I first saw Amber’s photographs on my Instagram Explore page. The cotton candy colors gave me immediate heart eyes. I shared one of them on Invisible Talent’s Instagram and we connected from there. I’d admired her work from afar and thought about reaching out for an interview for quite some time. Not sure why I was so scared, the worst someone can say is no and nothing really changes. I finally reached out and I’m thrilled we were able to connect. Learning about Amber’s artistic background was a lot of fun. Enjoy the read!
What kind of art do you make?
So I would say it's experimental art really focusing on nature and landscapes. I'm really drawn towards nature. No one needs to tell nature what to do, it just “natures.” There's a reason I'm not a portrait photographer, like a family photographer or anything like that. We don’t need to tell nature what to do.
Can you share a little bit of your background? How you got into photography and how you've evolved to where you are now?
I’d always been very interested in photography and art in general. When I was a kid, around 12, 13, 14, 15—kind of in the Tumblr era for me— everything was like aesthetic before we called it that. I really wanted a very high resolution camera. I got a Canon Rebel, 8 megapixels was really great and exciting back in the day. I just wanted to shoot anything. I didn't really have any specific. So it was a lot of me trying to kind of emulate what I saw on Tumblr. I didn't really know what I was doing, it was purely just for fun at that point.
And in 2022, I saw that a friend at the time had started doing film photography and she was actually getting pretty big. And I was in need of a new hobby or just something that fed my soul. And I was like “maybe I should try film photography.” But learning about it just seems so intimidating. I started with instant film and I fell in love with it. I paid a lot of money for a vintage Polaroid and I was very, very nervous because I was like “What if I fall off? What if I don't use it?” But, I realized I loved Polaroid and started shooting. I found all these awesome filters or ones that I made by myself and really tried to get experimental with it and quickly figured out I needed more. So I got into film photography, particularly something that I was really interested in was film soup.
What is film soup?
How I like to describe it is it's ruining your film to make it beautiful. So earlier today, I took a roll of film, put it in boiling water, and put lemon juice and salt. And the results from that recipe are usually pretty great. They're like pink and pretty, and it's just everything I want in a film photo. It's fun! It's great to just like let go and have a plan for the photos that I shot but also be like “I don't know what's gonna happen with this, but it's gonna be beautiful. I know that!”
Can you dig more into your creative process?
Most of the time I don't really have something in mind. It's like kind of putting a puzzle together. I think the best example of this is when I'm editing like iPhone photos, which is something that I've only been working on for the past few months. Let's say I’m editing a photo of flowers, I'll start using different programs—Photoshop, Lightroom, Prequel app, Afterlight, anything I can find really. Without any idea in my head, I choose colors and effects from what I see in those programs and sometimes it turns out really beautiful. I look at the before and after and I'm like, ”Oh my God, I did this! I made a thing! How exciting is that?” The thing that I most enjoy about that is having no plan. I am very much a planner in my life but not related to art. So for me, I find that art is really about letting go and seeing what happens and what can happen and asking “What if? What’s going to happen"?” Art is where I find a lot of like comfort in letting go. And that drives me.
If you could, how would you describe your art three words?
Oh, this is good. It's a good question. I need to think about this more. I need a thesaurus. My first instinct would be to say whimsical. A lot of what I make is stuff that I would be drawn to if I didn't make it. If I was on Etsy, looking for prints or something, some of the words I might look for are like dreamy nature or whimsical or abstract. Comforting might be a better word because I find that it's like happier colors. It's happier vibes and softness. In the world, there's a lot of hardness everywhere. Even if we think we have it all, we don't always and that might be too philosophical for this conversation but I do think it's like comforting to like visually see softness and visually see happiness. So whimsical, dreamy, comforting.
Who's your audience? Who are you making your art for?
I would say first and foremost it’s for me in all my forms, but I would say mostly it's for middle school me. It's not really about the work itself when I say that. I am my art. So I, myself, am the thing that middle school me is the audience of. Sharing other inspirations may help.
Yes! Get into inspiration. Let's go there.
