Behind the Lens
Why do we write these things in third person? Is it because we have a hard time talking about ourselves in any real way? Maybe this little section of the inter-web can help remedy this epidemic. I would only hope that I know myself better than someone who could write about me. Witnessing and hearing that back is powerful but I would love for you to hear my voice right now. So hi, my name is Lauren. Those that I love and love me back call me Laur. But my name is Lauren and I have learned to love that name. Maybe because I gave my daughter a name that I hope she loves, and somehow that changes me. You’ll think my brand means something it doesn’t. And thats okay. Because I love the moon and the stars and the seasonal shifts that reflect us as women. I love the changing of time and the turning of tides and seasons and the way life shifts and evolves. But no thats not the heart of the name. My best friend actually coined me Half Moon Laur because of a childhood story that endeared her. She loved that my mom would say that my eyes were half moons and would be lost in a smile anytime I flashed a grin. And that says something about me. I have friends that know me and love my story; the little Lauren that still exists in my innermost parts and know the stories of my past. I love that about myself. I love that I am someone who has those kind of friends and that type of intimacy in my life. I hope everyone experiences that someday in their existence. It’s scary and worth it and that’s basically how I live my life. Things are scary for me. As a deeply sensitive, highly aware and overly spongey human being — most things scare me. But paired with a strong will and deep sense of dissatisfaction with status quo — I simply cannot stay there. I will take the flight and share the pain and birth the child and let myself be loved. I’ll say the hard thing and the easy thing — the thought that someone has nice eyes or a kind soul. I’ll say it out-loud because we all need to be a little more honest about our thoughts. Especially the kind ones. I love my life and yet am intrinsically aware of the depravity, sadness and gravity of this existence. I honestly don’t know how I hold both, but here we are. I think that if someone handed me a camera and told me it’s okay, go for it, set your soul on fire, at the age of 10, I would have started then. But so much needed to be extracted and implanted before that could happen. I needed to know that I was a creative soul with creative tendencies and a deep desire to see beauty brought to life. So I went for it. 22 years later. And honestly I think birth did it to me. You see yourself so undone, so stripped down and so incapably capable. I showed myself who I was. And you can’t really walk away from that unchanged. So here I am. 36. Holding a camera in one hand and my daughter in another. Two total embodiments of creation and beauty and life. And I think to myself..
…what else could I possibly do with this one precious life but create.
stories told through lens and soul
an honest approach to the art of photography
If art is the end result of the creation process, then we cannot just say a photo is a frozen moment in time. A freeze frame if you will of the current scenario or lived experience of the subject. That perspective of photography feels important to me, but not particularly what makes my own soul come alive. While I write this I wonder why ‘memories’ aren't enough for me to offer the world? They are powerful, yes. To pull a photo from the cedar chest and see a glimpse into the archetype you came from - the resemblance of my daughter in my great great grandmother at a young age. It means something. But I don’t think it’s what the world needs from me. What the world needs is for my soul to come alive - so that my art form, my soul-leaked creative embodiment, is felt. Call it elitist if you will. I have always had the pesky ailment of ‘other than’. Seeing the world and wanting something different. I think it’s the creator in me. The hopeless romantic in me. The wounding that somehow is molded into something beautiful for my life to have meaning and truth. So no, I am not creating a freeze frame for you to hold onto— a relic to look back on. I am creating from the color pallet of your soul — a painting that I have extracted from the beautiful, complex nature of you. I do this using an archetypal psychological approach. Meaning I get to know you. How your mind works, what compels you to get out of bed in the morning, things that spark alive-ness, sadness, the portal of seasonality you find yourself in. And as the artist, begin to go inward and intuitively pull what is beckoning to be seen. The process is important, the moment of being witnessed is defining, and the receiving of the curated art piece that is you — illuminated for your healing, for your expansion and for who you are becoming.gratzi — laur