Cedarbrook Studio
#GSVMemberMonday
Since the age of 9, photographer Sarah Walls of Cedarbrook Studio in La Conner, has loved capturing moments with her camera. It first started when her Grandmother Arline gifted her a pink 110 pocket camera for her birthday. Back then, digital cameras weren’t a thing, so film roll after film roll were developed. “I remember being a kid and my grandma or dad driving me in to town after I saved up some money cleaning horse stalls on our farm. There was a little film store near the Viking Village they would take me to bring my camera film. That feeling of opening the envelope of developed photos and seeing what they looked like for the first time was so much fun. Some were good, many not so good. But I learned, and it helped me to develop that ‘creative eye’ that I use now.” says Sarah.
Photography remained a self-taught hobby, during high school, life adventures in New England, and after her children were born in 2006 and in 2011. But after experiencing a natural disaster in 2011, she decided to take photography a step further. “I’ve always been a little self conscious because I couldn’t afford to take a lot of art or photography classes or go to college for an art degree. I grew up on a farm in a hard working, one income household. We lived really simply. Somehow I thought that made my art a little ‘less than’ or not as good as someone who had been formally trained or had all of the fanciest photography gear. After going through a life changing incident with a landslide damaging my home, I decided that I didn’t really have anything to lose by getting myself out there.” said Sarah. Cedarbrook Studio was started. “Cedar” named after the beautiful Western Red Cedar trees of her youth and “Brook” for the brook where her first home was located, along the bank of the Joe’s Brook in Northern Vermont.
Today, Sarah is a regionally known photographer that has been published locally in the La Conner Weekly News and Visit Skagit Valley as well as on a national scale in various travel and lifestyle magazines. Her favorite subjects to photograph are tractors and harvest time in the Skagit Valley. Many of the agricultural images that you’ll find here on the our website and our social media handles have been taken by Sarah herself. When Sarah isn’t working on Genuine Skagit Valley events or programs as the Wholesale Marketing Coordinator, she volunteers for her childrens’ school, taking sports images for the annual yearbook and capturing memories for their high school graduations.
GSV’s Director Blake Vanfield recently asked Sarah what her favorite Skagit grown crop was. Here’s what she said:
“That’s a tough one for me to answer. I love so many of our crops for different reasons. I think my favorite is the Winter Wheat. It’s planted in the fall and it’s one of the first things that covers the spring landscape when the soil warms – a delicate sea of bright green. As the season goes by, the crop changes and eventually turns gold in mid-summer when it’s nearly time to harvest – just before the Barley. I just love watching the local farmers harvest the locally grown grains in summer. The combines working simultaneously, row by row. The trucks lining up, one after the other, the beds filled with harvested grain, taking it to the local mills. To know that I’m watching a crop’s lifecycle happen through the seasons is pretty amazing.”
Sarah offers her images for sale in calendar and card form as well as custom wall prints made to order. Her 2024 Skagit Calendar is available locally at Primrose Antiques & Gifts inside Christianson’s Nursery as well as Beaver Tales Coffee, Seaport Books, Stompin’Grounds Coffee, The Skagit County Historical Museum and online through Etsy. Sarah’s tractor cards are available on our Shop GSV website HERE.
As a supporter and member of the Genuine Skagit Valley program, we’re so happy to feature Sarah and Cedarbrook Studio as this week’s #GSVMemberMonday feature. Thank you for supporting the GSV program with your storytelling and images, Sarah!