Lauren Gayeski is a documentary family photographer, born and raised on the New Jersey shore.  Though formally educated as a nurse, her journey into photography was led by a natural curiosity to explore and document the human experience.  Her work echoes the complexity and significance in everyday experiences through her use of color, highlighting stories of faith, community, water, and what it means to be human.  Lauren’s work has been recognized by the Documentary Family Awards, Click Magazine’s 2020 + 2021 Voice Image Collection, This is Reportage: Family, and since 2020, her work has been exhibited in galleries across the U.S. including New Jersey, Texas, California, North Carolina, Oregon, and NYC.  Her most recent projects focus on the coming of age, community, and faith identity in the 21st century.  She is a member of both Click Pro Photographers and Documentary Family Photographers Worldwide.

She is a lover of words, both writing them and reading them, though she prefers run on sentences and her nightstand includes no less than six half-read books, all dogeared with evidence of good intentions.

Lauren lives with her husband, three teenage sons, and Arlo (woman’s best friend) in Ocean City, NJ.

Artist CV

The devil is in the details. 

It is one, tiny, essential detail that creates an instant impression, making your eye linger just a moment longer, drawing a viewer’s attention to the larger narrative of a photograph.  It’s the split-second reaction, a tear falling down a face, a gesture, or a subtle nuance that gives a subject depth, character, and shape.  As a photographer, I’m searching for those elements in order to create an honest visual representation of my subjects as complex human beings, with so much hidden below their surfaces.

I grew up in a laid back, quiet town on the Jersey Shore, basking in its sun and salt water every summer.  As much as I love the summers, with its noise and colors and heat, there is something magical in the cold, dark, silent winters of a beach town.  Although I’ve fallen in love with other places, there is no where else I’d rather call home.  The colors of the vibrant sunsets, pinks skies after rain, and the deep blues and greens of the water have deeply influenced my use of color in photography, reflecting the natural way human beings interact with color in everyday experiences. I use color as a universal language, calling forth recognition and memory in my images.

Whether by nature or nurture, my father generously gifted me his spirit of unbounded optimism, choosing hope in any situation, particularly when the thunder is clapping and the clouds are moving quickly and his response is, “I think it’s going to skip us.”  I choose to believe the best about people and whole heartedly believe that the inevitable struggles of life are met with possibilities that only can come out of that particular situation.  It’s the silver lining of pain, the learning and the growth, and the ability to see beauty and light in an often dark and ugly world.  

Contagious curiosity

My love and curiosity for the world and its people has undoubtedly shaped how I photograph human beings, both as individuals and in their communities.  I’m drawn into their narratives, particularly what makes us different as well as finding the common thread that connects all living beings.  When I photograph people, my eye is drawn to highlight those stories of connection, and at times disconnection, within larger communities, individual families, and intimate relationships.

The human brain is hardwired instinctively to make split second judgements based on what we see and my goal is to create images that challenge the viewer to see something deeper in people than what might appear at first glance, to ask questions about a person, a culture, a community, or an idea, and imagine themselves in that scene.  I create images and photographic essays that explore human identity, digging deep into the soul of a person, and sharing their experience through visual storytelling, like a book without words, a second of time tangibly held by the hands that hold those moments as precious.