Laura Boushnak is a Palestinian photographer born in Kuwait. Her work ranges from conflict photography to experimental storytelling, and her
themes are as diverse as Arab women and education and the underground gay scene in Beirut.

She began her career in 1999 covering news for the Associated Press (AP) in Lebanon. She later worked as a photo editor and photographer for Agence France-Presse (AFP) at its Middle East hub in Cyprus and its
Paris headquarters. Her nine-year wire service experience included covering hard news in conflicts such as the war in Iraq and the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Her work has been published in the New York Times, The Guardian, The National Geographic and Le Monde.

After three years of documenting the lives of young cluster bomb survivors in south Lebanon, Laura is currently focusing on Arab women and education across the Middle East. Rather then simply turning her camera on the women, Laura encourages collaboration with her subjects—with women in literacy classes practicing their newly learned words on her photo negatives yielding surprising and inspiring images.

Her most recent project, published in the World Press Photo organisation’s book “Hekayat: Picture stories from the Middle East”, chronicles the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community in
Lebanon and its fight to be accepted by the society.

Laura is represented by Dubai-based photo agency Arabian Eye. She is also a founding member of Rawiya collective, which brings together the work and experience of five female photographers from the Middle East.