Megan McIsaac
11/7/2011
Photography, Writing
Visual
- Megan McIsaac
writing: Daniel Dorsa - Age: July 16th, 1990
Location: Portland, Oregon (but soon to be on the road.)
Website: MeganMcisaac.com / Tumblr
Megan McIsaac is a modern vagabond with her camera as her weapon of choice. She has
been photographing her life ever since she was a child and continues to shoot tons of rolls
of film to add to her visual diary. Her adventures not only allow her to meet interesting
faces, but also allows her to really connect to people on a much deeper level. Her
photographs are very intimate and personal, almost as if you are going through someones
family album and her spirit, as well as age, is still young. Megan was kind enough to tell
us about her up bringing and future. 
- Let’s start from the beginning. How did a camera first get into your hands?
My grandfather is to blame. He was an "amateur" photographer, mostly shooting slide
film. When I was maybe five or six years old, I remember him handing me his Nikon SLR
and showing me how to use it. Later, when I was seven years old, he gifted me a Polaroid
camera for Christmas.
You have a personal connectivity to your subjects and it shows in your work. Do
you ever photograph strangers?
I do, it just depends on what you mean by "stranger." Many of my subjects I've just met
once or twice before, but I very rarely make a photograph of someone I've never met or
have no intention of meeting. Even when it comes to photographing a concert or doing
some kind of commercial work, I always like to meet the person before I make
photographs of them. I’ve never been particularly interested in making "street"
photographs or photographs of people passing by.
The people you surround yourself with are being photographed constantly. Is
there something you’re trying to show about these people in particular?
I like to surround myself with people that inspire me in some way or another, and I enjoy
making photographs of them because not only would I like to remember them, but I like
to share the photographs in such away to show others that they're not alone. Does that
make sense? Making photographs is another way of listening, and I love listening to
people. I love listening to their body language, to their eyes squinting, blinking, and
winking, and to the way they dress themselves. And while I’ve been living in Portland for
the past three years, I still consider myself to be traveling and who knows if or when I’ll
ever see these friends again.
You grew up in Michigan, but now call Portland home. How has your work
changed from the big jump to the west coast?
I don't know if you've ever been to Michigan before, but it's not the most friendly or
welcoming state no matter what city you live in. I loved Detroit. I grew up just north of
the city, but it still sucked me dry of my creativity and motivation. When I moved out
west, I had no clue what i was doing. I was just freshly eighteen years old and had
absolutely no money. My mother, who I lived with at the time, was confused and bothered
by my idea of just buying a train ticket to some random city I’ve never been to. She
wanted me to go to college, but we couldn’t even begin to afford it and I didn’t want to
take out loans like both of my brothers did. Alas, I bought a train ticket to the first city
that someone off the Internet offered me a couch to sleep on. I left Michigan a week later.
My transition from the Midwest to the west coast definitely helped me gain a clearer vision
of what I wanted to photograph and how I wanted to make photographs. I was done with
digital photography. I only owned a digital camera for a few years and never felt
passionate about it, but once I moved out west and was living from couch to couch for
seven months, it made me more and more uneasy about owning and using a digital
camera. I wanted to be free from all of the technology I was using. Anyway, long story
short, I think the move definitely had an impact on how and why I make photographs, and
I think that’s still developing as I continue to travel. 
- You went to Croatia. To most of the western world, Croatia seems like a very
obscure and mysterious place to visit. Why there and how was it?
Croatia is absolutely wonderful and I wish it wasn’t looked at as an obscure and
mysterious place. My lover at the time, Mime, used to live in Croatia, where his family
lives. They moved back once it won its independence in the 1990's. His sister was soon to
be married and so we traveled there to be a part of the wedding and travel around the
country for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, Mime was able to borrow his father’s car and
we drove around the entire country in just a few days (it's very small.) I wish I had more
words to describe it other than "beautiful" and "wonderful", but you'll just have to look
through my photographs from when I was there. I highly recommend it as a place to visit
if you love traveling.
Music seems tobe an extremely important influence in your life. You are
surrounded by musicians and photograph them, even for work. Has
photographing musicians always been a drive for you or did you just end up
doing it and enjoying it?
