About Laura

Call me Eclectic…

I’m a motorcycle riding free-spirited……geek?!?! That is how my friends describe me when I asked them. A little different than my clients - hah!

These are my three babies above (you can safely assume I am highly adventurous and some would say thrill seeking). My other “babies” are all of the furry and scaled varieties (cats, rabbit, fish, miniature horses). And don’t forget all the backyard critters (deer, raccoons, feral cats, chipmunks, and a very chunky groundhog) . Yes, I can’t help myself. I have to “help” the wildlife have a nice dinner every night, too. I’m an animal lover through and through.

No, I don’t have any of my own human children. But, yes, I do love kids. Not having them just makes photographing yours that much more special for me!

I read read every morning and before bed. Love coffee and cheese. Geek out on horror and superhero movies, and am usually found wearing some sort of sarcastic or pithy t-shirt. I love Pokemon and anything with cute, bug eyed, chibi animals. I also do a lot of biking and running, mostly to ward off side effects of my dead pancreas (Type One diabetes, 35 years and counting). I can often be found in antique and craft stores. I paint, draw, and do graphic design work as a side hustle (Not so shameless plug to my art website here: Eclectic Girl Art.)

Why Photography?

I didn’t always know I wanted to be a photographer, but I did always know I wanted to be an artist. It was between that and becoming a storm chaser, but I wanted to be able to pay the bills, so I chose to be an artist. Nobody told me about the whole “starving artist” thing until it was too late. Thankfully everything has worked out for me….16 years in business and counting - I’ll count that as a win!

I’ve always been drawn to photographs. As a kid, I loved flipping through old albums, “meeting” relatives who passed long before my time and reliving moments from my own early years—those fuzzy memories from when I was too young to truly remember.

I got my first camera around the age of eight and took as many photos as I could get away with—limited only by the cost of film and my parents' patience. My aunt was also passionate about photography, and some of my favorite memories as a teenager were our long drives through Amish Country, cameras in hand, chasing beautiful scenes together. So when I declared photography as my college major, no one was surprised.

But during college, everything changed. I went through a traumatic experience: I lost my horse—my best friend. The night before the accident, I’d taken some photos of him. In the aftermath, those photos became everything to me. There’s something incredibly powerful about being able to hold on to someone—whether human or animal—through a photograph. That kind of healing is unlike anything else. Those images were all I had left, and I cherished them more than anything I owned.

That was the moment it clicked. I knew what I needed to do. Until then, I had never photographed a person—but from that day on, I never stopped.

“That is the magic of photography. As humans, we all reminisce about our memories, but photography helps bring them back to life. Whether it just happened yesterday, or ten years ago, being able to hold a moment in your hands is a very powerful thing. It motivates me to capture photos for those who also recognize the preciousness of a moment and want to save it for all time” - Laura