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Lauren Pisano’s Evocative Portraits Tell a Bittersweet Love Story
It’s the small things that compel Los Angeles-based photographer Lauren Pisano to reach for her camera. It can be a gust of wind, the shadows of twilight, or the ineffable twinge of something working in her subconscious. She goes through her daily life collecting ordinary moments, memorizing the details so that she can re-stage them later. Ultimately, she fulfills the role both of photographer and subject, employing her self-portraiture as a means of witnessing her routine from the outside, of alternately detaching from and reattaching to her own idea of self.
In her portraits, Pisano will often incorporate her close friends and boyfriend, individuals who she admits have grown almost unaware of the persistent presence of her lens. Shooting—and freezing a moment for an impromptu shoot—has become second-nature. She is most inspired by hushed moments in private spaces, within enclosed corners of her home, alone with her thoughts. The nudity that graces her frame speaks more to an intimacy and inward familiarity than it does to anything overtly sexual.
Divulging only fragments of an unfolding drama, Pisano’s photographs rely on a charged push and pull between the subject and his or her audience. The scenes that unfold before us are elusive and visceral, our senses comprehending long before our minds are able to catch up. Together, they read like a love letter unanswered, a series of intimate moments in which some small and irresistible thing is withheld, secreted and concealed.
All photos featured in this post can be found on Offset, a new curated collection of high-end commercial and editorial photography and illustration from award-winning artists around the world. Offset is a category partner on Feature Shoot.
