Jeffrey Lau is a freelance photographer based in New York.


He began working as a full-time photographer in early 2006. His commissioned work covers a broad range of fields including international news and features, environmental portraits, and commercial advertising.


Select commercial advertising clients include Louis Vuitton, Tom Ford, Samsung, Lenovo, Motorola, Target, Clinique, and Citroen.


His news and feature work has been published in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, IHT, CNN International, Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, GQ (Japan), MSNBC, People, Science, Architectural Record, Geographical, and the South China Morning Post, among others.


Jeffrey has covered international news and long-form features in places such as China, Mongolia, The Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo and the United States, among others.


He is a member of the Foreign Correspondent's Club (Asia), National Press Photographers Association and Society of Professional Journalists. Jeffrey has also lectured on the topics of overseas photojournalism, the human cost of global modernization, U.S. / China foreign relations, and forced displacement at various universities, private trusts, non-profit foundations, and NGOs.


Jeffrey has received awards from NSAFM for the Motorola (RED) project (2006), WPJA Gold Medallion (2007), WPJA Blue Medallion (2008), named Top 50 WPJA Photographers (2007), CWF Honor recipient (2012), and short-listed twice for the PX3 Paris Awards (2020) for his work on the COVID-19 pandemic.

He has also been interviewed by WEDPIX, Timeout and Canon USA, Inc. and his documentary work has been exhibited in New York and Beijing.



He currently focuses on news and documentary features and is available for assignments worldwide.