I find myself very drawn to collage work. I'm inspired by the eccentricities of collage. Maybe instead of someone walking on a highway, they're walking on giant flowers that they normally wouldn't be able to walk on. And like Willy Wonka and Yellow Submarine, things that are just very childlike and really really playful. I find play really important. I really think that if the world looked the way that my art does that we would feel a lot more relaxed and things wouldn’t be so serious.
You’ve gone into the “what” that inspires you, but are there any people that inspire you as well?
There are a couple on Instagram that I have been obsessed with. There's @tulsathriftqueen, she's incredible. I need to tell her this. I am just so inspired by her mind, like the things that she creates. And when you see it, you'll fall in love because I don't see how anyone could look at it and not. There’s @lizplettner and @leafandpetaldesign. I'm impressed that I have all these names in my head. And then there's @juliawalck. And if I ever talk to her beyond just like sharing her work on Instagram, I'm going to tell her how inspirational she is to me. There is work that I didn't know was hers that I had seen when I was way younger, that I fell in love with. It's wild how I can find inspiration anywhere. The people that I follow an Instagram, the people that I see on YouTube, even on places where I also market my art, wherever! It's just incredible the amount of talent that there is and just where I can find inspiration. Because I love collage, but I don't do a ton of it in the way that I take photos.
We’re going to do some manifestation with this question. Is there a dream place that you would love to see your work?
It would be wonderful to see my work in galleries, theaters and other venues located in cities that are important to me. I don't have specific venues in mind, as I try to be open minded with this, but it would mean so much to me to have my work displayed where I was born—Sheffield, England, where I grew up—Long Island, NY and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and where I live now—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As far as licensing goes, I'd LOVE to license my work to Anthropologie. That's a big aspiration for me.
Is there a natural phenomenon or landscape you've always wanted to photograph, but haven't yet?
I'd love to take my camera back to Phoenix, Arizona. I went a couple of years ago, but I wasn't doing a lot of photography stuff at all. I wasn't doing it in the way that I'm doing it now. I live in Pennsylvania, so I don't have canyons and mountains like that. And I would love, love, love, love to take film photos of some of the desert nature there. I would just love to take some film roles and then soup them maybe in the clay, like the desert clay something.
Is incorporating an aspect of the nature you photograph your approach when shooting and making film soup?
When I can. I've done that a couple of times. Unfortunately when I travel, I kind of get nervous that it's going to get thrown away in TSA or something, even if it's just like desert, dust, or whatever. I have taken river water from some state parks and I've boiled the river water and put my film in there. I've used leaves and I went flower picking on a flower field a couple months ago and I bought some specifically so that I could soup them. So I try to do that 'cause I think it's fun and it feels like organic somehow but it's not something I always do. I do wanna do it more though.
Do you remember a creative project or idea where the creative flow took over you?
I feel very connected to film, it helps me stop and just be in the moment. But one of the first iPhone photos that I edited was actually kind of like a collage. Seeing it come together was so exciting. I was like, “I can do this. I can do a thing. I don't have to be outside if I want to make something nature inspired.” Even though I love being outside. And that’s a big part of why I shoot so much outside. The exact photo I’m mentioning, I haven’t posted it to Instagram yet, but it's sold on Artfully Walls and Etsy. It's titled The Reward. I was just so excited putting it together.
Is there a difference in how you feel using film versus digital or iPhone?
I’ve found that it can be as rewarding for me to work with iPhone photos as it is to work with film was incredible. And it was like a corrective experience almost.
How would you describe your emotions as you go through your creative process? Is it a roller coaster?
