“Photography was the way I understood my world.”

Morgan Maher

Five years into her photography career, the 31-year-old has become a darling of young stars such as Clairo, Rachel Sennott, and Emily Ratajkowski

By Amanda Lee Burkett

In July, I walked into a Red Hook studio where 50s music was blaring and a couple of guys were wheeling around in chairs, waiting. Over in hair and makeup sat the singer Clairo. I’d seen her a few days earlier, for drinks at KGB Bar, to celebrate the birthday of our shared friend, the photographer Morgan Maher.

Thirty-one years prior, Maher was born in New Market, Maryland. She left home in her late teens to study photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design, before moving to New York to pursue a career in fashion. There was a stint at Marc Jacobs, and another assisting the famed casting director Anita Bitton. Her last hurrah in fashion came in 2020, as a V.I.P. and influence manager at Tory Burch. On weekends, she shot her own projects—a pastime she’d started in middle school.