STAN EVANS, TESTED THE LIMITS OF A TILOPA DURADIMOND® IN SNOW AND ON THE BEACH

Stan Evans is a long-time f-stop customer, and he recenetly completed a challenging project for Subaru. Stan owns Stan Evans Photography. Stan escribes himself as "a portrait photographer that has a deep passion for portrait, lifestyle, athletic, and motorized imagery – probably in that order." Stan's truly unique images can be viewed as a narrative, and representative of his unique perspective. 

Q. What motivated you to become a professional photographer in the first place?

I grew up in Alaska and was surrounded by the beauty of nature so it just seemed natural to want to document it.  I had a photography teacher in high school who kind of saw my unpolished potential and instead of giving me all the reasons I shouldn’t be a photographer she actually encouraged me and helped present a path. From there I went to college at Montana State graduating and began working in the outdoor industry. Eventually I became more enamored with the Commercial and Advertising side of imagery so I ventured to NYC,  Learned a lot working with Monte Isom, Annie Leibovitz, Mary Ellen Matthews and eventually made my way to LA. 

Q,. Tell us how you connected with Subaru for this project?

Actually, my friend Andrew Alexander King put me up for it. He had found out about me and my past through my podcast - The Social Studies Show.  He sought me out in LA and was curious about mentorship in the media. He’s become a shining light on his own for diversity in the outdoors so when it came to telling his story through Subaru’splatform we found  a good way to collaborate with our respective talents. 

Q. We see in the images surfing and snow – that’s quite a wide range of environments. How did you select your gear for these two locations? 

Oftentimes the environments and the physical demands of a shoot dictate equipment. Things have to be dependable, lightweight and necessary. The equipment then is chosen on a sliding scale based on vision, how you are getting to location and how many people are in the production crew. These locations are often volatile. You can drown or get hypothermia or frostbite just trying to get a photo so a lot depends on the photographer's experience in the outdoors and safety.  

Q. Which f-stop bag did you take to each, and what did you pack in it(or them)?

I used the Tilopa 50L DuraDiamond in both environments. It’s very rugged and the camera gear needs protection, but also I needed room for extra layers, water, food, attaching crampons and Ice axes for snow. Flippers, underwater housing, wetsuit and  goggles for water -  so the backpack needs to be modular and easily arrange the padding due to the task at hand. It’s also comfortable and easily adjustable 

Q. What was most gratifying to you both personally and professionally about the Subaru project?  

I think just being able to hire a diverse crew. It was a hard pressed effort to be the first Black Professional Photographer in the winter outdoor space and now being able to convert that to the commercial space. (You can read a feature article about Stan and his journey at Snow Boarder Magazine here.) To be able to Work with a dynamic person like Andrew and then be able to bring more people in and up like the DP Dennis Flippin and my assistant Marrice Hill. It extends the knowledge and puts money into the culture.  From there Subaru taking Andrew’s story, distributing it and elevating it is the thing dreams are made of.  A majority of Mainstream audiences don’t know Black stories or where we come from so brands taking an interest and then letting us tell our story from our narrative with Black Directors and Photographers is a huge step. It takes action from performative to progressive. 

Read more about Stan at Voyage LA.