Science with an Artistic Flare: How Laura Goyer Uses Photography to Better Lives

Vienna resident Laura Goyer spent more than two decades working as a Physician Assistant, but left medicine because her favorite part of the job had fallen out of favor in the industry: forming relationships with patients.

“In medicine, there were no more opportunities to build relationships anymore, which is why I got into medicine,” Goyer said. “It got to the point where I was being chastised for spending too much time with patients.”

So Goyer left medicine, invested herself in her passion for photography, and quickly found she was getting out of photography exactly what she’d hoped to get out of medicine.

“People see I was in medicine and assume photography fulfills this artistic side, which it does, but to me to do photography well it’s a science with an artistic flare,” Goyer explained. “Understanding ratios, understanding the mechanics of the camera, things like that. And I feel like our community was more open to medicine being a similar sort of combination of science mixed in with an art form. Twenty years ago, your experience and your flare with medical knowledge was appropriate. Now it’s more decision trees and it doesn’t allow for artistic part anymore.”

With photography, she’s been able to add her own artistic flare to the science, and more importantly she’s been able to form relationships through the job again, something she said brings her a great amount of joy.

Goyer said she especially loves to work with newborn photography, which allows her to connect with a new mother the same way she would have as a pediatric Physician Assistant. In that same vein, Goyer isn’t a “posey” photographer, and instead prefers to be a fly on the wall to allow her subjects to know exactly what and how they were feeling in that moment.

But she’s done much more than just form relationships through her work — she’s bettered lives.

Goyer hasn’t just built relationships, but has instead shared her craft with others, teaching the science of photography while allowing others to find their own artistic flare.

She participated in a program at Jammin’ Java in Vienna called Elephant Sessions, where she shared her love for art with a predominantly adult crowd, even generating a very positive response to an exercise involving drawing with crayons.

Goyer also began a program two years ago for teenage girls called My Beautiful Selfie. Girls take selfies of themselves and their mothers, and display them in a gallery where others can leave positive thoughts and comments via post-it notes stuck to various photos. The project encouraged teenage girls to find ways to express themselves, and provided them with positive reinforcement as they aimed to do so.

And it was through that project that Robbie Schaefer from the organization One Voice realized once and for all that Goyer could, and should, share her gift abroad.

Last week, Vienna Patch detailed Goyer’s upcoming trip to Nicaragua, where she will teach photography to local kids, along with the art of journaling, but more importantly will teach these kids to feel like individuals and to have their own proud identities.

“Robbie said the kids don’t always see themselves individuals because they’re so absorbed in community,” Goyer said. “Kids are sometimes unable to answer questions like ‘What is love to you,’ or ‘Who am I as an individual?’ My hope is to show the kids they can ground themselves, pick themselves up from anything and move forward.”

Goyer said she had an epiphany as she was preparing for her trip that if you provide these kids with simple tools and skills, like showing them how they can use a camera and what they can get out of it, those who are passionate will develop skills on their own.

That’s what Goyer is hoping to accomplish — teach the kids the basics, and more importantly how photography can impact their lives — and from there let them find their own artistic flare. And that’s why Goyer hopes to be able to leave behind a camera and some journaling supplies after her trip draws to a close.

“If you give kids enough info to explore and develop their passions, they’ll find their passions and find ways to fill in gaps,” she said.

Goyer’s trip to Nicaragua begins in August, and she will continue raising money toward the trip on her GoFundMe page until mid-July.