Laura Jones is soft-spoken and modest, but she lights up when she shows photos of her yard. The photographer depicts the unexpected — a baby raccoon peering down from a tree, tulips budding in the snow, a robin munching on a worm in winter.
Laura’s business, Baldwin Street Gallery, is in her home. The place is crowded with curiosities, including a five-foot-tall wooden camera from the l850’s and a stereopticon ( which renders two-dimensional pictures into three-dimensional scenes) from the l9th century. Every inch of wall space is covered with photos ranging from the civil rights movement to beauty contests. “People either like the style of my gallery or think I’m hoarding,” says Laura, chuckling.
The gallery portrays work done by Laura, her late husband John Phillips, and others. All the pieces have a message. For one exhibit, Laura photographed the Poor People’s Campaign, in which hundreds of shacks were built in a park behind the White House to raise awareness of poverty.
