I've researched similar questions and tried using display:table-cell; inline-block; vertical-align:middle all over the place, but I can't get this to work. In this sample Genesis theme page (please look), it demos the use of columns using 'one-half' and 'first' CSS classes. Using DevTools/Inspector you can go in and add <img src="http://placehold.it/140x240">
before the paragraph like I've shown below. Maybe there's something in the Genesis columns that's making this harder than it should be, or more likely I'm missing the obvious.
In that first column I need the img to appear to the left of the text, while the text is vertically aligned. I can't seem to find out the combination that will do it. NB I do know the height of the image - it's not dynamic. I could use spans if easier in stead of P.
<h3>Two-Columns</h3>
<div class="one-half first">
<img src="http://placehold.it/140x240">
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</div>