Babs has been capturing special moments for a long time. “I’ve been taking pictures for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I was given a 110 Vivitar camera with one of those old school, replaceable bulb flash units as a Christmas gift when I was six years old, and I just went around taking pictures of everything around me: people, rocks, cats, marbles, etc. Then when I was fourteen, I got my first SLR (single-lens reflex) camera and I started dragging my friends out to the cemeteries for photo shoots.”
As a student at Benjamin Franklin High School, Babs’ love for photography intensified. “In high school, I was privileged to take two official photography classes under the instruction of this amazing teacher, Paul Werner. We built pinhole cameras out of oatmeal canisters and took our prints all the way through the darkroom process. That’s when I really feel in love with photography and also moving pictures. I started studying the film and television aspect of photography and ended up going to New York University Film School by submitting a portfolio of ten photographs. I graduated in 2002 and have been working in the field ever since. Photography fulfills all of my needs and wants in a career. It’s a multifaceted profession that speaks to many of my strong personality points, talents, and interests.”
Babs loves to photograph love. “My favorite thing to photograph is two people in love,” she said. “It's behind almost every portrait or photograph. The majority of my business is portrait and wedding photography, all of which is derived from love of some kind. I love the idea that I can help people capture that love." She continued, “I believe in true love. I believe in the best in people. I see the best in people. I believe in individual potential.”
When trying to capture that perfect photograph, you need “light, emotion, and authenticity,” explained Babs. At the same time, the photographer “must be a good listener and he/she has to care,” she added. “A good photographer doesn’t care about being amazing themselves; they care about what’s in front of the camera.”
Babs doesn’t have a favorite photograph of all time. Rather every session produces it's own ‘favorite.’ “I take my ‘new’ favorite photo every single session. If I wasn’t always trying to be more in touch with my surroundings, or see the person in front of me better, or see the light better, if I wasn’t always going for better and achieving it, I wouldn’t be able to do this as a profession. I fall in love with a new picture every day.”
With her talents, Babs could be working anywhere, but she chooses to stay IntheNOLA. “When I was younger, I always thought I would live in New York or Los Angeles, you know, little kid, big dreams. So I went out and hit the big time. I lived in both NY and LA, along with North Carolina and Washington D.C. I started visiting New Orleans with increasing frequency while living in North Carolina and I kept wanting to come back. I started missing it more and more, and then I finally realized that what I felt when I was here was happiness.”
“The way I felt different than the people around me everywhere else, I felt the same as the people around me here. There’s just a certain sauciness or flavor that I believe is common among every New Orleanian. We all have different personalities, but there’s this weird brew that seems to run at the base of everybody here. This is home; these are my people. I am one of them, a New Orleanian. It’s home and it always will be.”
For more information about Babs Evangelista, please visit her website, Facebook, and Twitter.
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