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

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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

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St Agatha by Piero della Francesca

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Cafe Singer by Edgar Degas

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Self Portrait by Judith Leyster

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Absinthe Drinker by Pablo Picasso

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The Son of Man by Rene Magritte

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Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

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Whistler’s Mother by James McNeill Whistler

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Self Portrait by Rembrandt

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Rembrandt_van_Rijn_-_Self-Portrait_(1659)

Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli

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Mezzetin by Jean-Antoine Watteau

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The Scream by Edvard Munch

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You can find more of Hofstadter over on her website.


Image credits: Photographs by Laura Hofstadter and used with permission

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