Rising Stars: Meet Debbi Swanson Patrick

Today we’d like to introduce you to Debbi Swanson Patrick.

Hi Debbi, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am just half of Deb Squared, the other half as you may have guessed, is also named Deb. I go by Debbi, she by Deb. Deb Halberstadt. We live near each other and we met at a local event where she was taking pictures. After getting to know each other, we realized that I had been working for superstar Bob Hope assisting with PR for his TV shows while she was head of photography at NBC, but we never met. I was teaching yoga a bit during the time we met and I started teaching in her garage turned photo studio. Deb became familiar with my photography and scanner-based art and we thought, why not work together in photography? So we started Deb Squared to serve the local area. Deb is very involved as a volunteer with the Sheriff’s Department as a Volunteer on Patrol and photographer, as well as the CERT (Community Emergency Response Team), and lived in Altadena for longer than me. It seemed between the two of us though, we knew everybody! The Altadena Chamber of Commerce referred a publisher to us who hired us to produce Altadena Neighbors magazine, and we’re now in our fifth year.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The pandemic comes to mind!! But we were able to muster our community connections to feature our magazine families. They would meet us outdoors, even at special locations, instead of inside their homes, which worked just fine. We love showing off the neighborhood. Locations included the tennis courts, yards of sunflowers and lifesize figurines, front porches full of chickens, tortoises, dogs, rabbits, cats, and horses, and backyards with pools, toddler toys, and swings, as well as the Altadena Town & Country Club (for a wedding rehearsal). We even staged a modern American Gothic with a couple and their young daughter. No challenge goes untackled here!

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Deb was the first woman hired in photos in the U.S. in the mid-70s. She worked there eight years before moving on to NBC where she worked for another eight years. Started Half City Prods in 1989.

Debbi had a varied career in journalism, public relations, and nonprofits, working independently and for ad agencies, magazines, newspapers, City of Hope, and Caltech.

So after covering many national and international events, we settled into covering local activities and organizations. We started Deb Squared in 2017.

Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
The whole news landscape is changing due to technological advances. Photography has also dramatically changed since we began working in darkrooms. But we’ve certainly embraced digital photography and videography for many years now. We don’t know how AI and other advances will change the landscape. Even in my artwork, while I started out as a photographer in high school, I evolved to using a scanner and software to create digital still lifes that I print on metal.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.debsquaredphoto.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/debsquaredphoto
• Facebook: facebook.com/twodebs
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/company/deb-squared-photo/
• Youtube: youtube.com/@debsquaredphoto2392
• Other: https://tellingimages.com

Image Credits
All photos by DebSquaredPhoto