“We were stacking them up like sardines,” says Veronica Evans, recounting her experience working as a medical tech at Andrews Air Force Base several years ago. Andrews Air Force Base is an air medical staging facility that receives wounded service personnel from combat zones overseas.
“It was the first time they were touching soil in the U.S., and some were really in bad shape — critical care with up to 300 pounds of life-support gear,” says Evans. “Sometimes all we could do was clean them up so the family could say goodbye while they were still warm and breathing. That’s what we would do for the families.”
The wounded arrived in litters tightly packed onboard evacuation aircraft. Evans, trained to do amputations, tracheotomies, and other procedures that her civilian counterparts would never be allowed to practice in civilian medical facilities, found the work rewarding and emotionally draining at the same time.
According to the U.S. Air Force official photo media website, vibration and cramped conditions aboard evacuation aircraft can make a painful injury excruciating, and some injured military members have even posted signs: “Don’t bump the stump.”
Faced with such suffering, Evans says, “I’d just walk out with tears streaming down my face. You feel lower than dirt. You didn’t do anything,” she says, comparing her service to that of men and women whose bodies had been mangled by war.
In June 2007, Evans left military service and went to work in the emergency room for Deaconess Hospital in Spokane. The stark transition to civilian life was difficult, she says.
“As a medical tech, I went from a huge scope of practice to sweeping floors and wiping butts,” she says. “To go from so much responsibility – it just doesn’t translate to the civilian world. They don’t understand your capabilities.”
Feeling frustration with the state of her career, she decided to go on a leap of faith, entering into a new career: photography. After researching it thoroughly, she arranged for aptitude testing, and the results surprised her. “Wow, you’re made for this,” the tester told her.
In the spring of 2008, Evans began a two-year degree program at Spokane Falls Community College in photography. She graduated June 10, 2010.
“I really thought I had made a mistake in the first class,” she says. “They were talking a whole different language, but I listened a lot.”
When she heard her instructor speak about the frustrations of newly launched photographers, she took an important lesson to heart. “Some grads don’t make it,” she remembers him saying. “They don’t have a name I recognize — they don’t have a studio.” So, she asked herself, “How can I prevent that from happening to me?”
While still in her first quarter of classes, she put together her business plan. “The next quarter, I started working on my logo,” she says, which is based on the design for a hair jewel.
“I didn’t want to use my name. I didn’t want something that would lock me into something stale that everyone else had,” says Evans. “I loved Mufasa from The Lion King. Everybody loves Mufasa. I can sell the name — sell the quirkiness. So, in my second quarter, there was Fossa Studio.”
Her studio is located in the Wetzel Building in the “SoDo” district of Spokane, southeast of the downtown core. As she shows off her newly acquired fabric backdrops, she says her vision for her business is to develop it into a boutique photography studio. She says she aims to be “an outstanding photographer.”
“When I quit nursing, some of the nurses said to me, ‘I wish I could quit, too,’” says Evans. “I told them, ‘Why don’t you?’
“I jump and I don’t look before I do,” she says. “It’s not always easy, but it works out. I do a lot of praying. Right now I’m still in the phase of building social capital, and I’m doing a lot of community events,” says Evans.
“I have a passion for in-studio photography – pet photography – weddings – all that. I question how hard it is at times. But, it has made me a very strong, well-rounded person.”
As she watches a freight train trundle past the Wetzel building, from the building’s balcony, she says, “Why do something if you don’t know how to do it well?”
Written by Jan Fletcher - http://www.mindcatchresearch.com/
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