Matt Lawrence

Los Angeles, California, USA

Please introduce yourself: What is your name, where are you from, what do you do?

My name is Matt Lawrence. I live in Los Angeles, California and am a freelance and fine art photographer. I specialize in traditional street and documentary photography. Additionally, I am a freelance advertising producer.

What is your relationship with photography? How did you get into it and what keeps you interested or motivated?

My relationship with photography is that it's a daily obsession. I would struggle to recall a single day in the last four years where I didn't shoot or edit at least one image if not many. 

As far as how I got into photography, that process was long and drawn out. My first photography related memory is of being very little and pretending that my toys were cameras. I would make them out of Legos and ‹take pictures› of my mom and things around the house.

This graduated to my dad letting me play with his broken Minolta from the 70's. In high school, I took at an SLR photography class, but only because it seemed like an easy grade—I ended up failing.

A few years after high school I joined my family on a trip to Australia to see some extended relatives. My parents had brought along their new digital point-and-shoot—6 megapixels I believe. It was my first exposure to digital photography and I shot everything on the trip.

It was an intoxicating feeling creating images and I remember how awful handing the camera back to my parents at the end felt. That feeling was powerful enough to leave a lasting impression and I later bought my first camera, a Canon 60D. I took it everywhere and shot little vignettes of my life.

Flash forward to 2018 and I now own 4 cameras, two film and two digital, and have at least one on me at all times. My daily camera is a Fujifilm XPro-2, but I also own (and occasionally use) a Canon 5D mkiii, Canon AE-1P, and a Canon Canonet QL17. What keeps me motivated is simple; capturing moments in time that provoke feelings and emotions.

There is nothing more satisfying than to see an image that speaks to you and being able to capture the way it makes you feel. It keeps life less fleeting.

What are you currently working on, and—if there is—what is your next project or journey?

As of late, I am focusing more and more on having my work shown. Over the years I've built up a library of selects that is well into the thousands of images, and it's been a challenge to distill this collection down to individual series. It's been extremely rewarding to see that the public at large is beginning to appreciate and take notice of them as well.

As far as next plans, I am actively culling images for a book project, with hopes to have it complete and published by the end of 2018.

Thank you, Matt!

Editorial Notes:

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Photography: Matt Lawrence (2018)
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA

Links: Website, Instagram

Interview • 026 PH

Los Angeles, California, USA

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