Sunny Side Up: Lauren Randolph’s Color-Coated Style

WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW HER
A social media maven with more than 232,000 Instagram followers (@laurenlemon), and commercial clients like Gap and Honda, Lauren Randolph shows no signs of slowing down.

One glance through Lauren Randolph’s commercial and portrait work and its instantly clear why she gets hired—for her energetic demeanor and sunny personality, which is reinforced by her Lauren Lemon moniker, bright lemon logo and the vivid colors she wears.

The Reno, Nevada-born and raised photographer’s career is prolific in its scope, encompassing a wide range of unique portraits, from clients like Sony and Disney, to numerous gallery exhibitions. But perhaps most impressive is her capacity to balance these commissions with her prodigious following on social media, where more than 232,000 Instagram followers engage in her playful lifestyle.

A personal image from Randolph’s series “Chromalogical Order” campaign. Photos © Lauren Randolph 

LEMON YELLOW
Growing up in the Digital Age, branding herself on social media was an intuitive process, even if at first unintentional. “Lauren Lemon” originated as a nickname among friends, doubling as the name she used on her social media accounts. 

“Maybe it’s a bit old-fashioned and juvenile, but when I started using the Internet, I was taught to never use my real name—not anticipating how important one’s online identity would eventually become,” Randolph notes. And the name stuck: “It’s easy to remember, fits with my colorful style, and I started using it as my brand as well as my user name.” The photographer credits her social media success to her consistent uploading to “nearly every photo-sharing platform”—from Photobucket to Deviant Art, Flickr and Tumblr.

An image shot for Disney’s #DisneySide campaign.

She completed a B.A. in art with an emphasis in photography at the University of Nevada, Reno, and her career launched six years ago, when she traded in the “biggest little city in the world” for the year-round sunshine of Los Angeles. “I wouldn’t say I’m so much inspired by Los Angeles itself,” she explains. “But having easy access to the desert, ocean, mountains and city is very fortunate.” One of her first major jobs came only two years later, in 2011, when she and photographer Ryan Schude collaborated on shooting a new image library for casino chain Caesars Entertainment Corporation, taking them to Las Vegas, New Orleans, Atlantic City and Chicago.

WORKING WANDERLUST
But that was only the beginning of her professional wanderings. Today, Randolph says she’s traveling more than ever for work and play—an integral part of her shooting process. “My friends and I are always planning weekend trips or overnighters to camp in the desert, get a cabin in the mountains, find a vacation house with a pool,” she says. “This is how I stay inspired, where I shoot new work.” She also organizes the yearly group photo at the adult summer camp for photographers, Phoot Camp, where she annually “recharges her creative spirit” among other talented photographers.

A personal image showing Randolph’s love of color.

It’s this hardworking mentality in her day-to-day life and social media presence that’s led to her most recent gigs, including one received through her Tumblr account for an FX TV show, Man Seeking Woman. For this project, she shot “fun-quirky imagery” of guys and gals out on the town and reenacting gender roles for the brand’s promotional use. 

She was also recently commissioned by HLN network, to be part of its rebranding campaign @TheDailyShare on Instagram. “They’re doing weekly features on photographers, hashtags and creative inspiration found on the app,” she says. “It was a cool project because I was just given the theme ‘color’ and had full creative freedom to shoot what I wanted.” The resulting images play with texture, using objects often associated with each color to literally spell it out.

SOCIAL STYLES
While many of her portraits look stylized and graphic, Randolph’s shoots generally employ a more whimsical esthetic—like recent shoots for Acura and Gap’s #dressnormalproject—in which she is given a sort of freedom analogous to social media trends, sometimes even using friends as models.

Randolph describes her approach to a shoot as “very hands-on,” coming to the set with a specific vision and directing her subjects accordingly. “If I know a pose I want them to do, I’ll go get in it and show them myself. I’ve had people on set with me laugh because if I’m telling my subject to smile, I’ll be smiling. If I want them to laugh, I’ll often be laughing myself.”

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