Feature by William Lyman
Photos by Dennis Franklin
Lauren Zhou is a sophomore at Barnard College. Her photography revolves around personal photojournalism projects with the aim of storytelling.
In the far corner of Hex and Co.––where the walls are covered in different iterations of Scattergories, Codenames, and Catan––I talk with Lauren Zhou about her camera. It’s a Canon 5D Mark II, covered in scratches and missing the top button. It’s the same one she’s had since 2016. Despite its imperfections, Lauren talks affectionately about her long history with the camera. “It's literally been with me throughout this very long journey of me navigating my relationship with photography,” she explains. While she likes to constantly redefine her relationship with the art, one thing has remained the same: making the camera so much more than a missing button, but an object of her own personal mythology.
Currently a sophomore at Barnard, Lauren began experimenting with photography in middle school. She describes photographing landscapes she found pretty, or taking portraits of friends. Eventually, however, she found more meaning for the practice, focusing her efforts on personal photography projects with the aim of storytelling. However, the road to this conclusion wasn’t easy. Lauren describes a series of collections that changed her, along with the ebbs and flows of inspiration, finally leading her to now––where she feels more in command of her craft than ever.
Born in the U.S, she moved to the Philippines when she was seven which shaped her artistic journey. “My photography would be completely different if I wasn't raised in the Philippines.” Towards the end of her high school years, the stress of college applications and leaving the Philippines loomed. “I was really anxious all the time. I was waiting on college applications to come back. I needed an outlet for all of my anxiety.” Lauren explained, “so what I decided to do was to just walk around Manila and take photos of strangers I talked to.” This became her first major photojournalism project––interviewing and photographing people she encountered in Manila.
The series made her feel a lot more connected to the Philippines: “the photosare a way for me to look back on and remember my home for so many years.” The Philippines - 2019 series was Lauren’s introduction to the world of photojournalism, a practice which helped her better understand her city and her relationship to photography. “When I'm in a city, I look for its character and the things that distinguish it from other cities. [In Manila] the people are so bubbly, kind, and welcoming. And I saw that when I would interview people and they would talk about their family.” She remembers thinking: “I'm gonna miss this country so much.”
Following the Manila series, Lauren adapted this interview model for future projects. After coming to New York, she finds opportunities to interview and photograph any characters that stand out to her. “There's this one photo on my New York series of this man who would sit near the window in Starbucks every single day and he always had a different book. He was just the nicest person ever, and now, he’s not a stranger.”
Yet, commissioned portraits during graduation season posed a challenge to her enjoyment of photography. “During grad season last year, I really lost inspiration. I was doing it more for the money than I was for the actual artistic expression. I was asking: does this really have meaning for me?” Many artists struggle with the idea of monetizing their work, and for Lauren, this meant the creative outlet she has always returned to during hard times became alienating.
“After grad season, I stopped doing photography in the summer.” Lauren explains. Only after her grandma’s passing did photography re-enter her life as a source of comfort and a way of processing her loss. From there she sought to use photography to make a celebration of her paternal grandparents, who work and live in Flushing, Queens. “It's like my second home in New York,” she says of the neighborhood, where she visits a couple times a month. Her Flushing photojournalism project, Model Minority - 2019, explores the American Dream as it relates to Asian Americans in New York. Growing up as a first-generation Chinese American, Lauren felt “so much pressure to exceed academically.” She explains: “A lot of people think of Asian Americans as a monolith. They excel academically. We live out the American dream. But that's not necessarily true. Especially for what I've seen in Flushing.”
The series is “a celebration of Flushing and all of its service workers,” as well as a celebration of her family. The process “was closure for me,” following the death of her grandma, reaffirming photography as a creative, healing presence in her life.
When asked how she plans to continue her photography in the future, Lauren seems to have found the balance she was always searching for. “Doing commissions and commodifying your art is just draining. I don’t want to feel forced to take photos.” During last year’s grad season, where she was taking commissions for portraits, her art became her source of disposable income. There was “a lot of pressure to do shoots for money. But because of that, I got so tired of something that used to bring me so much joy. I wondered: is this really worth the trade off?”
Nowadays, Lauren is looking to challenge herself with editing and storytelling. “Now that I know that I'm doing photo projects for myself,” she begins, “I want to go out of my comfort zone.” Her new approach is perhaps best exemplified by her return to portrait photography, taking something that used to feel uninspiring and curating an environment to communicate an artistic intention. “When I look back at them, my grad portraits lacked character.” In her Vivian - 2019 portrait series, she was determined to challenge herself. “I let her do whatever she felt right about. And then, I took artistic control with the location and editing. I enjoyed the shoot so much more.”
You can find Lauren on Instagram @laurenzhou_ and her portfolio online: https://laurenzhou.myportfolio.com/.