I grew up with a fairly musical family. My father plays guitar, and my mother used to play
saxophone when she was rather young. My oldest brother, Tim, is heavily influenced by
music and always has been. He used to share all of his favorite musicians with me and as I
grew into my teenage years, I began collecting records and playing guitar. When I was
thirteen, I started photographing concerts at a super small venue in my hometown that I
used to help book shows at. We needed photographs for fliers and so I started bringing my
cameras to all of the shows. That lasted until I was fifteen or sixteen. Then, I started
driving to Detroit multiple nights a week to photograph bigger concerts. I used to just find
contact information for musicians I had interest in seeing and would ask them if I could
obtain a photo-pass for their shows if I promised to email them my photographs. It almost
always worked. From when I was sixteen until I left Michigan, I would drive to Pontiac or
Detroit at least a few nights every week to photograph shows. I haven’t been frequenting
shows as often as I used to, but I do still make music and most of my friends are
musicians as well. I’ve contributed photographs to a few album covers over the past few
years and that's what I really love doing. Seeing my photographs as part of an album is
just spectacular. 
- Whenever I see artists with tons of work, I instantly think they aren’t editing
their own work well enough. However, when I see your work, I think of it more
as diary from the past. Is this something you strive to do or is it a natural
occurrence?
Ha-ha. I’ve actually been thinking a lot lately about how I want to go through my
photographs and re-edit them down to a smaller amount. To answer your question, yes
and no. Photography for me has always been more of a visual journal of sorts. Alongside
my photographs, I’ve been keeping written journals since I was a child. I write almost
every single day, just as I make photographs almost every single day. The reason I share
so many photographs on my website is simply because I make so many. I feel like they all
flow with each other and that makes it hard for me to edit them down. They’re sort of my
public travel journal. Anyway, like I mentioned, I would like to edit them down at least a
little bit and share only my most recent photographs. As for the thousands that wont be
included on mywebsites, I hope to include them in books in the future.
Any photoprojects you have going on at the moment?
For the past few months my partner and I have been working on our RV, a 1977 Toyota
"Dolphin," that we purchased together this past summer. We’ll be leaving Portland (for
good) in a few weeks and basically everything that could go wrong has and probably will
still continue to go wrong. I’ve been putting most of my energy towards this move, as we'll
be living out of our RV, for an unknown amount of time. Mostly, I’ve just been
photographing my friend and housemate, Shane, and doing small projects with
friends before we hit the road.
What do you seeon the horizon?
As I mentioned before, I’m about to begin traveling again and that’s all I can think about!
It’ll be so nice to be living in a mobile home so I don't have to waste my money on rent
and bills of the sort. I’ll be trying my best to process as much of my film as I can in the
truck and getting scans of my negatives along the way. We just plan on heading south and
staying with the sun as much as we can, but who knows what will happen. I want to
begin working on my first photo-book, which will be a collection of the photographs I make
while living out of the Dolphin. But like I said, who knows what willhappen.
Any last words or shout outs?
If anyone that lives anywhere along the west coast wants to meet up while we're
traveling, don't hesitate to contact me :) 
-
SoundsMusic05/17/2012 -
soundsMusic05/16/2012 -
VisualJournalism, Photography05/14/2012 -
SoundsJournalism, Music05/08/2012 -
SoundsJournalism, Music05/06/2012 -
SoundsJournalism, Music05/05/2012 -
SoundsJournalism, Music05/04/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/30/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/24/2012 -
SoundsMusic4/20/12 -
SoundsMusic04/19/2012 -
VisualPhotography, Writing04/18/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/17/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/13/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/12/2012 -
VisualPhotography04/10/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/09/2012 -
