Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Evans.
Hi Jennifer, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My journey has been a long one. If you’d asked me at college graduation where I’d end up, I never would have guessed this.
I graduated from SUNY New Paltz with a K-12 teaching degree, taught for a few years, then moved into corporate training. Most of that chapter was spent at Bumble and bumble, an Estée Lauder company in NYC, as their Curriculum Development & Education Director, building curriculum and teaching salon owners and managers how to run better businesses.
After my second child was born, my husband and I decided it made more sense for me to stay home for a few years, both to be with the kids and to skip the NJ/NYC commute. I consulted with Bb. for a while, but eventually moved on.
Once both kids were in school, I started looking for something more. I’d always sewn, and after making a replacement high chair cover for an old chair — which got a surprising amount of attention — I opened an Etsy shop selling custom covers. It exploded. I was sewing six days a week and giving my mailman a run for his money picking up orders every single day.
As the business grew, I needed good photos of what I was making. I picked up my first Nikon DSLR, and the moment I learned the basics, I couldn’t stop… not just shooting my products, but my kids, too. I started seeing light and composition differently, and it came naturally. People noticed. Friends started asking me to photograph their kids.
In 2014, I put down the sewing business and started Fotoplicity. Twelve years later, I still love it as much as I did on day one. It’s grown from a mom shooting candids into a brick-and-mortar studio in East Brunswick, a loyal clientele (some with me over a decade) and corporate clients who send their whole staff to me for headshots.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road itself was smooth, it all happened pretty organically. But obstacles? Of course there were.
Deciding to close my sewing business and start photography from scratch was a big one. I had an established business already, thriving even. For a while I tried running both, but that got overwhelming fast, and something had to give.
The bigger struggle was more personal. I’m an introvert. Sewing high chair covers in my basement and selling online was comfortable, I never had to talk to anyone I didn’t want to. Photography meant putting myself out there: directing families, talking constantly, making other people feel at ease when I wasn’t always at ease myself. That was way outside my comfort zone.
There’s also a lot of trust involved when someone hires you to photograph their family. That’s pressure, and I hate pressure. I think that’s exactly why I never got into weddings or events. The stress of one shot, one day, no do-overs, it was too much for me. To this day, as confident as I am in my ability to take a great portrait, you couldn’t pay me enough to shoot a wedding. Props to all you wedding photogs out there!
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I specialize in family and children’s portraits, but corporate headshots have become a bigger part of my business too, companies now send their whole staff to me for them.
My studio’s in East Brunswick, but I’m just as often out shooting throughout Middlesex County. Locations matter less to me than light does. I tell clients all the time, it’s about the light, not the background. That’s true whether I’m photographing a toddler outdoors or someone’s executive team in the studio, I’ve developed a real eye for finding and shaping light wherever I am, and a signature editing style that people around here recognize on sight now.
What I’m known for comes from where I started. I spent years teaching and then training adults how to run a business and manage people. That background turned out to be exactly what I needed to make a nervous kid or a stiff executive relax in front of a camera. Directing people used to be my biggest fear going into this. Now it’s probably my biggest strength, I know how to read a room and get someone comfortable enough to actually look like themselves in a photo, whether that’s a five-year-old or someone who’s dreading their corporate headshot day.
What I’m most proud of isn’t a single shot, it’s the relationships. I have clients who’ve been coming to me for over a decade, some since their kids were babies, now booking their senior portraits. And on the corporate side, I have companies who bring their entire staff back to me year after year. That kind of loyalty isn’t something you can market your way into. It’s earned one session at a time.
What sets me apart: I didn’t come up through photography school or assisting other photographers. I came at this sideways, through sewing, through teaching, through genuinely being curious about light. Chasing the light instead of chasing a backdrop is really the whole philosophy behind my work, and it’s why I can move between a family session in a field and a headshot session in the studio without missing a beat.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Most people who know me now assume I’ve always been the creative type. The truth is, I started college planning to major in mechanical engineering. I was a total left-brain thinker, all logic and structure. Somewhere along the way, the right brain took over, teaching, then sewing, then photography, and now I couldn’t imagine going back.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.fotoplicity.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fotoplicity
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FotoplicityStudio/
