Features
Featured New Artist: Lacey Johnson
Lacey Johnson, having braved the cold and snow while at the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, is now based in Los Angeles. She considers herself a documentary-style editorial photographer and here she talks in more detail about her style. “Cultural differences and alternate ways of living have always fascinated me, so I tend to shoot a lot of portraiture. I really push to take my images beyond the traditional photojournalistic and editorial styles. I like using mostly natural light with little or no posing to give my portraits a genuine and timeless feel. Capturing unguarded moments, while still maintaining high image quality, is important to me...” Lacey goes on to explain why she started down this road. I was always pretty creative growing up, and I knew that my favorite things were traveling and meeting new people. I also knew that I could never be satisfied working a nine to five job at the same place everyday. In high school when I took my first photography class, it hit me how much photography fit with the sort of life I wanted. I could be paid to visit new places, be artistic, and meet interesting people that I wouldn’t have a reason to speak to otherwise. I had a tendency to be somewhat shy in my adolescence, but having the camera was like my free pass to get into fun situations.
The work presented here is from some of her favorite images from documentary projects done in Sweden, Latin America, and West Virginia. “When I’m doing a project, I try to not only gather portrait collections, but capture other aspects of my subjects. Sometimes shooting an interior of someone’s home, or a landscape, can be very telling about the life and character of a person. I was in Guatemala last year and I was trying to shoot a portrait of a husband and wife who had been married for over forty years. They were happy people, but every time I lifted to camera to shoot, they looked absolutely miserable because the wife hated having her portrait taken. So, I decided to just walk into their TV room and shoot the wall. In the end, that wall ended up being more descriptive than the best portrait I could have taken.”
Web: www.laceyannphotography.com
Lacey Johnson is this week’s Featured New Artist from our friends at Aurora Photos. Aurora’s staff regularly seeks out new, up and coming photographers to highlight on abouttheimage.com. We hope our readers will enjoy learning about these young pro-photographers and seeing examples of their outstanding work. Photographers who would like to be considered for publication as a Featured New Artist can submit their resume and portfolio by email to fna [at] abouttheimage.com.
Posted in: Featured New Artists, Features, Interviews, Photographers
