago Dei,’ the innate “image of God” in mankind, is what gives man dignity and demands he be treated as such. Biblical perspectives would define dignity as a state of being worthy of honor or respect due to their inseparable likeness of God in nature. The God who is to be upheld with the most reverence and honor created mankind in his very likeness and orders that man also be honored. God values them so much that he placed his very likeness in their form, so they should therefore be dignified. This learning quickly shifted my favorite subjects to people and my focus to treating them with dignity in the process, but I found it hard to source examples. Interviews and photoshoots were so transactional, scraping the person for exciting content they could give them with seemingly no regard to their personhood. I hated that in an effort to do good, they were squashing their resources on the way. I refined my ethics & brought them to action first with leading a friend’s organization called The City’s Gospel. Each week my team and I would host dozens of street interviews with the strangers of Chicago. We posed the simple question; “What comes to mind when you hear the word God?” It provoked authentic conversations about faith where people were able to be heard, some for the first time with this topic. If the conversation developed, we would share our answer to that question, but the primary objective was to truly hear them. I was later selected as an intern for Silent Images, a group of storytellers that excel in professional videography for nonprofits both internationally and domestically. This was my first experience with people in the workforce having a full-time job telling people’s stories – and they did it in such a dignified way. They were so kind to me and taught me nearly everything I know about video! I then moved on to become the Creative Director of an Art & Theology publication that organized submissions for all different mediums into a print book with a cohesive theme. I was additionally the Editor in Chief of my college yearbook, something that the small college kept up to document the legacy of the space in a meaningful way. That year honed in on beauty in the ordinary.
In February of 2021, I was invited to help create the Hope Rising Gallery, an initiative of historic Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. 40 interviews were displayed in the Boston Common with the hope of creating conversation and connectivity. Within a mile radius of Park Street are 13 distinct neighborhoods, and we aimed to use photojournalism to produce a live event that promoted connectivity across these neighborhoods, as well as offered connectivity to a local church. Through interview, we were honored to hear 40 strangers speak simply on what they hope for in an era of seeming ‘hopelessness.’ The responses found such a common thread of humanity, revealing both the strangeness and comfort in how shared all our longings are. The interviews also collectively showed just how beautiful the variety of people that fill a city can be! Chefs, teachers, barbers, construction workers, students, etc. Faces and stories were given to the masked stranger, and the congregation was able to gain a more vivid understanding of the people they are trying to serve! Still so honored and giddy about the invitation to use art and shared space to smudge dividing lines, reveal commonality, and humanize the stranger. There will always be such a simple beauty in listening to our neighbors.
All of these experiences find common ground in that they created a journey of refining my technical abilities but primarily taught me how to help people feel valued, comfortable, and authentically heard in the storytelling process while giving a delivery that feels authentic to their true experiences.
I currently write for a hyperlocal newspaper, The Columbus Messenger, and feature local happenings for the benefit of that specific community. I believe we were always intended to live locally, and fixating on local news allows you to fill the gaps in your community and celebrate or show up for celebration, thus, actually being a part of a true functioning community. If a story only entertains, but never leads to true connection; I find it to be a waste. I could talk all day about how much I believe in nourishing local connectivity. That’s home!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In the beginning, there was this dichotomy of people who were really supportive and then a strange group of people who pretty consistently and intentionally bullied me for it. I remember that feeling hurtful, but it didn’t deter my desire to create beautiful things or advocate for vulnerable people, even if I didn’t yet know how to do it best. Initially, I didn’t think there was much of a market for the work I envisioned, but so much has changed with significance and use of visual communication since graduating high school in 2016.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about what you do?
I can fill the gap for any organization that has a need for intentional storytelling with professionalism and integrity. This can look as simple as staff headshots or as large as a 10-minute video encompassing everything your group does. I aim to hear people with gentleness and authenticity, and this can be especially important when working with vulnerable people groups. For example, a lot of nonprofits have a need for sharing stories of success or putting a face to the people their community is donating to. That can be a particularly exploitative experience for that person, and in turn hurt the very people you’re trying to help heal. It matters how you show up to that space and I am SO honored by the stories I’ve gotten to hear. Sometimes it’s their first time sharing, and I cannot imagine the pain of someone treating that information like a check in the box for the project at hand. I can get the job done and hopefully be a part of restoration in the process. Something I’m proud of is that I will not forge support for what an organization does if I don’t truly stand with them.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My dad’s side of the family is from Germany, and my Omi flew me and my cousin there with her for a month when I was 13 years old. The 3 of us drove through the country’s hills in a little orange beetle bug visiting various friends in different towns. I think it was one of the first experiences that got me thinking outside of the norm from seeing how life went on in other places and that there were options for how you went about things. I’d like to think of it as a catalyst to challenging what I ‘think’ I’m supposed to do next.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sarahslayman.com/
- Instagram: sarahhuffman__
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-huffman-611b13173/
