Since 1985 Paula Lerner has been a Boston-based freelance photographer working primarily for national and international magazines. Among her clients are Smithsonian, People, Time, Newsweek, Stern (Germany), and Focus (Germany). She also does corporate and institutional photography for a wide variety of clients around the country.

Paula's work involves photographing people in all walks of life, and has taken her from the rain forests of Brazil to the back roads of New England. Her photographs have been selected multiple times for publication in the American Photography and the Communication Arts juried annuals. In 1998 her photo essay "A Widow on Welfare: An Untold Story" won First Place for Issue Reporting in the 55th Pictures of the Year competition.

Since 1999 Paula has been active in promoting good business practices among photographers and visual artists as well as an advocate for fair contracts from publishers. She is the Vice President of EP (Editorial Photographers), a non-profit group that maintains an internet discussion forum on the business of editorial photography and has more than 3,000 subscribers worldwide.