Megan McIsaac received her first camera — a gift from her grandfather — when she was six-years-old. Even at a young age, she felt the power of the analog medium beneath her fingers. By the time she was 10, she was taking self-portraits. For years, she worked with herself as the subject, snapping pics in every possible location, at every possible time; it was a constant commitment to spontaneous creation. “Being an artist is embracing the unknown at all times,” McIsaac says of her work.
As an adult, she now works with other subjects. Many of the people she works with don’t immediately warm to the images she captures of them. But, in a day or a week or a month, they come back and tell her that it is the most real photograph that has ever been taken of them. McIsaac strives to capture real images for the same reasons she sticks with analog photography. She appreciates the pace and layers of film, which speak to the multiple perspectives from which something can be viewed.
In this installment of For The Restless, brought to you by The Sexton Single Malt Irish Whiskey, we experience the full and varied daily life of McIsaac — the young artist capturing authentic images of stars and everyday people through film photography. She serves as an example of a creative person bucking the expected in favor of what’s real.
