Lauren Koch

When I was 11 years-old, living on Long Island, I had a Fisher-Price PXL 2000 Video Camera. My sister and I made 10-minute movies with dramatic plots acted out through Barbie dolls. My passion for capturing images actually began much younger, in elementary school. I was infatuated with the Polaroid camera, taking still shots of my toys in staged scenarios and labeling each one with a different title. Looking back, I think that as a child I used the camera lens to frame my understanding of the world; to better understand human relationships and my sense of belonging. I became interested in SLR photography during my last semester as an undergraduate psychology student. In an introductory black and white (B&W) course, I produced my first serious work. It involved passionately applying face paint on my subjects and myself, designing costumes, and posing in a staged primeval forest setting. From this experience, I realized that through photography I could shape my vision of the world and engage in the creative process of visual cultural production. My photography has greatly developed since I was a child, what remains is my preference for creating work that is more theatrical than documentary in style. My photography explores concepts of gender, identity and authenticity of human emotion using traditional techniques (analog B&W and color photography) as well as digital imaging.