“He wanted to get married. He shared that with the landlady of the building and she suggested a few single girls from the neighbourhood, including me. My mother thought that he’d be an ideal candidate as he had no one: no parents, siblings, no one… My mother had suffered a lot from their in-laws, so when she found someone for me with no family, she thought it’d be ideal.When we got married we had nothing, we were renting. We worked in Germany and got a place. I worked hard, changed a lot of jobs and worked odd hours. We didn’t get a chance to think 
about love. We needed each other. For me, love is a habit and friendship. He is very honest and righteous. I feel lucky.”

She attended New York's School of Visual Art and the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris on academic scholarship. Lauren works on assignment for a wide variety of clients, including The New York Times. Her work is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian, the national museum of the United States. Lauren's first book, The Lovers, documents the love stories of elderly couples through interviews and photographs. She is working on her second book, and teaches photography to  university students in London. You can see more of her work at LaurenFleishman.com and @laurenfleishman