Georgia has some great photographers.  Despite being competitors, we all can learn a great deal from each other in one aspect or another. This is the third in a series of interviews with Atlanta area photographers.

Evan Leavitt was another photographer that I found while sifting through Flickr. I was immediately captivated.  Truly talented at capturing and preserving what is around him, he is able to take what many pass by on a routine basis and turn it into something interesting and worthy of paying attention to.  A skillful eye and on-point processing have produced a body of work that I am envious of. After following his work for some time now, it just seemed perfect to throw a few questions his way.

For those out there who do not know you, how about a little introduction?

I was born and raised in Georgia and I have a profound love for the natural beauty and history of this fine state. I am by heart, a historian and I’m drawn to the old things that echo of a simpler time, a way of life that has disappeared. I’ve spent the past 8 years working as an archaeologist and doing archaeological computer graphics, and photography has become an artistic outlet for me to express my interest in the past.

When did you first get started with photography and what about it interested you?

I’ve dabbled with photography since middle school. My dad was really into photography as a young man and I had all of his photo albums. He photographed rural Georgia and his images spoke to me and inspired me. I started off with an old 35mm point and shoot. In college I got my first real camera, a Nikon FM10. I wasn’t serious about photography till I moved back to Georgia after 5 years in Virginia working as an archaeologist. I started with my digital point and shoot and finally got my first DSLR in May of 2007. Since then there has been no turning back! I’ve gotten back into film now and have been enjoying my toy cameras and I buy any vintage film camera I can get my hands on.

You currently shoot the majority of your work with an Olympus E-510 and I have also seen you sprinkle in some work with a Holga.  With regards to shooting digital, what were some factors in going with the Olympus rather than another brand such as Canon, Nikon, or Sony?

The Olympus is an excellent camera for the money. You get a lot of features of higher end cameras for less cost. The kit lenses are of excellent quality, unlike the kits for some of the other brands. I have really enjoyed my E510, but I have been using a borrowed Nikon D60 lately and have fallen in love with it. I’m personally not an extremely technical photographer, definitely not a tech head. As long as a camera works I can get the shot I want. I’m a firm believer that it’s not the camera, but the photographer. Composition is the key.

The majority of your work that I have seen on Flickr is void of people. What about shooting buildings, abandoned homes, and other similar locations is so appealing to you?

There is a presence to each structure I shoot, a residual of life lived and lost. It’s hard to explain, but these abandoned homes call to me. There is a sadness to them, but there are happy memories stored with in them too. They are disappearing so quickly, a whole way of building and living will be gone soon and I want to document it artistically. Each has a personality, most feel happy, some are sad, and every now and then there is a disturbing vibe. The light inside the abandoned places I shoot is amazing. It conveys so much and you can use it to create whatever atmosphere you desire.

When setting up at a location, how do you approach it?  Is it as simple as just firing away and examining the work later or do you have a certain process and thought process you follow when taking the shots?

I tend to go on auto when I’m shooting. I don’t spend much time in thought on composing a photo. My eyes are constantly moving and my shutter is constantly clicking. I know what appeals to my eye and I can work through a place fairly quickly. That can be a good thing too, if say you are trespassing, lol.

How often, if at all, will you revisit the same location and shoot it again?

I will revisit a place very often. Each time I go back to a place I will see something I missed or the light will be different and I can capture a new mood or atmosphere. These structures are living and breathing to me, they grown and change in their decay.

What would you say to someone who would look at some of your work and say “What is so special about that?  It’s just some abandoned building”

That’s why our country’s history is disappearing. So many people don’t care about what came before. I romanticize it in my own mind. These places represent a simpler time where I think life had more intimacy. Either you see it or you don’t…

Even though it is often times very subtle, you seem to utilize a variety of textures and post-processing in your work.  How important is post-processing and image manipulation in your work?

Post-processing is extremely important to my work! What I try to do with my photos when I sit down in front of my computer is recreate the way I felt at when I took the photo. I try to express an emotional feeling in my photographs. I have found that there is nothing better than to create an atmosphere and to transform the light in a photo then applying textures. It never ceases to amaze me. This quote by Walker Evans always comes to mind when I’m asked about editing:

“With the camera, it’s all or nothing. You either get what you’re after at once, or what you do has to be worthless. I don’t think the essence of photography has the hand in it so much. The essence is done very quietly with a flash of the mind, and with a machine. I think too that photography is editing, editing after the taking. After knowing what to take, you have to do the editing.”

Many photographers feel that post-processing taints the field and pushes images into a category other than photography.  Where do you draw the line between digital art and photography?

I try to stay out of this argument when I can. You can’t change peoples attitude towards it, if you take the stance that editing taints the field of photography, nothing I say will change that.  To me a photograph is a photograph, period. For photography to be art it must speak to a person on some aesthetic or emotional level. The end result is what matters in my book. As long as someone looks at my images and feels something, they can call it photography or art or digital art, I don’t care…to me its photography.

You currently have two books available via Blurb.  Tell us a little about each one and where people may purchase them.

I do have two books available and one in the works. The first is of my older work, much of it is from when I was playing with HDR. The second is a collection of black and white images that where inspired by the likes of Walker Evans, Jack Delano, Dorthea  Lange, and William Christenberry.   They both can be found here on Blurb’s website.

Do you have any more projects in the works?

I have a third Blurb book that will be titled Gospel and is a study on rural churches. I have been drawn to country churches for a long time, I find their simple architecture to be so beautiful. They are very utilitarian, much like the people who worship within them. They are by no means simple, just sturdy. I find a comfort in that.

For those who see your work and become inspired to pursue photography, what would be your advice to them?

