Hello! I’m Meg, an international award-winning portrait photographer based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where I live on a hobby farm with my husband, five children, and far too many chickens to reasonably explain.

My work is rooted in cinematic Americana and home life, though not the polished ideal. I’m drawn to the mess, the humor, the nostalgia, and the quiet absurdities of domestic life, using color and storytelling to create images that feel both familiar and slightly uncanny. Through a lens shaped by motherhood, rural living, and memory, I explore the tension between tradition and individuality, often blurring the line between reality and fiction. I regularly share personal work and glimpses of everyday life over on Instagram at @meg_nlo.

Though my love for photography began in childhood, hand-developing film in a darkroom, I initially pursued a degree in advertising and public relations before eventually returning to photography in a deeper and far more personal way after becoming a mother.

Today, I teach workshops throughout the U.S. and internationally, encouraging artists to find meaning and story within the everyday. I’m also the founder of Yesteryear Retreats, an immersive creative retreat centered around storytelling, and host of The Creative Thread Podcast, where I explore creativity, inspiration, and the artistic process through conversation.

I’m proud to work alongside brands such as Sigma, Profoto, Imagen, and Adobe, and I’m also a member of the Society of XXV, an international collective representing some of the finest photographers in the world.

I also volunteer with The Gold Hope Project, offering portrait sessions to families facing pediatric cancer

Artist Statement

My work explores the tension between tradition and individuality through constructed narratives rooted in home life, Americana, and everyday experience.

Using color, symbolism, and carefully staged scenes, I transform ordinary settings into photographs that feel both familiar and slightly uncanny. I am drawn to the rituals, expectations, and contradictions that shape our lives, particularly within the context of family, domesticity, and rural culture.

Many of my images begin with something commonplace. Through humor and narrative, these scenes become a way of examining larger ideas about expectation, resilience, conformity, independence, and the stories we inherit about how life is supposed to look.

At the heart of my work is an interest in contradiction. I am drawn to the space where affection and frustration coexist, where humor softens difficult truths, and where the familiar becomes slightly strange. By blending observation with imagination, I create images that question accepted narratives while finding beauty, absurdity, and meaning within the everyday.