Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin: Romania Week

Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin: Romania Week by Aline SmithsonJuly 15, 2013

This week I am handing the reigns over to a long time friend, Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin. I met Kathleen at my first Review Santa Fe and we have remained close ever since. Kathleen has focused on making work in Romania for many years, and is heading back this fall to continue her efforts in a collaborative project with a Romanian photographer, titled the re-photographic project. She has a truly exquisite monograph, The Color of Hay, showcasing the peasants of Maramures that can be purchased here (free shipping!). This week she will be sharing Romanian photographers on Lenscratch. A few of her own images shot in Romania follow.

I am also posting work that Kathleen creates on a daily basis of her family. She is an active educator, teaching at a variety of colleges and universities in the Los Angeles area, is on the board of SPE West, and is an engaged photographer, but she is also a mother. Her daily capture of family life is at once humorous, poignant, and honest.

For her efforts at capturing a disappearing world, she has received a Fulbright Senior Scholarship, IREX IARO Grant (NEH), and a Houston Center for Photography Fellowship for her work in Romania. Her images have appeared in PDN, LensWork, Rangefinder, B&W Magazine, Black + WhitePhotography (UK), and The Times Saturday Magazine (UK). Her photographs have been exhibited both nationally and internationally and are in the permanent collections at the Museum of Photographic Art in San Diego, Western Virginia Museum of Art, and the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest.

She received her MFA in Photography from Virginia Commonwealth University. Kathleen currently is Adjunct Faculty at Loyola Marymount University, Cal State Fullerton, the Academy of Art University San Francisco, and the New York Film Academy.

Recapturing Childhood

I am compelled to document my life and can’t help myself. Because all our family photos were taken by my father after my parent’s divorce in 1985 and he will not relinquish them, my own family childhood photos are scarce and in some cases unattainable, so recording my own children makes up for that. Having children gives us an opportunity to re-live our childhood again, and while it is cliché to say “cherish these times because it goes by so fast,” it is also true. Somehow making snapshots (albeit with a $3,000 camera) helps alleviate this because I feel that I can make permanent some of these fleeting moments.