Experiment! I am completely self taught in photography and Photoshop. I use the trail and error method, I find it’s the best way to learn. Shoot film! I have learned more about the basics of photography in using film cameras than anything else. Photograph what you love and your photos will have more meaning. Try to find a look, I like that when people see one of my photographs they know it was taken by me.

If you take a step back and look at all of your work, is it where you would like it to be?  If not, where do you see it going in the next 5 years?

I’m happy with where I am at the moment. I have found my style and my method to achieving the look I want in my images. I have evolved in style a lot over the past three years, from straight images, to HDR, to HDR with textures, to where I am now shooting non-HDR with textures. There is no telling where I will go in the future…I don’t see my current style changing that much. I do see more film in my future, I have been bitten by that bug. I have 9 toy and vintage film cameras now and that collection will grow. I’m shooting medium format now, but want to move to large format soon. My dream is to master wet collodion photography one day.

Lastly, where can people find more of your work, news, and updates online?

The easiest way to find me is on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/evanleavittphotography/

I was recently featured on the blog My Daily Thread: http://www.mydailythread.com/gallery/atlanta/atlanta-dailyimage.html

I have a website I hope to have up and running soon!

You can read other interviews with fellow photographers and artists here.

As you can see, I have been slowly releasing some of the grunge and texture packs that I have been working on.  This pack contains 10 hi-res grunge wallpaper patterned texture files. Each image is 4256px wide x 2832px high and 300DPI.

Here is a preview of the files, available in a nice variety of colors, and work great in photomanipulation, album layout backgrounds, and other design projects. Best of all, the cost is low. Only $4!

Check out more of my resources available for download.

This is a set of h-res grunge/textured border files for you to use. Each image is 4256px wide x 2832px high and 300DPI. They were created using a variety of tools and items, such as photos of concrete and rust, scans of tape and scribbles, grunge brushes, and script fonts. These are great for your graphic design projects, photography work, photomanipulation, presentations, and album layouts.

Here is a preview:

So you have seen me release free resources as well as talk about a coming Photoshop resource DVD. There are a few reasons why I am opting to go this route for now.

1. I would love to see how some of my resources would sell prior to placing a ton of work into a DVD that might not sell at all.  Granted, I stand behind the quality of these resources, but would really like a test run.  And what better place than Graphic River?  The Envato marketplace is a great and vast system of creative resources as proof by the fact that before I could even write up something about these resources being online, I already had a couple of sales.
2. The structure is great for me, as I do not have any printed materials to produce or mail out.  All of the billing and file delivery is handled by Envato, which saves me a great deal of time and trouble.  The last thing I want to do is delay getting a disc to someone who has paid just because I am swamped with work.
3. The price is reasonable.  $6 is not a lot of money.  You spend more than that eating out for lunch.  And you can buy this set as low as $4 if you are a prepaid customer.
4. In looking at a survey I sent out, the interest in the various resources was spread out considerably.  What this option lets me do is break out the different components, so you can quickly purchase exactly what you need and not get a lot of stuff you do not want.

Thank you for reading and for your support.

I have mentioned a few times that I am working on a Photoshop resource DVD which will include actions, textures, etc.  To prove I have been working on something (ha!) I am releasing a sample pack containing 10 of the 100 new hi-res grunge textures that I plan to include on the disc.  All textures are 4256 x 2832 in size at 300DPI.  So they should be suitable for your photos, designs, etc.

To download the hi-res image, click on an image below:

Rules

• You may use these textures in any project: personal, commercial, profit, non-profit.
• You are not required to link back to me, give me credit, shake my hand, walk my dog, bake me a cake, or do anything else aside from use the stock photographs.  However, a link back and credit is appreciated.
• You may NOT modify these and redistribute, even if not for profit.
• You are required to eat chips & salsa at a Mexican joint at least once in my honor.
• You may use these in printed publications, graphics, artwork, etc without obtaining prior permission from me.  If you are using any of the stock photos in a printed publication, flyer, etc, I would love to see a final version of how the photos were used.

As you may or may not know, my wife and I now have our second daughter.  Which means what we want takes a back seat.  So when my wife got a chance to get her hair done, I was really stoked to see the outcome.  So much so I begged her to let me take a quick shot.

My wife normally sports a blonde hair color or dark brown.  So this new hair color was really spicey and I loved seeing it.  Especially after being worn down from caring for a newborn and a 3 year old, it was great seeing how much a new hair style could do for someone.  She took a photo of herself with her iPhone, but it was in the car and just didn’t do the new color justice.  Plus, it didn’t have enough attitude.

So I quickly broke out the ring flash and took this:

Not too shabby, considering this was taken quickly in our home.  But I wanted to fix it up a tad and since I cannot keep my paws out of Photoshop, here is what we ended up with:

Right off the bat you notice the pattern background and vignette.  Some people hate the vignette but I like to use it some times to help darken the edges and draw the eyes more toward the center.  While I normally try not to center anything, it seemed to work here.  Plus, we werent setting up a shoot either.  This was really quick and fun.  Lastly, I darkened the sunglasses a bit to hide her eyes more.  I thought about Photoshopping out the ring over her right eye but opted to leave it in to save some time.

If you are like me, you love finding resources online for your work.  When they are hi-res that is great.  When they are hi-res AND free that is even better.  Here are 8 new hi-res grunge textures for you to use in your work.  All of the images are 4256px x 2832px and 300DPI.

To download the hi-res version, click on the image below.  Terms of use are available at the hi-res page.

TXTR26:

TXTR27:

TXTR28:

TXTR29:

TXTR30:

TXTR31:

TXTR32 (Not sure what happened here, but this one is a bit smaller than the others):

TXTR33:

If you use these, I would love to see your creations.  Credit/links back are not required but encouraged and appreciated.