Constance McDonald has a gift for discovering the places where reality begins to feel unstable. One moment she is photographing teenagers at a long-hair competition in Lithuania; the next, she is descending into a 21-metre labyrinth dug beneath a house in Armenia. Online, she calls herself @princess.constance, though her kingdom is less crown-and-scepter than archive-and-obsession: shell grottoes, seaweed, Austrian Empresses and the eccentric lives of strangers.

Her work resists neat categories: part folklore, part research, part nomadic lifestyle. What binds it is a devotion to the overlooked — the odd detail, the eccentric ritual. She pursues these with the fervour of someone who has glimpsed a world governed not by logic, but by wonder.

In conversation with Constance from Armenia, we spoke about the mythology of hair, finding communities in far-flung places, her love for Leonard Cohen and her obsession with animalistic footwear.

Your Instagram bio lists you as a ‘Photographer, Researcher, Writer, Long Hair Enthusiast and Angel’s Advocate’. Do you think it's difficult to distill exactly what you do?

I follow my passions like the law. My research has a lot to do with how I find a place, and how I get to a place, and why that interests me, so I'm always trying to write a master list of everything that I'm really interested in – like shell grottos, seaweed, cyanotypes, blue. The terminology that I like to use is ‘self-contained worlds’. For example, I’m currently here in Armenia, and I went to this place where a man dug a 21-metre labyrinth under his house. Just because his wife asked him to make a little basement for string potatoes, and he went crazy with that.

Have you always been creatively inclined?

My parents would say that they are not creative. My Mum is a doctor – she delivered babies – and my Dad is a geologist and an accountant. But the way that they see the world and live their lives is very focused on their interests. My Dad would always take us on road trips around New Zealand to go and see different rocks. That's where I got my love of shells and research and taking the long way around everywhere.

Did growing up in New Zealand have any effect on your work?

Absolutely. Obviously, the nature there is incredible. I spent a lot of time at lakes and on road trips growing up, so it doesn’t worry me now when it's going to take me hours and hours to get to a certain place. I'll do anything to get to it.

“I'm always trying to write a master list of everything that I'm really interested in – like shell grottos, seaweed, cyanotypes, blue.” 

What were some of the earliest things that you were drawn to photographing?

My first paid gig was when I was babysitting, and the mother of the children asked me to take photographs of her two girls. I got to pick out the dresses and the location. I loved that.

Were there any books or artists or films that sort of helped to form your creative tastes?

Heavenly Creatures, Picnic at Hanging Rock. Julia Margaret Cameron, the Victorian-era photographer. She would always photograph these women in different mythological settings. And she was really messy about the way that she took photographs – she would get her hair and her fingerprints on the glass plates.

You sought out a long hair competition in Lithuania to photograph a few years back. How did you end up there?

I’ve had long hair for maybe 10 years now, and I wanted to seek out a community. I searched online and found all of these people in their little threaded forum posts, but I really wanted to see something that was in real life. I would do all this research on events. I wanted to go to something, but it would always be a dead end – the event would always have stopped in 2001 or 2003. I was so close. I would email old contestants asking “Is it still running? Do you still compete?” And they'd email back like, “Oh, no girl! That competition hasn't run for 20 years!” And so, I just kept on.

Eventually I found this hair care convention – like an expo – in Lithuania. One of the little events listed there was a long hair contest. I didn't really understand what it was, so I emailed the expo they were like, “Yep, cool. See you there if you want to come!”. So, I booked my tickets with a friend. We were on the plane together, and I was just like, “I don't know if this long hair competition is real!”

I arrived in Lithuania and the next day was the competition. I just followed along on Google maps to this convention hall and, arriving at the door, we walked through all of these stalls of shampoo advertisements. I just kept thinking “Seriously, is it here? Is it real?” Finally, we came into this room and there were all these long-haired women. I was like, “Oh, it's true! It's actually true. I can't believe it!”

What was that like, finding that sort of connection and community with people so far from home?

It was so funny, because the first thing I noticed was that everyone was in denim, and I was wearing a pink princess dress. It turns out that there was a theme and it was ‘denim’.

Were you able to communicate much with everyone given the language barrier?

With some people, yes. The Father of some twins was really good at speaking English, and he was like, “What are you doing here? What's going on?” Mostly it was just gestural and using keywords to communicate.

“I guess, having my hair long like this, it kind of feels like I'm wearing a fur coat all the time.” 

What surprised you most when documenting that experience?

I didn't expect it to be like a pageant. I think I expected it to be a bit more sterile – like a vegetable competition. They introduced you and where you were from, and then you go out and do a spin, then two people come and measure.

I noticed that they were so much more disciplined about their hair – they never have it out. It’s always up to protect it, so that it grows longer. My hair is down to my bum, and it probably won't grow any longer, because I have it all out and I'll be sitting on it and stuff like that, so it just naturally breaks. It was really interesting to see people being really, amazingly careful with their hair.

