After losing everything in a failed rice-growing venture in 1910, his family was forced to relocate to New Orleans where Laughlin's father found work in a factory.
Laughlin was an introverted child with few friends and a close relationship with his father, who cultivated and encouraged his lifelong love of literature and whose death in 1918 devastated his son.
He began working as a freelance architectural photographer and was subsequently employed by agencies as varied as Vogue magazine and the US government.
Disliking the constraints of government work, Laughlin eventually left Vogue after a conflict with then-editor Edward Steichen.
[2] With the photobook being the ultimate goal and measure for success for photographers, Laughlin achieved this in 1948 when Ghosts Along the Mississippi: The Magic of the Old Houses of Louisiana was first published.
Other subjects represented include 20th-century art and design, European and American architecture, photography, Victoriana, humor, sex and sexuality, psychology, spiritualism, and the occult.