Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin is a mother, photographer, and educator with an appetite for exploring the world. Wherever she goes, she brings a compassionate and curious lens backed by traditional film. For her efforts at capturing a disappearing world, she has received a Fulbright Senior Scholarship, an IREX IARO Grant (National Endowment for the Humanities), and a Houston Center for Photography Fellowship for her work in Romania.
Her images have appeared in LensWork, Rangefinder, B&W Magazine, Black + WhitePhotography (UK), and The Times Saturday Magazine (UK). Her photographs have been exhibited both nationally and internationally and are in the permanent collections at the Museum of Photographic Art in San Diego, Western Virginia Museum of Art, and the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest. The Color of Hay: The Peasants of Maramures is Kathleen’s first monograph of photographs, November, 2010 (www.colorofhay.com). She has been a freelance photographer and photo educator for 10 years.
Kathleen received her MFA in Photography from Virginia Commonwealth University. She teaches photography in the Los Angeles area, mainly Loyola Marymount University, Pasadena City College and the Academy of Art University San Francisco (online). Kathleen has been an active member of the Society for Photographic Education and was on the West regional board for four years.
Transylvania at the turn of the Millennium is an island of waterwheels and horse-carts facing erosion by the incoming tide of a modernizing European Union. During this pivotal time, in a remote valley of northern Romania called Maramures, peasants have kept their traditions alive and defied assimilation since the Romans. Now, a final generation is going about their daily farming chores and raising children who have the opportunity to leave their ancestral villages and make a modern life in a world of change. For over two years, Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin and her husband H. Woods lived as peasants do—relying on a wood burning stove, bathing without running water, and sharing one roof with three generations. Kathleen’s medium format photographs cover all four seasons of life in Maramures. Essays from H. Woods help add depth and explanation.
At the turn of the millennium, for a year of days beginning in the autumn of 1999, Kathleen and Henry lived in a remote village, in the Maramures region of northern Transylvania, Romania. This region is unique amongst the former Soviet Bloc for the way it has preserved its way of life. After World War II, for forty years of communist rule, a few valleys in Maramures escaped collectivized farming because of poor soil and hilly landscape. In the post cold-war period, preservation continued because of pervasive impoverishment which slows the advancement of modernity into the reaches of northern Transylvania.
But nothing will stand still forever. While the older generation still don winter footwear that pre-date the Romans, the younger generation flock to market to buy shoes bearing that ubiquitous swoosh of western manufacture.
In addition to his work as a writer, H. Woods McLaughlin’s background includes stints as an organic farmer, computer programmer and hang gliding pilot – as well as Kathleen’s photography assistant.
You can buy The Color of Hay at www.colorofhay.com which has a PayPal link. You can also send me a check for $39.95 + $5.00 for shipping.
KLM, 1510 Mission Street, South Pasadena, CA 91030.
