Watch photographer Meryl McMaster craft elaborate costumes for her upcoming photo series
This video gives a BTS look into the hard work of staging a self portrait.
Meryl McMaster is a Canadian photographer who uses self portraiture, elaborate costumes, performance, and the Canadian wilderness to explore her mixed cultural heritage.
A new video offers viewers some insight into the work that goes into staging her portraits. The video shows McMaster working in her studio on the costumes that she will wear for her new portrait series that will be shown during an exhibition at Ryerson University during the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival this May. She says that the intricate, handmade costumes are a way for her to explore her mixed heritage as Plains Cree and Dutch and English. She plans to photograph herself wearing the costumes in remote areas of her country.
“In my more recent work I’m interested in having the landscape also speak as an equal subject with the image,” she says in the video. “I’m traveling to site specific locations that hold meaning, not only to my personal family, but to Canadians as a whole.”
McMaster says that through shooting the new body work she has learned a great deal about how important the land was to her ancestors.
See more of McMaster’s work on her website.