This 65-Year-Old Photographer is Recreating Famous Paintings as Self-Portraits

“Stages” is a photo project by 65-year-old photographer Laura Hofstadter, who recreated some of history’s famous portrait paintings as creative self-portraits.

Each photo is the result of carefully finding a suitable location or creating a set, putting together an accurate costume, gathering props, and matching the framing, angle, and lighting. Hofstadter uses her age as one of them main themes in the series.

“In our society, as women get older and get to my age and beyond, they become invisible,” Hofstadter tells The Huffington Post. “So I liked the idea of forcing people to look at a 65-year-old woman by inserting myself into a classic image.”

Here’s a look at photos in the project, with each one paired with the original painting that it’s based on:

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer

St Agatha by Piero della Francesca

Cafe Singer by Edgar Degas

Self Portrait by Judith Leyster

Absinthe Drinker by Pablo Picasso

The Son of Man by Rene Magritte

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

Whistler’s Mother by James McNeill Whistler

Self Portrait by Rembrandt

Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli

Mezzetin by Jean-Antoine Watteau

The Scream by Edvard Munch

You can find more of Hofstadter over on her website.

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Image credits: Photographs by Laura Hofstadter and used with permission