laura evans shoots

Been super busy finishing up Mardee’s book - adding layers of texture art, making final copy changes, building the dust jacket, converting art from RGB to CYMK, more, more, more. Just wanted to share a favorite video - stop motion animation from Kristofer Strom. All done on a whiteboard with markers - no undos. Pretty amazing.
 

Minilogue - Hitchhikers Choice

Why won’t the video embed here? I don’t know. In visual mode, I click Upload/Insert > Add video > paste the link, then add the title. And I get a nice link, but no embedding. I’d welcome help and when I figure it out, I’ll update. Sorry!

I was slogging through the WP Codex trying to figure out how to change some blog designy things - didn’t like the width of the columns, had some spacing issues (always!), aqua and orange are too close to UF orange and blue for my liking. Since I’m new at this and don’t talk HTML or CSS at all, the 10,000 pages of mostly non-geek-speak, actually well-organized FAQs and instructions were becoming overwhelming. Kind of like your first trip to MoMa (630,00-square-amazingly-renovated feet and 150,000 pieces in the collection) or Mall of America (520 stores, 86 places to eat, massive enough to hold 32 Boeing 747s and with “4.3 miles of store-front footage” … “if a shopper spent 10 minutes browsing at every store, it would take them more than 86 hours to complete their visit to Mall of America”). So vast. So many choices. Where do I go first? But scouring the Codex isn’t as fun as visiting either of those, so I was becoming irritated and hungry. Where’s the food court(s)? Oh wait … Codex confusion. 

Of course I was on Facebook too, so when my friend and neighbor (really - like house diagonally across the street) Ben of Hashrocket popped in, I asked for hhhheeeellllp! He kindly altered and pointed out where the code is and what it looks like. Amazing when someone speaks the language. Thanks, Translator Ben!! And yes, I will gladly take photos of your adorable boys as payback. But only if they’ll promise not drag our small dogs across the yard by their necks anymore. Deal.

Problem solved. Time for another photo! Since I’m currently at home on the laptop without an available image library, I found this shot buried in a folder (it has been safely archived in triplicate already).

For the past four years, I’ve photographed the Housing Partnership of Northeast Florida’s annual Paint the Town During Rehab Week event. The Housing Partnership coordinates the efforts of hundreds of local businesses’ employees who volunteer their time to paint and repair homes in neighborhoods in need.

Everyone involved is transformed - volunteers immediately see the benefit of their physical labors, homeowners get better living conditions, and the neighborhood is exposed to positive growth. Covering the event, watching people work, talking to the mostly-elderly homeowners, I too have been transformed. I witness how “many hands make light work.” I experience first-hand how fortunate I am. I’m realize how glad I am that I get to be outside taking photos on a gorgeous spring day for such a great group of people. And I hope that my images might convince someone else to give their time and painterly efforts.

The photo directive during the week is to tell the home rehab story, get lots of action shots - people painting, rebuilding wheelchair ramps, Master Gardeners reworking yards. This man was up on an ladder painting a high carport ceiling with a roller, arms fully extended overhead. He saw me getting ready to take his photo so he stopped working to pose. I started to tell him to keep painting, but when he looked directly at the camera, I realized his paint-flecked face told the whole happy-to-be-here story.

Lots of “real” work to do today so being quick… I love photos. I love food. I love London. I love France. And I love  Photograzing  where there’s lots of good (sometimes great) photos of yumminess. Click thru for recipes that, right now, all sound delicious. Pan fried smashed potatoes anyone? Fantastic!

As for some of my food photos… Client in California needed “photos of French things - you decide” to assemble a spot for the  Tennis Channel  promoting their French Open coverage. Since since I’m normally shooting people (yes, I did say “shooting people”!) and places, it was really fun concepting the shoot  - figuring out what visually conveys all things France - then shopping for the approved shot list: wine, champagne, chocolate, coffee, cheese, croissants, lipstick, lavender and perfume. 

After the shopping, it was back into the studio for the tabletop setups. Cheese was lit with diffused window light and reflectors bounced a tiny bit of light into the shadows. Chocolate is wide-open window light. Wine is a mix of window light and strobe. Champagne is all strobe.

When the shoot was a wrap, the shot list was disposed of properly and responsibly. Fantastique!!