I think the journey starts with being excited about the idea of creating anything. And even though I said I don't plan, of course I do plan what I'm going to shoot. Or if I don't know what it is, I at least know where. So that gets me excited. But also, to be totally transparent, I have anxiety. Bringing my film camera places sometimes makes me nervous because people don't like to have their picture taken. Even though I don't really take pictures of people regularly, they don't know that if they see me with it. So that makes me a bit nervous and that does kind of infiltrate the creative process because I feel limited in a way. I usually don't know what I'm looking for until I find it, that gets me excited. I feel very childlike in that way. Because all I have to do in that moment is explore and find what I think will make a good photo for me. And there really is a roller coaster because of the obstacles of finding something that works. So it's kind of frustrating. But then, eventually, I find what I want to shoot and I'm drawn to it—it works out or it doesn't or I find out later. And then I go into the next step of the process, whether that's doing a double exposure, shooting over the roll or sweeping the film, then I send it to the lab once it's all done. And then, the roller coaster is a little flat because I'm just waiting. When I get the scans back, I'm very excited. And it feels like it's my birthday and Christmas at the same time. It's great. I’ll run to my computer. Or if I can't wait, I'll download it on my phone, but won't do any other thing. Once I go into editing, it really is kind of stressful.
How would you know when you're done with a piece?
It’s like a puzzle thing. “When are the pieces all together?” In the scans that I get back or any photos that I have, there are so many that don't see the light of day, to anyone but me. And it's not because I don't like them. It's just because they're either just for me or I wasn't able to get something “right.” And I am saving it for later to kind of play with it a little bit. And, the roller coaster kind of never ends because I have thousands of photos that I can go back to and reference and it's insane! Right now, I'm actually working on mentally telling myself that I can come back to something. If something's in progress, it doesn't mean that it'll be in progress forever. I can get really stuck in the “in progress” part and it feels like if something's in progress, it's never gonna be finished. But I just kind of know when it's done, when I feel like there is nothing more I could do to this to make it what I want it to be. It’s like *chef's kiss*. It's just a vibe. It's just a feeling.
How do you handle the creative blocks or burnout when they arise?
In the past, I have taken a complete break. I think a lot of creative block for me happens when I identify with art. Like I am art, I am my art. Everything I do is related to my art and just getting so in my head about that. And then I feel like I need to step back. Or it's because I'm doing the same thing over and over again, and it's just not exciting. It doesn't need to be exciting, but I guess in that moment I don't feel drawn to it in the way that I normally am, so I'll try something new. An example of that is I've embroidered Polaroids before. It's fun and it can be relaxing if, again, you don't get too into your head about it. It's a fun exercise to get yourself out of a creative block. Trying something new can really be refreshing and kind of get you out of that.
Do you have favorites pieces you’ve created?
There's two pieces that came to mind. So The Reward is something I'm really, really proud of. I really felt like I unlocked something and it felt like an “I can do this” moment. I'm really proud of that because I was taking two completely different photos and you wouldn’t think that they wouldn't come from each other. So it really felt like I was making something out of nothing. And it just felt very empowering. I kept showing it to my husband, to my mom, and to my friends. And I was like, “Oh my god, I'm a real artist. That's what that means.” And then the other one is called Soul in Nature—that was from one of my first film soup roles. I had done a film soup role before that, but something happened with the role where it just got ruined completely. But the role that I got Soul in Nature from was just incredible. Like, to me, it's an incredible photo. I'm so excited about it. It felt like something I would see sold anthropology.
What's the biggest challenge you face when combining nature and your experimental techniques?
Knowing that anything can happen to a film photo before it's developed. Especially with film soup. That's part of the reason why I do it. Because I use a lot of ingredients in my soups that are just really weird. It’s the risk that is exciting to me but it is also a challenge. A lot of my photos I do sell online as prints and sometimes you're not going to be able to get a print large enough from a film photo or the grain is going to be really visible just because of the film soup process. There’s also the limitations of shooting film and knowing that your work isn't going to be for everyone and that's not a bad thing.
Why do you make the art that you make?
Because this is how I would want the world to be. (laughing) It's true! How incredible would it be if that's how the world looked? And that's why I create it, because it's the world that I'm creating.
Thank you so much for letting me peak into the whimsical world you’ve created with your art. How can people keep up with you?
Instagram: @amberlauderphoto
Website/Portfolio: amberlauder.com
Etsy Storefront: amberlauderphoto.etsy.com
Artfully Walls Storefront: www.artfullywalls.com/artists/898916/amber-lauder
Society6 Storefront: society6.com/amberlauder