We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura June Kirsch. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.

Laura, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

Throughout my career one word that I have repeatedly been described as is tenacious. For me, this has been key in getting any projects off the ground.

From an outside perspective it might seem like opportunities fall into my lap, the reality is quite the opposite. Most bigger meaningful project I’ve worked on have been the result of me making it happen and not giving up despite whatever obstacles may come in the way.

The biggest personal project I have worked on to date is my monograph Romantic Lowlife Fantasies: Emerging Adults In The Age Of Hope – I will talk more on how the process of getting a book published happened for me.

I started taking pictures as a child and became serious about photography when I was in high school. I always wanted to have a book of my work published, this was a lifelong dream.

During the mid aughts, I was working non stop and mostly on an editorial basis for publications like The Village Voice – covering music, nightlife and events. I was pitching everything that I covered during that time and was super passionate about the people and places I was documenting.

Around 2016, many of the venues and scenes I had been part of and photographing closed down. There was a shift in the music culture. At that point I knew I had captured lighting in a bottle in terms of being part of a really cool community that no longer existed. It was then that I decided to start going through all my work and pulling images that could be used for a book.

The editing process was done in my free time and took years. Once I had gone through all my work (prob 15 TB of photographs) I started to edit it down further to my favorite images. I would go through round after round until I had 400 selects.

Then I printed out 4×6’s and continued to edit on hard copies. At this point I turned towards mentors and trusted eyes for their help in making final edits. My former teacher and brilliant artist Jessica Craig- Martin helped me at this step as well as my editor at Juxtapoz magazine Evan Pricco.

So the way I work is a bit backwards. I like to take the pictures and then kind of shape what the theme is after. When I started editing down my work there was a lot to choose from including lot’s of live music and artist portraits.

What had been really meaningful to me were the people in the communities I was part of. My peers. The ones who were making it happen behind the scenes. I decided I wanted the book to focus on them instead of musicians. I also realized how much these people were a reflection of my experience as a millennial entering adulthood and what a confusing journey that was.

In the early 2000’s a psychological term “emerging adults” started to pop up to describe millennial 20 somethings. They weren’t settling down and having families or moving to the suburbs as much as the prior generations and changed career fields more often. I knew I wanted to incorporate that into the title of the project, that this described myself and my peers. The time period of the book was 2008 – 2016, the Obama era. This is how I came up with the phrase Emerging Adults In The Age Of Hope.

Coming up with the actual title for the book was a challenge. I ended up drawing inspiration from the Luc Sante essay in the Beastie Boys Book. The Beastie Boys had been my first concert in 1998 and that book talks so much about young people in the NYC music scene in the 80’s – the same kind of people I documented in the mid aughts. It felt like the perfect reference.

Once I had the title and my work paired down I knew it was time to shop it around. This was a wild goose chase and took about a year to find a publisher. I started off by taking meetings with anybody I knew remotely tied to book publishing and established photographers I knew. Some people looked at me like I was crazy, some people hated the work so much they wouldn’t even look through all the pictures (plenty of people loved it – you can’t win everybody over). The key here comes back to tenacity – do not give up. When it comes to a creative project there will always be haters and people who don’t get it. I think this is probably where a lot of creatives start to doubt themselves and get burned out. You have to keep going and trust yourself no matter what feedback you get.

I believed in my work and the project and knew I had to keep on going. Every piece of advice along the way and person I met got me closer to finding a publisher and securing funding, which eventually happened.

The production end of the book is a whole other story for another time – that was a very challenging process in itself. It took about two years from finding a publisher to getting the final product out and had taken about a year to find a publisher. So from starting to edit the work until final product this project spanned roughly 6 years.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Laura June Kirsch and I am a Canon award winning photographer based out of Brooklyn, NY. My work has appeared in publications such as Vogue, Juxtapoz, NY Mag, GQ, Rolling Stone and Wine Enthusiast. Places I have been profiled by include Juxtapoz Magazine, Paper, Vice, Whalebone Magazine, Flaunt, Greenpointers . My first monograph Romantic Lowlife Fantasies was published in 2022.

In high school I got serious about photography, taking every class I could and I continued my photo education in college at the School Of Visual arts where I graduated in 2007.

My career started as a fixed contributor at The Village Voice from 2010 – 2017 and as a resident photographer for House Of Vans from 2012 – 2022. I have worked for brands like Tumblr, Showtime, J. Crew, HBO, Google, eBay and more.

I specialize in portraits, events and branded content.

I’m a die hard New Yorker, lover of basketball (Nets gal), music, art and fun!

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish I had known more about investing and retirement funds starting out. As a freelancer you’re on your own and it’s a huge challenge. I knew nothing about retirement funds or how important it is to get this started as early as possible.

Learning about Roth IRA’s and how they are one of the best tax advantage accounts in the long term was something I wish I could have contributed to earlier on in my career. I strongly urge any freelancer to read basic investing books and educate themselves as much as possible on how to properly prepare for the future.

I read Investing In Your 30’s for Dummies (not even kidding) and that’s where I got my start.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Communication and dependability. These are key factors for me in any of my relationships and what I strive to give to my clients.

Answering inquiries promptly, showing up on time, following a content delivery schedule are all things I pride myself on and I think what has kept my career afloat.

Honoring my commitments is important to me!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.laurajunekirsch.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurajunekirsch
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-june-kirsch
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LauraJuneKirsch
• Other: Please check out my photography book, Romantic Lowlife Fantasies: www.romanticlowlifefantasies.com

Image Credits
Artist portrait of Laura June Kirsch by Rebecca Smeyne. All other images are copyright Laura June Kirsch.