Playlist that set the shoot mood: 

Air

Dimitri from Paris

Stéphane Pompougnac

Carla Bruni

Pauline Croze

Just as I began typing, James Walsh of Starsailor sang: “As I turn to you and I say, ‘Thank goodness for the good souls that make life better.’ As I turn to you and I say, ‘If it wasn’t for the good souls, life would not matter.’” Good Souls from Love is Here

So very true. And how do I spin that lyric with the photo below? Easy. A VERY good soul and good friend - Mardee Allcorn Morris of Blooming Branches - gave me the flowers to photograph. Mardee is an amazingly-talented floral designer who lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. I was lucky enough to photograph her magical wedding to Casey at The Ribault Club in ‘04.

Mardee is working on (finishing up actually!) a book entitled Southern Wedding Flowers which showcases various flora found down South, covers her family’s floral history and gives a crash course in do-it-yourself flower arranging. I’m helping out with photos and design.

After we met with the printer this morning, she handed me this arrangement for me to shoot and keep - woo hoo! And her very generous son, way hip beyond his three years, gave me four stickers because he was impressed with Darren’s 1965 Ford Galaxy 500 that I was driving.

Ah, the benefits of having a good souls in my life. Thank goodness.

Right after yesterday’s imperfect, first-post marathon, I watched Zack Arias’s Transform. It is a very thoughtful piece on being a photographer and a human. (9 minutes - be sure to watch all of it.) What will you say when you’re 80? What will your life mean to you and anyone else?

With a bit of brainpower from my wonderfully-talented web guru friend, Lesley Foster of Brown Dog Creative, I’ve been planning this blog for, oh, maybe two months. (Lesley coughs. Ok, it has been more like three months. Ok, ack, four.) Well, I’ve just decided, today is P-Day - the day of my first post.

Perhaps you’re wondering, “Why this is such a big deal - starting a blog. Pssssht, my 12-year-old has three blogs and over 2,000 subscribers. Cake.” Sigh. I wonder the same thing. And after 1) much recent, extensive blog research and reading, 2) delving into my past and current photo life - motivation, obsessions, process, imagery - and the photo lives of many others (as photography is what most of this is supposed to be about after all) and 3) semi-deep soul searching, I almost ready to admit I’m a perfectionist. (I hear my cool, extremely-tolerant husband Darren questioning, as he doubles over with laughter, “And this is a revelation?”)

Perfectionism can be motivating, a driving force, a constant push to improve how I combine gear, light and subject to create an even better image than the last; to be in the decisive moment; to never give up, never surrender. 

However, it also trips me up, shuts me down. Perfectionism means, upon committing to putting something “official” into the blog-O-sphere, I’ll have to post perfect images, perfect content and pay attention to perfectly everything. Oh the pressure of attaining such perfection! So instead of actually taking my shot, I’ve just avoided it by rationalizing, “Like the sphere needs more of anything I’d shoot and write, especially when compared to the amazing images and info of my three of my favs David Hobby of Strobist, Chase Jarvis of Chase Jarvis Photography and Barb Uil of Jinky Art.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” - Abraham Lincoln

I love Honest Abe and this quote has forever been the gospel. Until today.

In the name of science (and in the hard-to-kick habit of avoidance), I took a quick test at Discovery Health to see how much of a perfectionist I am before admitting it to any of you. (Not that there are any of “you” yet. Fingers crossed there will be soon.) Scored 67 out of 100. 

What does your score mean?

According to this test, you have some perfectionist tendencies that may be making you unnecessarily unhappy. You sometimes set high standards that are difficult to meet; either you impose those expectations on yourself, others, or a combination of the two. You may even think that others expect you to be perfect. While a desire to do your very best and strive to reach your full potential can bring you personal fulfillment, you have to learn when good is ‘good enough’. It’s important that you strengthen your ability to distinguish between reasonable aspirations and unrealistic demands. When you set unattainable objectives, you are being cruel to yourself and denying yourself the rewards and self-acceptance that you deserve.

Hmmmm. So this is where all this blog-O-drama has gotten me: To the realization I’m an imperfect perfectionist and that’s perfectly ok. Yes, deep down, I have known this all along. But today, right now, I’ve decided to believe it and start posting, creating, contributing in my own way - to no longer deny myself “the rewards and self-acceptance” I deserve! Cue spotlight and Star Wars theme music. I’m a bit daunted by the thought of trying publicly to be a good blogger and photographer (and wife and mother and human and figure out tags and categories? Oh my!)

Call me a fool, but I’m opening my mouth and that saying whatever most of it turns out to be, it will be “good enough” and maybe even perfect in it’s own imperfect way. So let today and every day be P-Day - a celebration of Posts, Photography and imPerfectionism.

I’m in. What about you?