Photographer enjoys capturing life's special moments

BY SUSAN EVANS
The Tribune-Democrat

EBENSBURG February 08, 2008 09:28 pm

— Most studio photographers straighten a cowlick, smooth a wrinkled shirt and say, “Look here.”
Tina Delauter waits for the moment – an infant’s yawn, two little boys whispering a secret, or a child’s windblown hair and a giggle. Then she shoots, capturing that moment as a memory.
She so believes in that artistry that the front wall of her office and studio, Blessings Photography, displays this saying:
“We do not remember days ... we remember moments.”
Her business, open since summer at the Ebensburg Mini-Mall, has picked up clients with almost no advertising. Instead, her style has gained clients through word of mouth, and her specialized Christmas cards have a growing following.
Her own family Christmas card says it all about capturing a moment.
It features a picture of her three boys – Tyler, 16, Jared, 7, and Brock, 5 – all with mischievous expressions. And in a flashback to the movie, “A Christmas Story,” Tyler licks a frozen pipe, suffering “minor tongue abrasions,” the card informs.
That’s the holiday moment, and here’s the holiday message: “Have a very Merry Christmas (We double-dog-dare you to!)”
Her other photo-cards range from a sleeping infant to a mother kissing her child.
“Each Christmas card is created just for that person,” she said.
Delauter wasn’t always an artist behind a lens.
Born Tina Niebauer and raised on a pig farm near Bradley Junction, she graduated from Central Cambria High School.
Married to Scott Delauter, a health-care worker, Tina Delauter wrote for the former News Leader weekly newspaper for about six years.
She quit when her 7-year-old was born and became a full-time wife and mother to her three boys. “Every day is an adventure,” she said.
But this summer, feeling isolated with her role at home and reaching her mid-30s, Delauter was hungry for something else in her life.
“I took my camera and started dabbling around with it, and I ended up with this,” she said, gesturing around her business.
“Now, it’s sort of taken over everything – me and my family.”
Delauter describes herself as “self-taught” when it comes to photo technology.
“I find what is the best equipment for me. It is a technological world, and with photography there have been a lot of advancements,” she said.
“But it’s what you know and how to use it. My style is simple, journalistic in that it tells stories.
“Life is not a pose. I like to capture the moment, not a pose,” she said.
Delauter said she finds herself more and more drawn to black-and-white photography. “You can see more of the person in a black and white,” she said.
So far, Delauter has been shooting many senior pictures, and her staples are family shots.
“I just don’t do weddings,” she said.
Although she can shoot in her studio, she prefers the outdoors.
“You can see the real person that way. I love a natural setting, much more so than a studio,” she said. “My personal crusade is that people have pictures to remember others by.”
When Delauter isn’t behind the lens, she’s involved with her sons, who attend Central Cambria and Holy Name Elementary in Ebensburg.
On Tuesday nights, she bowls with her girlfriends.
“But mostly I’m working with photography,” she said. “I’m lucky. I found something I like to do, and I can make a business out of it. What more can I ask?”

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