User:Bmasi/sandbox/lara porzak

Lara Porzak

Lara Porzak (born in Rome, Italy, April 14, 1967) is an established American fine art photographer.

Porzak works predominantly with black & white film and is acclaimed for using labor-intensive, non-digital photographic methods, often utilizing vintage cameras and lenses from the late 1800s to create her photographs. According to The Los Angeles Times,“Her photojournalistic style combines with the romantic influences of European photographers from the 1930s and ‘40s to give her work a timeless quality with a strong sense of narrative."

Porzak has produced over 20 fine art photography shows and the ethereal quality of her handmade gelatin silver prints and tintypes has attracted many collectors throughout the world and her work is part of the Getty museum's California Artist's Collection. Her talent for disappearing into her subjects has also made her a renowned fine art wedding photographer in Hollywood.

Porzak started her own photography business in the late 1990s as a fine art wedding photographer and was soon elevated to the top of her field; traveling the globe. Porzak has photographed the weddings of (to only name a few, in alphabetical order): Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Kevin Costner, Ellen DeGeneres, Heidi Klum, George Lucas, Adam Sandler, Brooke Shields, Channing Tatum and Reese Witherspoon. When recently interviewed, Lara mentioned that her “interest in photography isn’t just so people can remember what happened, but so they can remember how they felt.”

She attended Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School and received her degree from Dartmouth College. A self-proclaimed photography workshop junkie, Porzak has studied with Mary Ellen Mark, Keith Carter, Graciella Iturbide and Christopher James, to name a few. Lured by the perfect light in which to make tintypes, she now lives in beautiful, sunny Venice, California. She is the daughter of Pulitzer-prize nominated novelist, Marianne Wiggins.

She is often quoted as saying “the soul is not digital."

Her favorite color is whiskey.