THE ARTIST

LAURA ESMOND

Photographer. Mother. Educator.

Photographing families since 1999.

I have always believed the photographs that matter most become more valuable with time.

I began photographing families more than 25 years ago. Somewhere along the way, I became a mother of three and began to understand my work differently.

The photographs I treasure most aren’t the perfect ones. Those are reserved for holiday cards and gifts for grandparents. The ones I treasure are the ones that return me to something. The weight of my children in my arms. The way they reached for me. The version of our family that existed for such a short time.

Laura Esmond with her family on the beach

Me with my family in southern California, 2024. Image by Suzanne Karp

That understanding has shaped the way I photograph other families ever since.

I want to create photographs that are beautiful today, but become something entirely different twenty years from now.

Because eventually a photograph stops being about what everyone looked like and becomes a journey back in time to how it all felt.