An Interview with Deborah T. Hewitt

Deborah T. Hewitt contributed her amazing article “Behold,” featuring her equally impressive writing and photography, to our Summer of Fun series. I had the chance to speak with Deborah more about her career in photography and venture into the world of Substack.

Bob: You have been a professional photographer for over 20 years. What drew you to photography as a career?

Deborah: My dad brought us to America in the early ’60s, and with him, he carried an 8mm movie camera. He was always filming us, and I guess it was just a natural part of our life to have him recording our “moments.” He loved his still cameras, too. I remember watching his big smile behind the lens, and I have absolutely experienced that joy much of the time. When I was a teenager, I used to help sell snacks at my little brother’s ballgames, and my dad was always walking around with his camera capturing these really great shots of my brother and the other players with rugged dirty faces, expressions of waiting, sweat, dust, defeat, laughter, etc. in the dugout, and some neat action shots out on the field. At the same time, I was doing a stint in the entertainment industry and had landed a role on The Waltons as Jim Bob’s girlfriend, Patsy Brimmer (I’ve recently written about it tucked away in my Substack). During my time on the show, I was mostly interested in “how” everything came together on camera. I asked a lot of questions for a 14/15 year old. (So yes, I have this whole other life experience that was a complete blessing, but not for me, in the end, and I’m really grateful for the opportunity I had). I think, internally, it was at that point that I felt I would explore photography someday. I really admired the movement and the feeling in still images that the camera could evoke. My sport growing up was dance, so much of this made sense to my brain.

I loved the idea of having children so much that I couldn’t wait to be married and fell in love before putting college as a priority.

I always had a camera, but when I had children, that’s when I wanted to capture everything they did. I think that’s how a lot of people start. From there, you find out if you have something more in you. Family and friends would often tell me I should “take it somewhere?” Where? I had no idea! My God-given job was to be a mom first, and it was so much fun capturing the kids, making cool Christmas cards, and just sharing the photos. I was always reaching for that feeling of making time stop. I wanted to see the kind of photos my dad took of our life.

I saved and bought my first good Minolta 35m camera and traveled to Spain with my husband in 1998. He had earned a rare trip through hard work, and I went crazy. I came back with some good shots, but I knew I had a deep craving, after that, to learn the technical aspects of photography. I knew there was more I could have done. It was a few years later that he said to me, “You need to stop spending money on so much film and maybe go to school and learn how to shoot a landscape? Sell something?” Ha ha! I said, “Really? Me? School? What about the kids and all we have going on? How will we manage? It’s expensive!” John always figured we’d work everything out. He said I had a passion for it, I should learn, and the rest would fall into place. The rest is history.

In 2000, I entered a local Jr. College photo program. During the first few months, I had a pretty terrific ski accident and blew my right knee out. I persevered in classes and darkroom, crutches and all. No fix for it. I was hired within a year of school by one of my professors to work as her assistant, shooting black and white film on her weddings. It was exciting, but leaving my family on weekends was hard. Here I was 40 years old and feeling 18, “Yes ma’am, what do you need,” etc. I continued with school, then subscribed to “Studio Magazine” and looked at the classifieds (that’s how you did it back then!), and applied for a first, second, or third shooter job with a huge wedding photography company, out of Long Beach, Ca., about an hour or so away. I was hired and working for both my professor/mentor and that company. Never in a million years was wedding work on my radar, yet it provided all the elements of life and coverage. All the emotions. I also have a deep love for God’s people. I quickly attained valuable organizational skills from the trenches of 14-hour days, was pushed to my technical limits and over the edge and wanted more. I wanted my own clients. It was time to develop my own business and website and get serious. From that point forward I covered “boutique style” editorial weddings (only about a dozen a year to keep them special and unique) and began to shoot more portrait and editorial work in general. I love to see life as it unfolds.

Bob: What led you to take up writing?

Deborah: My mom was a natural writer. In England, she was a legal secretary and in her spare time was writing and journaling. When we got to America she continued with legal secretarial work and began submitting poetry to card companies and jingles to various music companies. Mom was super talented and would tell me for years to journal or write. I never took the time. When Mom and Dad retired to the Oregon Coast, she began to write her story and finished it there. It’s a book called “Never Call Me Father,” about her life during WW2. We have yet to see it published as she never went through the copyright procedures. It was for our family. I believe you mentioned “A War of Forgiveness” in the intro to my piece “Behold.” This is a very tender and brief part of her story.

When May 2020 hit, turmoil entered our little family in a way of estrangement that felt like a strong spiritual force breaking us apart. It was so devastating that I didn’t think I could survive it. Then my dad’s 17-year cancer remission came back with a vengeance. After his passing, I felt completely lost. While I was staying with Mom in rural Oregon, God had been so close, I could feel Him right there. Nothing came against us during the protocols of the pandemic, a deeply important missing family member, and the challenges of a far away hospice. But I came home several months later in February of 2021 to a still broken family and it was more than I could take. I found myself with a very sick senior dog, who didn’t live well without me, and fell over her as she was laid to rest. Everything hit like a freight train. I felt like God went away. It took until May of 2022 for me to hear God speak the title for what would become my Substack. I woke up one morning and I said it aloud. The Family We Keep.

