A glance through Lauren Withrow’s photostream reveals how significant film has been as inspiration for her work. She has been interested in filmmaking since a young age and her pictures play with lights and shadows evoking the style of cinematic greats.
“When I walk down a street or I drive through the countryside, I think: how would I film this?” she says. “I look at everything, every little moment this way. My greatest inspiration comes from films I have watched. I don’t think I look at photography as just a photographer. I see my photographs as stills from a film, a larger story.”
Lauren started to take photos when she was fifteen in her native Texas and recently moved to New York City to expand her career. She was one of the inaugural Flickr 20under20 photographers who we celebrated in late 2014 and she was recently signed by an agency.
About her style, she says: “I’ve always been drawn to subjects darker in nature. I prefer there being a mystery, for the mind to search for the ‘answer’ or ‘reason’, whatever that might be. But I found a lot of why I shoot comes from finding so much of my inspiration from film. There’s a story there, told through light and shadows” and adds: “I don’t aspire to be anything in particular. I shoot what I want to shoot, I stay true to myself and my heart. I think that is how I will find my success in life.”
In her photographs, Lauren likes to play with composition and break the rules to create a sense of movement. “I connect with my subjects in new ways when I throw out rules,” she says. “When I shoot, I am never still, I follow, I chase, I run away, but we are always interacting as if two people, not one and a camera. I don’t think you have to follow rules all the time.”
She’s particularly fond of the Dutch Angle. “So often I see that rule broken in films. I see it and it is beautiful, and I think to myself, ‘why can’t I do this?’ It gives motion to the images; it gives them a different feeling, more drama.”
New York City has been inspiring and eye opening for her as she continues to develop her style in new ways. Some of her more distinctive images bleed New York, including a wonderful series featured by our friends at The Photographic Journal and set in housing projects and tenement rooftops characteristic of the city. “I think my images are becoming darker. At least in content. I know my ideas are much heavier…gritty. But I don’t know if that’s exactly because of New York. My work is always changing in some way.”
Lauren remembers her experience at the 20under20 event as a great opportunity for blending of different photographers (both in age and style) and bringing them together. She now has an advice for the young photographers who are trying to get a foothold and find their voice.
“If you are drawn to a style, and it feels right to you shooting that way, then you should,” she says. “When I switched from the ‘conceptual’ photography style to more fashion and cinematic style imagery, a lot of people were angry at it. Which still confuses me, that people can try and tell others that a type of photography is better than another.”
She adds: “The moment I stopped caring was when I found my voice through my work. And it has been that voice that has pushed me even further than before.”
You can find more about Lauren Withrow’s work on her Flickr photostream.