In honor of Women’s History Month, the South County News team presents a special cover featuring a sample of women in leadership in South County.
Several months ago, Alysse Thomas, event coordinator for Paper City Development, proposed this March cover for Women’s History Month. Alysse commented on how many women hold or have held positions of leadership in the area.
She suggested a March photo cover featuring a few of South County’s women, in the style of Ormond Gigli’s “Girls in the Windows.” The brick building for the South County News photograph? The Mill.
A team from Paper City Development and South County News met with a Frederick Construction project manager on site at the Mill. The group walked the exterior and parts of the interior of the brick structure and determined this picture could not be safely taken there. Some of the floors are unstable and safety harnesses would be needed to stage the photo in the window openings.
So the brainstorming began. Taylor Kallio, photographer for Paper City Development and innovative problem-solver, was enlisted. To re-create the style of Gigli’s photograph, he took individual photos of each woman, using a green-screen and wooden frame made to the exact size of the window openings. He then used Photoshop’s editing tools to adjust and insert each photo in the openings of a Mill building photograph he had taken.
The cover features women from many parts of South County: business owners and managers, medical professionals, leaders of various agencies and organizations, governmental and school leaders, community advocates and dreamers.
Kallio presents just twenty-seven of many area women. There are hundreds more making a difference in South County, working and leading and following the footsteps of women who came before.
Those women — to quote the late Congressman John Lewis — were women who weren’t afraid “to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” They were women who pushed for the right to vote, to secure business loans, to be recognized for their skills and their own merits. These women made possible the choices and opportunities women have today.
The strength, power and pride that represents South County women is captured in Kallio’s photograph.