Yes. I want to trust You with everything. I want forgiveness in my heart. I want Your kind of love. I want to walk forward and not live in selfish agony.

I had found odd, reaching ways to grieve and disappear mentally. One of them was looking through Circa Old Houses every single day, dreaming about anywhere but the reality of my broken life. I had become entranced with a home in Northern California that George Hearst had built for his young wife Phoebe. It was for sale and it became my first story. You also mentioned that one, in the intro, due to your passion for building, Bob :) I felt an extremely heavy hand on that piece and from there God has directed my journey. I wrote and wrote, barely looking up until January of this year when I joined this community of Notes.

He knows us. His timing is perfect. He knows me very well. I love people and sit with a very diverse community of people in my life, so God figured He’d go with me on this trip and help me find a way to recover, to write from a flow of whatever was on my mind, and to ease my love of Him into my writing. I see it clearly now. I told Him that I was His if he would just use me to affect one person. I am not saying I’m a writer presently. I am writing from a place that is truly a calling right now. A purpose. It feels amazing and we’ll see where it leads. I relate very much to how you took to writing as well, since you never imagined it! God is so good like that!

Bob: How do you feel your faith has influenced your writing and your photography?

Deborah: Definitely my love of people. I see life more deeply through my lens and now through the flow of writing. Back in 2009, I think I reached my depths when I photographed one of my closest friends with her family. Smiling, walking, holding hands, and dying of cancer. My work has made me think more about the challenges of life. I meet a lot of people, and often times, I know that they were put in my life to teach me something. To humble me. I often look at the images and cry. There are a lot of beautiful faces, but they are truly interesting and inspiring people. I had always wanted to deliver something thoughtful and timeless to them. That spoke of their life. Not mine. Writing has become a way of using my photo archives to express my genuine love of people and nature. Of God’s beautiful earth and the gifts He has given us in each other and all around us. Mainly, writing has been “a vessel to forgiveness” which is putting our family back together slowly. Therefore, it has been life giving in my situation. Writing has been by the grace of God.

Bob: How do you find inspiration on what to photograph or write about?

Deborah: In my personal world, I photograph what moves me, what I’m feeling at the moment. I adore my four grandchildren so that’s an easy one, but it’s in the observation, of their interactions that I find best to photograph. That applies to most people I work with. In nature, or observing a city street, it’s what I carry in my heart, that might be missed by others or something of grandeur like a huge mural or the coastline.

I adore art and music, in many forms, so I find a lot of inspiration there in my photography and writing. I also write real stories of my life, so I am very close to them and have dabbled in some editorial/opinion pieces that concern me. I will often see an image I have to hunt for or hear a song that seems to match my piece as part of the intertwined flow. It just can’t be coming from me!!!

Bob: You often write about being an immigrant’s child. How has your family upbringing impacted you and molded you into the person you are today?

Deborah: I feel very blessed to have been given an outside perspective of what it means to respect and appreciate a country that gave us so much opportunity. What it means to yearn and want for family, as a child immigrant, keeps you focused on the importance of what family means to God. We know that evil comes for the family first, and it’s a very strong force. I didn’t grow up in a religious home, but the thought of throwing a child away was inherently something I couldn’t understand, long before I knew God. I really valued any bit of family I could have. We didn’t always have the means to visit our family and the separation wasn’t easy. As I grew up, I became intolerant of the phone, much like I couldn’t stand “Zoom” during the pandemic. I had a craving to “be with” people my whole life. I’ve definitely embraced this community, and accept the hard line that we can’t always be with each other! A church community was most valuable in my marriage and really lent a strong feeling of family. Still does.

I did learn to be good with my own company as my work rendered that often. When I would photograph weddings and families I’d imagine myself as part of that larger picture. It was like staring into a window and longing for something that I knew I couldn’t have, or perhaps never existed. I mean there is and was a family back in England, and we were not a part of many big celebrations. It’s a reality. However, there is no perfect family, no matter the shape or size. We make our family and that is what we did in America. I appreciate how Mom and Dad surrounded us with an extended “family” of friends. Mostly British! It’s what immigrants do. They hang out with people who understand them the most. Many are passing on and that’s sad, but in reflection, I do understand what most children go through when landing in a foreign place. It’s not easy. There is a longing that cannot be explained and it can be very sad at times. Finding my faith in God, when I was a young mom, helped me to understand what the family of God meant. We are called to be there for each other in this world. That’s a powerful testimony to what a family is.

To read more of Deborah’s work, visit “The Family We Keep!”