SoundsPhotography04/09/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/06/2012 -
SoundsMusic4/05/2012 -
VisualFilm04/04/2012 -
VisualPhotography04/03/2012 -
SoundsMusic04/02/2012 -
SoundsJournalism04/01/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/29/2012 -
VisualPhotography, Writing03/28/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/27/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/27/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/26/2012 -
SoundsFilm03/23/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/23/2012 -
VisualPhotography, Writing03/22/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/21/2012 -
VisualPhotography03/20/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/19/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/14/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/14/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/13/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/13/2012 -
SoundsMusic, Performing Arts03/12/2012 -
VisualMusic03/09/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/07/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/06/2012 -
VisualPhotography03/05/2012 -
VisualFilm03/02/2012 -
SoundsMusic03/01/2012 -
VisualPhotography02/29/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/28/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/27/2012 -
VisualFilm02/24/2012 -
VisualFilm02/23/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/22/2012 -
VisualPhotography02/21/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/20/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/15/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/16/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/14/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/14/2012 -
VisualPhotography02/13/2012 -
VisualPhotography02/10/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/09/2012 -
VisualPhotography02/09/2012 -
VisualPhotography02/07/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/06/2012 -
VisualVisual Arts02/03/2012 -
VisualPhotography, Writing02/02/2012 -
SoundsMusic02/01/2012 -
VisualFilm01/31/2012 -
SoundsMusic1/30/2012 -
SoundsMusic01/27/2012 -
VisualVideo Arts, Film01/27/2012 -
VisualPhotography01/26/2012 -
VisualPhotography01/25/2012 -
SoundsMusic1/24/2012 -
SoundsMusic, Fine Arts, Painting1/23/2012 -
SoundsMusic1/23/2012 -
VisualFilm01/20/2012 -
SoundsMusic1/19/2012 -
VisualPhotography, Writing01/18/2012 -
SoundsMusic1/17/2012 -
VisualPhotography01/16/2012 -
SoundsMusic01/04/2012 -
SoundsMusic, Photography, Writing01/02/2012 -
But Not For Long!Writing12/26/2011 -
VisualPhotography12/23/2011 -
VisualFilm12/23/2011 -
SoundsMusic, Photography, Writing12/22/2011 -
VisualPhotography, Fine Arts, Painting12/22/2011 -
SoundsMusic12/21/2011 -
VisualFine Arts, Painting, Film12/20/2011 -
SoundsFine Arts, Music12/19/2011 -
VisualFilm12/16/2011 -
SoundsMusic12/15/2011 -
VisualPhotography12/14/2011 -
VisualPhotography, Writing12/13/2011 -
SoundsMusic, Visual Arts12/12/2011 -
VisualPhotography, Film, Fine Arts12/8/2011 -
VisualMusic, Photography, Film12/7/2011 -
VisualPhotography12/6/2011 -
soundsMusic12/5/2011 -
VisualFilm12/1/2011 -
VisualPhotography, Writing11/30/2011 -
VisualFilm11/29/2011 -
VisualPhotography11/28/2011 -
SoundsMusic11/24/2011 -
VisualIllustration, Drawing11/23/2011 -
VisualPhotography11/22/2011 -
SoundsMusic11/21/2011 -
VisualFilm11/18/2011 -
VisualPhotography, Writing11/17/2011 -
SoundsMusic11/16/2011 -
SoundsMusic11/15/2011 -
VisualPhotography11/14/2011 -
VisualFilm, Writing11/10/2011 -
SoundsMusic11/9/2011 -
SoundsMusic, Photography, Film11/8/2011 -
SoundsMusic, Photography11/4/2011 -
SoundsMusic, Photography, Film11/3/2011 -
SoundsMusic, Writing, Photography11/3/2011 -
VisualPhotography11/1/2011 -
VisualPhotography10/27/2011 -
SoundsMusic10/31/2011 -
SoundsMusic10/25/2011 -
VisualPhotography, Writing10/24/2011 -
VisualPhotography10/20/2011 -
SoundsMusic10/19/2011 -
VisualPhotography10/18/2011 -
SoundsMusic10/17/2011 -
VisualPhotography10/15/2011 -
VisualPhotography10/12/2011 -
SoundsMusic10/12/2011 -
SoundsMusic10/11/2011 -
SoundsMusic10/10/2011 -
VisualPhotography10/10/2011 -
VisualPhotography, Interview10-06-2011 -
VisualFine Arts10-06-2011 -
SoundsMusic10-05-2011 -
SoundsMusic10-05-2011 -
SoundsMusic10-05-2011 -
VisualPhotography10-04-2011 -
SoundsMusic10-03-2011 -
SoundsMusic10-03-2011 -
VisualMusic, Video09-30-2011 -
VisualPhotography09-30-2011 -
VisualPhotography09-30-2011 -
SoundsMusic09-30-2011 -
SoundsMusic, Interview09-30-2011 -
SoundsMusic09-30-2011
