Manchmal fällt es mir nicht sonderlich leicht einen Einleitungstext bei Interviews zu schreiben. Das liegt vor allem daran, dass die Personen sich in der ersten Frage meist selbst vorstellen. Vielleicht sollte ich in Zukunft meine Fragen anders formulieren. Lange Rede, kurzer Sinn: Hier also das Interview mit der Fotografin Meg Wachter. 

Where are you from and when did you start becoming interested in photography?
I’m originally from Akron, Ohio but now work and live in Brooklyn, New York. I took interest in photography during high school and inadvertently became a tool to overcome my adolescent social awkwardness. From there I studied at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communications and majored in commercial photography. I moved to New York shortly thereafter.

How do you describe your style of work?
Quirky. Or serious with a sense of humor.

Do you do much post processing or editing of your photos?
Besides photography, I also work as a retoucher to pay the bills. That said, I hardly do much retouching on my own work. Being a retoucher has also made me a better photographer by not becoming reliant on the computer to fix something later, but rather to pay more attention to what can be fixed in person and in camera during a shoot. I do like playing around with images in Lightroom, though (colors, tonalities, etc).

Tell us a little bit about your projects like “Dumped!” and “24 Portraits in 24 Hours”.
I’ve come to understand that my best ideas come right before I’m falling asleep which might explain the randomness to some of the shoots I’ve come up with (given that they were created in a pre-dream state of mind). Dumped! was a collaboration with some amazing friends willing enough to humor me and my crazy ideas. I shot it as a self promotion piece in 2008 and it has turned into the gift that continues to keep on giving (by still generating attention to my work to this day).
“24 portraits in 24 Hours” was inspired by my good friend and photographer, Bill Wadman’s 365 Portrait Project. I’ve shot it 2 years in a row to overcome complacency and boredom with my own work and to continue to motivate myself to shoot. Like my ideas I think of before bed, some of my favorite photos from the projects have been born out of lack of sleep.

Your future plans?
Future plans is to collaborate more with other artists and creative types-currently toying around doing something with my friend and phenomenal 3D artist, Justin Goode but nothing definite yet. Also toying with making a jump to doing more still life photography, but I never really plan too far in advance. I’m inspired on a day to day basis, but longterm I’d like to move away from being a retoucher and support myself being a photographer. Considering I’ve only been in the professional game for almost 5 years, I am thankful to be doing as well as I have thus far.

All images © Meg Wachter