Let’s play a word association game. When we say “reader-submitted photos” what name comes to mind?
Many of our most dedicated Insider readers probably thought “Debbie LaValley.” The rest of you should start reading the Insider more religiously.
LaValley has been submitting photos for much of the Insider’s existence – nature shots being her forte.
“I just love wildlife,” LaValley said. A vegetarian for the past 23 years, she said she doesn’t eat anything with a face.
Typically, a week doesn’t go by without getting one photo from LaValley in our inbox. She writes messages like “attached is the cutest and most unbelievable thing” or “it made me smile . . . and I had to snap a photo.” All her correspondences end with a smiley face emoticon.
According to LaValley, she’s had a camera since high school but didn’t start carrying one with her at all times until the last five years or so. With no formal training, she doesn’t quite know what made her want to snap away daily, but now, in her 50s, her camera has become sort of an extension of her arm. Friends and family hardly see LaValley without it.
Coworkers know this about LaValley, too. LaValley, manager of the claims department at Northeast Delta Dental, walks along Horseshoe Pond (located across the street from Delta Dental) during her breaks. She makes it a priority to get out there with her camera even if just for 15 minutes.
Ever the optimist, she almost always finds something to photograph, no matter how brief her time outside. One day, it may be a squirrel eating some fruit; the next day, it’s a family of ducks swimming across the pond.
“I shoot hundreds (of photos) a day,” LaValley said. “There might only be two shots I like, or none at all. But I still shoot hundreds.”
Her method works. We’ve published countless photos that came attached to an e-mail that began, “I was walking along Horseshoe Pond when . . .”.
LaValley said sometimes during her walks a car will pull up next to her, roll down the window and the driver will lean over and ask, “Are you Debbie LaValley?”
LaValley also has an active presence on Flickr (a photo sharing website) and WMUR’s ULocal site. When passersby see a woman leisurely strolling around the pond with a camera in hand, it’s sort of a dead giveaway, she admitted.
“I had someone call me and chat with me like she knew me,” she recalled. The woman on the phone asked LaValley for a copy of a specific picture she saw in the Insider. The photo was of LaValley’s cat, Molly, pouncing on a stuffed sheep. “She said when she has a bad day she looks at the picture.”
The duo chatted for a while, with LaValley still unsure whether she knew the woman. “I e-mailed her the picture. It turned out that I didn’t know who she was after all!”
Strangers aside, her biggest supporters are friends and family. The Boscawen resident doesn’t actually get the Insider delivered to her house, so people sometimes clip her pictures out and hand them to her.
“My mother says, ‘You weren’t in the Insider this week. Tell them I’m going to stop reading,’ ” she said, laughing. “I remind her that other people deserve a shot, too.”
(Reporter Cassie Pappathan can be reached at 369-3375 or cpappathan@theconcordinsider.com)
