Mara Voss, Alderport, Maine

A photographer who prefers waiting.

A woman in a dark sweater turned away toward a tall window.

Not a portrait of me. A portrait of a friend, from the Quiet Hours series.

I make quiet pictures of people and places, slowly, for clients who would rather be looked at honestly than flatteringly.

I grew up in a house with one camera and a drawer of contact sheets. I studied photography in the evenings while working at a regional newspaper, and spent a decade making pictures against a deadline before I understood that the ones I kept were the ones nobody had asked for.

Since 2019 I have worked on my own from a studio above a bookbinder on Salt Row. I take on about twenty-two weddings a year, a handful of editorial commissions and a few brand days, and I keep the rest of the calendar free for personal work.

I shoot on film and digital, almost always in available light, and I stay as far from the people I photograph as the lens allows. Nobody has ever told me they wished I had been closer.

How I work

  1. 01 Look before lifting the cameraThe first twenty minutes of any shoot are for walking around, talking and noticing where the light is. I take almost no pictures during that time.
  2. 02 Stay a field awayThe longer the lens, the more people forget it. I would rather lose a little sharpness than gain a pose.
  3. 03 Give people something to doNobody can stand still and look natural. Walk, carry, read, open a window. The picture is what happens in between.
  4. 04 Edit like a ruthless friendYou will get fewer pictures than you expect and look at each of them longer. Everything else is cut.

What I carry

Light, mostly. Everything fits in one bag, and most of it is old.

Film, 35mm
35mm rangefinder with 35mm f/2 and 50mm f/1.4 lenses400 ISO colour negative is the default stock; black and white on request.
Film, medium format
Medium-format 6x7 SLR with 90mm f/3.5Weddings, portraits and anything that will be printed large.
Digital
Two full-frame mirrorless bodiesGraded to match the film so a gallery looks like one afternoon.
Lenses
24mm f/3.5, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8, 135mm f/2No zooms. I walk instead.
Light
One small reflector, one battery light for emergenciesI have used the light on four shoots in five years.
Printing
Pigment printer on cotton rag paperPrints on the Prints page are made and signed in the studio.

Clients and commissions

Fernhill Roasters, Oak & Ember Ceramics, Pale Hour, Halvard & Sons Tailoring, The Tidewater Inn, Northlight Journal, Brindle Books, Saltmarsh Bakery.

All fictional names, shown here as plain text.

  • 2026Concrete Season, an eight-page fashion story for Pale Hour.
  • 2025Fernhill Mornings: four rolls of 35mm over a single shift, now on the shop door.
  • 2024First solo exhibition of Quiet Hours, at a bookbinder on Salt Row.
  • 2019Left the newspaper. Opened the studio.

If this sounds right, write to me.