Hi, I’m Bethany!
I’m a visual journalist – writing stories, shooting photos and creating videos. Currently, I’m a full-time videographer at The Salt Lake Tribune and a part-time freelancer covering the issues of land and water in the American West. I’m entering my final semester at Harvard Extension School where I’m earning my Master’s Degree in Journalism.
Looking back, my journey makes perfect sense.
My life behind the camera started at a young age when my father would routinely hand me a mix of cheap cameras and now-archaic looking rolls of film. This mild interest grew into something more in high school. I spent my summers visiting my older brother in Northern Arizona. He wrote for the local newspaper and travel magazine in the Four Corners region of the Southwest. At that time, he could barely operate a camera, let alone frame an image. So, parked outside the visitor center at Zion National Park, he offered the camera to me in the passenger seat of his gold Stratus.
“You want to take the pictures,” he asked before heading to his feature assignment.
“Sure,” I casually replied.
And I’ve been behind a camera ever since.
I graduated from Indiana State University two years following the Great Recession in 2008. After three grueling years photographing for the campus newspaper, I questioned a full-time career in photojournalism anyway. Instead, I found my first job in academia, as a marketing photographer at a university in Idaho.
After that much-needed break, the photojournalism itch returned. I finally landed my first news job at The World, a small newspaper along the Oregon Coast. After a year, I transferred to Montana to work for The Billings Gazette. There, I joined three other journalists on an investigating team focused on the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women.
Moving again after a year and a half, I joined the staff of The Coloradoan in Fort Collins, Colorado. It was here along the Front Range of the Rockies that I weathered the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just as the community was beginning to live with that threat, the largest wildfire at the time in Colorado state history broke out on our doorstep. For several months, I covered the Cameron Peak wildfire and her sister blaze, the East Troublesome fire. I watched through my viewfinder as they devastated so much of Northern Colorado.
It was there along the Front Range of the Rockies that I decided to focus my career on environmental journalism. My interest in water in the West had already been growing for years. When a colleague invited me to join an investigative story into water permits along the Colorado River, I knew environmental journalism was for me.
It was then that my partner accepted a fellowship from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Surprisingly, the fellowship benefits extended to me as his significant other. For nine months, I focused on courses for my Master’s Degree in Journalism and two certificates in environmental policy and digital storytelling.
Even beyond the camera and notepad, I’m also passionate about the great outdoors. My happy place usually involves a raft, kayak or tent with my adorable pups.
I’m open to freelancing opportunities as well as tips and story ideas.
Contact:
bethanybakerphotos@gmail.com
970-218-5390