“I derive most of my creative peace from walking through the neighborhoods and hills of Los Angeles,” photographer Lauren Pelesky tells the Phoblographer of the city she so adores. “I am so blessed to live in such a beautiful place and it only feels right to document the beauty of it to share with others just as I started out documenting sunrises to show to my loved ones.” Lauren is a wedding and portrait photographer that feels like she’s still growing. Yet to many others, the fact that she’s able to photograph for a living is a dream. And at the heart of it, she’s found strength in community. Particularly, she’s been giving a lot of credit to VSCO as of late.
All images by Lauren Pelesky. Check out her VSCO profile and her website. Used with permission. This article is brought to you in partnership with VSCO.
Lauren Pelesky: The Photographer.
Lauren started with photography at around 17 years old — and it all started with falling in love with sunrises and sunsets. “I was always a night owl and I would find myself staying up a few extra hours to catch the sunrise so that I could snap a photo and share it with everyone who I knew was asleep,” she tells us. “Soon after began my affinity for landscape photography which only progressed as I had time to travel to such incredible places like Banff, California, and Colorado.” Then with time, she began to shoot more weddings and portraits — which seems totally different from what most landscape photographers start out doing. However, she still loves shooting landscapes — and her VSCO profile reflects tons of those.
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To do all this work, Lauren totes along specific tools. She never leaves her house without a Canon Sureshot film camera. However, she also uses Canon mirrorless cameras, mist filters, and Godox flashes. The filters help her soften the light in her images. “I am so lucky to have such incredible gear, but some of my favorite photos were created with pantyhose or plastic ziploc bags over the lens to create a hazy glow,” Lauren admits. “I’m very much so a believer that you can make incredible photos with any camera gear.” To that end, she also uses an iPhone and a Fujifilm X100T.
With portraits or weddings I do my best to tell the story through the emotion, the people, and the scene. At the end of the day, whether I am working with a wedding client and or a brand I will always do extensive communication back and forth to ensure that my vision aligns with theirs, but often my approach remains the same.
Lauren Pelesky
A handful of her clients have requested that she shoots with film. Typically, she shoots half a roll of film at every wedding whether or not it’s requested. She loves the tones, grain, and color of Portra 400 — just like so many others. From the film photos, she edits her digital images in a specific way. “I’m hoping someday to work with more clients who love and appreciate film as much as I do!”
Lauren is a photographer who also adores VSCO. Known by many for their film-like presets for several years, the community is now a place where photographers can call a safe-space from the dopamine casino. On VSCO, she seems to reach a broader audience of people who really adore her work. Otherwise, she’s doing lots of meeting people in-person since moving to LA from Chicago. For her, it was a bit nerve-tracking — though networking has helped her in so many different ways. “I truly believe that there is so much growth to be had by getting involved in your community especially through assisting and forming relationships with other photographers. And sharing your work!”
I love sharing my work on VSCO because it seems to reach a broader audience of people who genuinely connect with my work. I’ve always felt as though VSCO prioritizes art over anything else which really makes me appreciate the platform. I’m always amazed at how much incredible art there is to study and connect with on VSCO, and that’s definitely something I need to stay grounded and inspired in my field of work. As I grow in the photography community I’m also greatly prioritizing meeting and working with other photographers! I recently moved from Chicago to Los Angeles so I’ve been working to grow a new community of people here while maintaining my Chicago community. I do this by continuing to share my work online and updating my VSCO profile to let people know what kind of photography experience I have and that I’m available for hire! I truly believe that there is so much growth to be had by getting involved in your community online and in person.
Lauren Pelesky
Lauren’s post-production process starts with her culling thousands of images all by hand and eye. Then she chooses the ones she sends to the clients based on what they’re looking for. From there, she does what she considers minor edits. “I may edit out distracting signs or trash, but I do my best to keep the images very minimally photoshopped,” she tells us. “I think AI has maybe made putting out content much quicker and easier, but as a documentary-style photographer, my whole philosophy of photography is to tell a story with my images, and I have no desire to drastically alter someone’s story in any way.”
Besides doing portrait and wedding work, she works with brands as well. For her, it’s all about putting movement, emotion, and setting into just the right place. “I recently did a shoot for a company that creates very warm, mid century modern style lamps,” Lauren relates. “So for my work with Wooj I really wanted to create this very calm, peaceful scene of turning on your warm glowing bedside lamp before crawling into bed or turning the lamp on during a late night work session.”
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Thoughts on AI Imagery
Lots of photographers have been complaining about generative AI and how it has been threatening to replace them and their jobs. Lauren thinks it can be very helpful to the science world. “That said, I don’t think AI art will have much of a stronghold on those who genuinely appreciate and want to support art, artists and the act of creating art,” she states. “I think there is something so inherently human about creating art and I believe/hope it will stay that way. I also would hope that if AI will be using art created by humans that those humans will be compensated fairly at the absolute very least.”
AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT
The Phoblographer is a member of Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative and works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.