Meg Birnbaum

Meg Birnbaum is photographer from Massachusetts with a passion for the American pastoral.  She has attended the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts, were she received her Master of Arts degree.  She went on to become the chairperson of their illustration department for a brief time.  Recently, she has been a teaching assistant at Lesley University. 

One of her most recent portfolios of photographs is one she took over a two-year period at fourteen summer fairs in New England.  Those fairs ranged in size from small 4-H fairs to giant expositions.  Meg found herself smitten once again with the "fair scene". "I was surprised and delighted by the open and generous sharing of information from all ages of the 4-H community," explains Meg. "The deep connection with their animals was particularly intriguing and enviable to me."   Meg found a range of elements exist in harmony against a backdrop of gleeful screams, bells and whistles and the aroma of fried dough mixed with the pungent essence of livestock and exotic poultry.  Her photographs included on Cow Art and More present an emotional and somewhat wistful visual record of this long-standing American tradition.

Meg purposely chose to photograph in black and white using extremely basic, plastic toy cameras. "I purposely wanted to lose sharp detail and instead capture a fleeting moment, a broad stroke, the distillation of the experience in the hope of capturing iconic imagery. The fairs have changed so little over the last century I felt that using toy cameras and film were a good match for capturing these timeless activities and that these tools work well to go beyond documentation and instead illustrate the memory," states Meg. 

Awards and Honors

• Four solo exhibitions in Massachusetts
• Participant of twenty-five different group exhibitions nationwide
• Numerous awards from galleries, photographic societies and arts centers
• Works included in Light Leaks magazine and The Harvard Review
• Photography included in several permanent collections including the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas