Lina Shteyn may well be the only photographer we know who has published images in the New Yorker while working on a PhD dissertation in cellular biology. Ultimately realizing that she loved art more than academia, Lina arrived at The Day five years ago determined to throw her all into photography and has been directly mentored by Ira ever since.

“Coming from science, I always want to understand photography from a deeper perspective,” she says—and it shows in her work. The lead shooter with the most ground-up knowledge of the studio’s ethos and aesthetic, Lina intermixes technical expertise with creative instinct. She approaches each shoot with a curious and questing eye that is able to find the quiet beauty inherent in a still life and capture the fleeting, unchoreographed interactions that unfold over the course of a wedding day.

When she’s not shooting for The Day, Lina loves to travel and spends as much time as she can in her favorite city, Amsterdam.

“Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson