PICTURE THIS

Local college graduate transforms love of orca whales into book of photography

By Elena Boryczka

The Times, Jun 21, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

Photo courtesy Monika Wieland

During the four summers she spent as an intern on the San Juan Islands, Monika Wieland was able to photograph the diverse whale population. A collection of her work was released last month under the title, “Orca Encounters.”

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When Monika Wieland was 12, she fell in love. Not with another person, not even with a pet of her own. No, the Beaverton School District-educated student lost her heart to that giant of the ocean, the orca whale.

“Killer whales have kind of become my passion after I first saw them in the wild in Alaska when I was 12. There’s been no going back for me after that,” she said.

This love affair helped inspire the recent Reed College graduate to publish a book of photographs titled, “Orca Encounters.” The collected photos were all taken by Wieland during the past four summers she spent as an intern in the San Juan Islands. They do a good job, she said, of representing the population of mammals she studied and the environment she was immersed in.

“It’s a pretty unique place because you can watch the whales from shore up there, and almost all the photographs were actually taken from shore,” Wieland said. “It’s a really unique way I think to see marine life from shore instead of always being out on a boat.”

Wieland said she spent the majority of her time working with hydrophones on the west side of the island, just studying the whales’ communication styles and taking in the scenery. Her spot afforded her the opportunity to further her admiration of the great creatures, which is one of the goals she had in publishing the book.

“One (of the goals of the book) is just educating people about this population of whales because they were recently listed as endangered, and education and conservation are so important right now,” she said. “But also, just kind of sharing the beauty of the whales and how I see them from shore. I’ve had people tell me that my photographs aren’t the sort of photographs you’d see on postcards or advertisements.

“It’s sort of a different perspective and expresses why I find the whales so beautiful.”

Back to the beginning

Wieland is no stranger to the published world: As a second-grader at Montclair Elementary School, she and her mother self-published a book called, “Cynthia and the Web That Worried Her.” The story takes readers into the world of Cynthia Spider, who, with the help of Dr. Dosney Dolphin, learns how to fight her worries. The story was all written and illustrated by Wieland, and she said it took her about three months to complete.

The idea for making a book came from Wieland’s doctor, who suggested she write to help relieve some of the anxieties that plagued her young life. Wieland said instead of simply writing to help herself, she wanted to use her own experiences to help her peers who may have been experiencing the same things. It was the same idea with “Orca Encounters.”

“One thing that’s the same is I’m still very passionate about things I do. When I wrote that book in second grade, learning to overcome my worries was like a huge thing in my life, and I wanted to take it further than just conquering it for myself,” Wieland said. “I wanted to share something about that with other people, and it’s sort of the same thing with the orcas. It’s such a huge thing to me and wanting to share that with other people, that’s what it’s all about.”

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