Garland’s new self-published book pairs 50 images of rivers and falls with poetry, and a quiet reckoning with the concept of “home.”
When the pandemic shut Seattle down in 2020, Alex Garland did what a lot of people did: he went outside. But as a photojournalist and longtime contributor to CHS, he brought a camera and eventually a larger question about what it means to belong to a place.
The result is Home: Water of Western Washington, a self-published book of 50 photographs of moving water paired with 50 poems. Read in sequence, the poems form a single longer story, one that moves through personal history, arrives at the present, and makes space for the Indigenous peoples who have lived on this land since long before European settlement.
It is a reminder of the ways water surrounds us, is a part of us, and influences us. “Water is life.” says Garland.
“As a photojournalist, I’m often around difficult stories. COVID, the killing of George Floyd, CHOP/CHAZ, the unrest and uncertainty of 2020 elections, Russia, on and on. Getting outside and making this book was my way of reconnecting with myself, feeling centered, and exploring this beautiful place,” he tells CHS.
The book draws from locations across the region that will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in the wet, forested corners of Western Washington: Denny Creek, the North Cascades, Sol Duc Falls on the Olympic Peninsula, the flanks of Mount Rainier, and waterfalls throughout the region. The images are what you’d expect from a working photojournalist: precise, patient, a true reflection of the moment. Water caught in full motion. Light doing what it does in this part of the world.
But the book reaches further than landscape photography typically does. Garland explicitly acknowledges the Indigenous nations of Western Washington, among them the Duwamish, whose land Seattle sits on, framing the region’s waterways not as scenery but as contested, storied, living places.
Garland’s years covering Capitol Hill for CHS show on the pages. Home is a work of art, and while these images could catch your eye on a postcard rack, they carry the weight of someone still growing their roots in this place they call home.
Home is already on the shelves at Standard Goods on Capitol Hill, and Elliott Bay Book Company will be carrying it soon (fingers crossed), as fitting a home as a Seattle book could ask for. Signed copies are available through Garland’s website for $75; unsigned copies run $60. A launch event is in the planning stages.
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for $5 a month — or choose your level of support 
