Lauren Withrow (“Born & raised in Texas, Withrow began photographing at the age of 15. Now based out of New York City, her portrait and fashion images are heavily influenced by cinematic themes”).

She focuses her work on documenting stories, places, and creating cinematic worlds that dive into personal feelings of growing up queer, expectations of womanhood, and the relationship we have with others”.

Her work “begs investigation” (given the mysterious and abandoned look). Lauren says that the effect New York has had on her work is the “adjusting to locations”. She says that she finds that she focuses “even more so than I used to on the personality of the individual I’m shooting”. Due to Lauren’s move, she describes the difference in mood in her work from New York versus Texas as “getting much darker in my content. My overall attitude in New York is much more fast-paced, much more…, because it has changed”.

Lauren claims that, in terms of feeling the mood change in her photos ” I don’t think it’s changed, at least not drastically. The most that’s changed, in general, has to do with the previous question, in the sense that the atmosphere of the location has changed. The person is still the same. There might be more energy coming from that person since they’re not interacting necessarily with the landscape, or a beautiful sunset in the valley, or whatever. It’s just, I would say it has become more emotional because that’s what I have to focus on versus the scenery.” The photographer claims that it’s “fascinating” because it is the “exploring other avenues in my work” and how she can “connect with my subjects”.

In her photoshoots, she says she likes to have the “narrative in mind” improvised between herself and the subject and therefore let it “determine how I want it to go”.

She describes it as “if you plan this narrative and it’s all great in your head, but your model or subject just can’t bring that across and you have to find a way to switch that up, so I find it better not to have too much already in mind and just let it happen naturally”.

Her “self” portraits work overall gives off a mysterious vibe. When observing it looks like your almost intruding or experiencing like a “runaway teenager” sort of outlook on her work. She includes many typical and dry atmospheres of places like e.g. fields, bushes, roads, beaches, bedrooms. Lauren’s work is very individual, she doesn’t pair subject with many others and creates a large, broad and/or busy perspective. It’s very minimalistic and she concentrates on individuality and how it can look like with connotations of “self” and “being alone”.

Image Analysis

In this particular photograph, I see the female figure in the centre that appears to look childishly and playfully, her arms are spreads, and appear to be jumping with her head down. The female’s arms appear to be cut and distanced from the rest of the body in the centre, this creates an ominous and mysterious under tone and creates an uncomfortable sensation for the audience as the figure looks deformed and un-human-like. The image may be about childhood and how part of her nostalgia and child like memories were “cut off”. There aren’t any other people in the image =, just the singular woman adding contrast and confusing as it’s an odd number, an odd variety.

The dark tones from the bottom edges of the photograph look almost like as the photograph gets darker then it’s almost like a danger zone, something to be aware of as the figure in positioned in the centre where it appears to be brighter than the other corners of the photograph so it’s almost like the figure is not touching the grassy area of the photograph as it “can’t be touched”/ something to be afraid/cautious . The female subject isn’t making eye contact with the lens, she is facing down meaning either she’s afraid or self-conscious, she feels closed off and lonely potentially. Themes of abandonment, fright, confusion and intimidation may be questioned when looking at the photograph.

The image can be looked at in different ways as one individual may think it is an innocent girl playing around in a field like environment or another may think it’s is a possessed woman in form of a young girl haunting the people around her. The uneasy darkened background makes the atmosphere seem disturbing and on edge as we question why the female subject is positioned in the way and place she is.

I noticed that all the pictures Lauren creates turn out with colourful tones, colour and the focus on the image looks full of emotions.