Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Janelle Holcombe leaves Daily Sound

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Whether the task was capturing a devastating fire, the faces of a high-profile court case or the birth of a new animal at the zoo, Daily Sound Staff Photographer Janelle Holcombe could be counted on to deliver.
Her images adorned the front page of the Daily Sound nearly every day since the paper’s first edition rolled off the presses on March 23, 2006.

While this may be reading like an obituary, it thankfully is not. However, there is little doubt some at the newspaper may feel Holcombe, whose last day at the paper was Friday, Aug. 22, cannot be replaced.
Holcombe left the paper to marry her fiancée, who is stationed with the U.S. Coast Guard in San Diego. The couple plans to make their home there.
Daily Sound Editor and Publisher Jeramy Gordon called Holcombe the Daily Sound’s “everything girl.”
“Every employee at the Daily Sound is invaluable, but Janelle always went way above and beyond the call of duty,” he said. “There was no task too big or too small for Janelle.”
Holcombe came to the paper as a part-time photographer and advertising sales representative just prior to the printing of the paper’s first edition. In the paper’s infancy, Holcombe, with her trademark smile, also handed the paper out to passersby on State Street.
Over the past year, Holcombe shed much of her involvement in the advertising side of the paper and was primarily a photographer. It wasn’t uncommon for Holcombe to rush from meeting to meeting, event to event, shooting thousands of photographs.
She never complained about the break-neck pace, nor did her enthusiasm for the power of the image wane when there was little space in the paper to do her work justice.
Two weeks ago the California Newspaper Publishers Association informed the Daily Sound one of Holcombe’s photos had won either first or second place for best general news photo in its annual contest.
Her dedication to the Daily Sound was a manifestation of her love for the Santa Barbara community, and can’t easily be quantified.
“No one person will ever be able to replace Janelle,” Gordon said. “She was the kind of employee that most companies can only dream of.”

2 comments:

DodgerScott said...

Wow. Devastating news. We will miss you Janelle and your amazing photos. Congratulations and good luck in SD!

Anonymous said...

It's a big loss. We'll miss you Janelle ... but I'm sure we'll be hearing great things from you once you land a job in San Diego.