Photograph by Amber McCaig

“I just love people and photographing people, but especially just real people and getting to know them by delving a bit deeper and trying to explore their environment and their life.”

PSC graduate Amber McCaig, is one of the 21 major photographers invited to showcase her most recent work at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. Having presented her previous projects in London, Tokyo and Sydney, she now is set to launch her series ‘Americana Now’ on the 22nd of August in the Core Program of the festival. Amber is well-renowned in the photography circuit and remains to be a huge inspiration to the many students still studying at PSC – after all, she has been a finalist in the Renaissance Photography Prize, won 3 silver medals at the Canon APPA awards and 2 silver medals at the Victorian Student of the Year Awards!

Apart from having a rich portfolio while studying at PSC; experimenting in still life photography (which was as thought provoking, imaginative and symbolic as her portrait photography) and finding her niche, her career has had a remarkable turnaround as a result of achieving her degree. Amber is currently a producer for Andrew Richey Photography, and she manages Ripe Studios in South Yarra.

Amber’s ‘Americana Now’ series is an exploration of the quirks that people acquire and how they form attachments to certain ways of life that may seem unexpected to ‘outsiders’. Amber recently expressed that her purpose with the series was to question why certain people felt so strongly about the 50’s and 60’s (in particular), and why they wanted to “embody it physically and mentally”. Through her work, we are undoubtedly exposed to an unseen community of individuals who celebrate a shared sentiment of nostalgia. Amber’s work is insightful and daring, as we get a glimpse of the personal spaces of her subjects, whose stories unfurl before us, frame by frame.

Experience ‘Americana Now’ at the BIFB this Saturday and catch Amber herself at the Launch Program.