Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Herbst.
Lauren, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started taking photos as a teenager as something to pass the time and as a way to enhance the composition in drawings that I would do. Soon, taking photos for my drawings turned into just taking photos for myself and my friends. Simultaneously, I started working for a Wedding Photographer and then started to shoot my own weddings. After shooting weddings for about five years, I realized that my work stopped being any inner artistic expression or creative outlet. I didn’t want my main creative outlet to dwindle so I quit shooting weddings and turned to analog photography to revive my creativity and passion and haven’t looked back since.
Has it been a smooth road?
I don’t think it’s ever easy being an artist in a society that wants to monetize creativity. I mean sometimes that just doesn’t work out. I know that it didn’t for me. I can’t create on demand or for anyone other than myself. Yet, I know that others can be their most creative on commission. My biggest struggle was realizing just that and learning to be okay with it. I had to learn to turn down commissions, weddings, and anything that I knew wouldn’t serve my creativity. You have to think about what it is you truly want and then begin to take steps towards it. It may not be a path that you’ve ever imagined, but so much is possible. You can craft a life for yourself that seems impossible or foreign to the society that you know. There’s never just one way to do something. Usually, there’s a way that not many are talking about and it’s up to you to find it.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
Like many people, I’ve turned away from digital photography in favor film. I love the beautiful colors, the nostalgic, dreamy quality of film and the slowing down of the shooting process it offers. I try to evoke a romantic feel through my work and through travel to different landscapes. I think Friedrich Von Hardenberg expresses romanticism best when he states: “By giving the commonplace a high meaning, the ordinary a mysterious aspect, the known the dignity of the unknown, the finite an aura of infinity, I romanticize it.”
I especially love to take double or multiple exposures with my Canon AE-1. Memory, dreams and deja vu inspire my work very much. Our memories change each time we recall them, like a childhood game of telephone with ourselves. Often, the more we want to remember, the more we will obscure the fragile truth. I like to think that my multiple exposures are doing the same thing in a way. Each exposure is like a different perspective on one event, or frame. The result becomes dreamy, obscure and far removed from the reality. And yet, it’s the only depiction of that fragile moment that we will have left.
I also believe that my work would not be what it is now if I hadn’t spent all of my efforts the past five years into traveling as much as I possibly could.
Do you feel like there was something about the experiences you had growing up that played an outsized role in setting you up for success later in life?
John Cleese says “Creativity is not talent. It is not talent, it is a way of operating.” We are the most creative when we are children. I think encouragement is very important when you are a child. The lack of it or the excess of it makes a difference, depending on who you are and how you react. I was fortunate enough to be encouraged in any artistic, creative venture that I could think of when I was a child. I’m a person of privilege. I’m very fortunate to grow up as a middle-class white female encouraged to pursue art or anything that I would like to do. If I hadn’t had that background, things would be different. I was able to hold on to my creativity because I didn’t have to lose it in the pursuit of survival. Later in life when I did have to worry about survival, I had my creativity to help me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.laurenherbst.com
- Email: lauren@herbst.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elleherbst
Image Credit:
Lauren Herbst
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