Today we’d like to introduce you to Genevieve Ma’yet.
Hi Genevieve, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My journey to where I am today is a story woven together by a lifelong love for the natural world, a passion for education, and a creative awakening that grew out of a time of global isolation.
By trade and training, I am a scientist and educator. I hold a BA in biology and an MA in science education, and I spend my days teaching K-8 students about everything from magnetism to gardening. I have always been quietly fascinated by the vast, unfathomable distances of space, but for a long time, that wonder lived purely in my mind and in the classroom.
My path into photography actually began unexpectedly during the COVID-19 pandemic. While teaching my students online, I wanted to find a way to bring a piece of the outside world to them while they were stuck at home. I started recording sunrises and posting them into our google classroom. Not long after, a friend gave me some advice on what camera to buy so I could start capturing local wildlife. I was hooked.
But it wasn’t long before I turned my lens upward. Over the last couple of years, my passion exploded into the realm of deep-space astrophotography. To capture objects that exist millions of light-years away, you have to seek out absolute darkness. I began traveling to places with pristine, ink-black skies, like the Painted Hills within the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. Spending cold nights camping out under the stars, setting up telescopes and tracking stars to follow a tiny, distant patch of the sky for hours on end, completely transformed my relationship with art and science.
Today, Ma’yet Photography has grown into a certified LGBT Business Enterprise (NGLCC) that bridges the gap between cosmic artistry, education, and inclusivity. It has been a whirlwind period of growth. I recently celebrated my first solo art exhibition, Penumbra, at The Hybrid Gallery in Eugene, where I shared 50 of my deep space and wildlife photographs with our community.
Alongside the gallery, I also published my first children’s book, The Girl Who Found Her North Star, which kicked off my Aurora’s Cosmic Adventures series. What makes this project profoundly special to me is the collaboration behind it: I teamed up with illustrator Bella Vitale, a former high school student of mine who is now a fellow educator. Together, we blended Bella’s vibrant illustrations with my real-life astrophotography.
The book is a STEM-focused tale that uses Aurora and her dog, Sirius, to teach young readers not just about the cosmos, but about overcoming fear, trusting themselves, and embracing their scientific curiosity.
Ultimately, I’ve gotten to where I am today by refusing to separate my love for science from my love for art. I look at a galaxy like Andromeda and marvel at the fact that its light traveled two and a half million years just to hit my camera sensor—and my mission now is to share that exact sense of cosmic wonder with the world.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Beyond the technical and professional hurdles, my path has been shaped by profound personal struggle. As an LGBTQIA+ Transgender artist, my journey has not been one of quiet acceptance, but of fierce survival. I have had to navigate the deep pain of familial rejection—facing spaces where I was unchosen, forgotten, and told I didn’t belong by those who should have loved me most.
For a long time, the world has tried to box me in, define me, and pin me down. Chasing the stars became my refuge and my statement of independence. When you look at a nebula that spans light-years across, you realize how small human prejudices truly are. I expose my art and my true self to a world that still struggles with inclusivity, but I do so with the absolute certainty that I will never allow anyone to pin me down again. My existence, my identity, and my art belong entirely to me.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
At the core of Ma’yet Photography is a mission to capture the invisible and make the unfathomable feel intimate.
What I Do & Specialize In
I am a fine-art astrophotographer specializing in deep-space imaging. I capture cosmic structures that are completely invisible to the naked human eye—nebulae glowing with ionized gases, swirling galaxies millions of light-years away, and the stark, textured landscapes of our own moon.
Beyond technical photography, I am an author and a creator of educational art. My work lives at the intersection of rigorous science and deep emotional storytelling. I don’t just want people to look at a pretty picture of space; I want them to understand the physics of what they are seeing while feeling the profound existential freedom that comes with looking into the deep cosmos.
What I am Most Proud Of
I have two milestones that represent the absolute pinnacle of my creative journey so far:
The Penumbra Solo Exhibition: Bringing 50 of my deep-space and astro images to life at The Hybrid Gallery in Eugene was an unforgettable achievement. Seeing huge, glowing prints of galaxies that took me dozens of hours to capture under freezing desert skies hanging on gallery walls was incredibly validating.
My Children’s Book, The Girl Who Found Her North Star: This book is the first in my Aurora’s Cosmic Adventures series and is a profound point of pride. I am immensely proud of the collaboration behind it. Teaming up with illustrator Bella Vitale—a brilliant former high school student of mine who is now a fellow educator—allowed us to create something truly magical. We blended her whimsical, vibrant illustrations with my actual astrophotography data, giving children a gateway into real STEM concepts wrapped in a story about emotional resilience.
What Sets Me Apart From Others
What sets me apart is the specific lens through which I view the universe—both as a trained scientist/educator and as an openly LGBTQIA+ Transgender woman.
The world of astrophotography can often lean heavily into being a technical, male-dominated “gear-head” space. While I love the complex science and equipment required to guide a telescope for 30+ hours on a single patch of sky, I don’t stop at the data. I inject my lived experience into my art.
“For me, space is the ultimate canvas of inclusivity and freedom. The universe doesn’t have borders, boxes, or prejudices. It doesn’t try to pin you down or tell you that you don’t belong.”
When I combine my scientific knowledge to accurately reveal these celestial wonders with the raw, emotional human perspective of someone who has fought hard to live authentically, it creates something unique. I am able to take high-level science, make it accessible to a seven-year-old reader, and make it deeply moving for an art collector standing in a gallery.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
If I had to boil my success down to a formula, it would be an equal blend of raw, earthly grit and a liberating cosmic perspective.
Specifically, there are a few interconnected characteristics that keep me moving forward:
Uncompromising G.R.I.T. and Independence: Astrophotography and building a business from scratch require a stubborn refusal to quit. When you are standing in the middle of the Oregon desert at 2:00 AM in sub-zero temperatures, and a piece of equipment malfunctions after you’ve driven hours to get there, “G.R.I.T.” is the only thing that keeps you from packing up and driving home in tears. I have a fierce streak of independence. When the world—or even my own family—tried to tell me who I was supposed to be, I had to rely entirely on my own inner compass. I don’t wait for permission to exist, to create, or to succeed.
Emotional Regulation and a Sense of Humor: You cannot survive deep-space photography—or life, frankly—without these two. You have to be able to regulate your emotions when months of planning yield a ruined batch of data because of unexpected atmospheric haze. Instead of panicking or throwing in the towel, I’ve learned to take a deep breath, recalibrate, and laugh. A healthy sense of humor is my armor. If you can’t laugh at the absurdity of the hurdles life throws at you, you’ll get crushed by them.
The Ultimate Cosmic Perspective (Realizing We All Die in the End): As a scientist and an astrophotographer, I look at the absolute finality of existence not as something morbid, but as something profoundly liberating. When you spend your nights looking at galaxies that are millions of light-years away, you realize that our time on this tiny rock is incredibly brief. We all die in the end.
Knowing that our time is limited completely strips away the power of small-minded human prejudices. It makes the opinions of critics, the pain of rejection, and the boxes society tries to pin you into feel entirely insignificant.
This perspective gives me the ultimate freedom to be brave. If our time here is just a blink of an eye in cosmic history, then I am going to spend my “blink” living with absolute authenticity, chasing the stars, teaching children to be curious, and creating beautiful things on my own terms.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.mayetphotography.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mayet_photography/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mayetphotography
- Other: https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=PiisyUnzqOvG0LKep4hpCrn7yVi5LkfBCmtvzBTKpwZ
