Lauren Shaw is a photographer, documentary filmmaker, and educator. At the Rhode Island School of Design she earned her MFA in photography, studying with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. She then taught at Emerson College for 52 years and is now Professor Emerita in its Department of Visual and Media Arts. She also co-founded New England Women in Photography.
Her book Traces of Impermanence (MW Editions, 2026) began in March 2020, when she photographed a tooth her dentist had just pulled. It pairs pictures of scars, bruises and other marks on her own body with images of growth and decay in nature, together with her writing and essays by Lucy R. Lippard and Terry Tempest Williams.
Her photographs are held in collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her project Maine Women: Living on the Land combined a photographic installation, a book, and a documentary film. Her films include Angkor’s Children, If They Had Known, and Routine Interrupted.