In the long hair community, there’s a fight about whether you have straight, blunt ends, or whether you let it naturally taper off. I'm a natural taper off-er. But some people really don't like that, and some people really don't like the straight cut. But, the taper off is called ‘fairy tale ends’.

Were there any challenges that you had in trying to photograph that while you were also competing?

The first time I went, my friend was in the audience, and she would video me on the handi-cam. I would pop to her and get my camera and photograph when I could. But I was much more motivated to be part of the community than to document it that time. Which is why, the second time, I still competed, but I was able to capture more because I knew what was going on.

I was able to talk to this guy again for the second time – the Dad of the twins – and asked if we could put his girls into these Lithuanian and New Zealand designers’. We had about 10 minutes to shoot it and that was such a highlight for me. I had met them four years before, when they were really little, and now they were teenagers. Now they have short hair.

You get a real sense of that intimacy in your work. How important is it for you to get to know your subjects’ stories close-up?

It's so important to me and that's the reason that I was there. Being in amongst this community, physically, was such an honour. I was completely blown away by it. I care about this competition so much, and I care about this community so much. I had a really amazing call with this guy, Anthony Thompson, the other day, who's a veteran in the long hair community. He was telling me about when, in the 90s, these communities first went online. And about how he collects all these long hair images – like Victorian images from eBay. I think hair is so symbolic, in a way.

I know people say that it holds memory – or that it’s connected to our spirituality. Do you think there's any truth to that?

Yeah, I definitely get that people feel that. I think, for me, it feels like another limb. It's also a massive part of my visual identity, and way of seeing myself. I think that while my sister, who's also a redhead, would always dye her hair all the time, I wanted to lean into it and have it long. It was a way to be undeniably a redhead which, during my time of growing up, wasn't an overly positive thing to be.

I was reading a bit of your Substack, and one of your posts is enticingly called “I made $300 brushing my hair on Skype for 30 minutes”. What's the story behind that?

In the undercurrent of the long hair community there are the Fetish lurkers. And I guess I just wanted to lean into it one day. So, I just went to, like, ‘longhairfetish.com’ and I made an anonymous profile. A guy was requesting someone to brush their hair, so I created a lot of parameters around when I was messaging him – like I was not going to have my face in it, and no audio, and he had to transfer me half at the beginning and half at the end. I thought that I could do it multiple times, but I think he would probably go bankrupt.

You also talk about your affinity for animalistic footwear. Are there any dream pairs that you're still dying to get your hands on?

Oh my gosh. Okay, so I would just love another pair of these [she shows me her shoes – white, furry yeti-style boots]. What would be awesome is if they were my hair colour.

You mentioned some Alexander McQueen 2024 hoof shoes as well, which were great.

Yes, yes. And there were these ‘Big Foot’ boots from the 1970s. I guess having my hair long like this, it kind of feels like I'm wearing a fur coat all the time.

Do you think that there's like a connecting thread between all of your different creative endeavours?

Well, I think something that's always really interested me are people who are eccentric. I just love eccentricity. I love people living their life in a way that feels like they march to the beat of their own drum. It’s the most attractive thing that will just make me travel for miles. It feeds my soul.

Who is your North Star of eccentricity?

Leonard Cohen is my absolute favourite person in the world, and he's definitely an eccentric. I have discovered different things about him that inspire me a lot. Like, for example, he would always include photographs of himself inside of his letters, and then write notes on the back. And I love letter writing. I guess I just love it when people take a lot of time doing something that other people might rush. There are no shortcuts – like making a 21-metre tunnel under a house. I am inspired by the dedication and time spent doing things.

My long hair queen is Empress Sissi – she had super-duper long hair and was from Austria. She would have these little stars that were made of diamonds and pearls and wear them in her hair as hair clips. When she was talking to someone at a party, and she was getting along with them, she would take a hair clip out and give it to them as a token of her friendship. I got to go to Austria and do a little bit of a pilgrimage around where she lived and see her hairbrush.

“I just love eccentricity. I love people living their life in a way that feels like they march to the beat of their own drum. It’s the most attractive thing that will just make me travel for miles. It feeds my soul.” 

Is there anything that you're still reaching toward with your work?

Well, I'm going back to the long hair competition in November, and I will compete again. I'm just really excited to go there for a third time. I want to create something from the three times and put it together, but also to bring in other people, because I love collaborating, and I love other peoples’ unique skills and way that they see the world. I'm very nomadic. I spend maybe six or seven or eight months abroad, and then I come back home to New Zealand for like, two months before I go out again.

What are some of the most special places that you've been to in all those travels?

One of my favourite places that just changed my life was in England. There’s this house in Margate called the Shell Grotto. I’m really into shell mosaics – not making them myself, just admiring other peoples’, because I move around too much. When I was in Melbourne, I went to Ballarat, and there’s this woman called Brigitte and she's the caretaker of this old shell mosaic house there. I sent her a letter, and you know, she didn't reply to me, but I just went there anyway, and then she welcomed me in. It was really amazing. She was telling me about the shell grottoes of the world and how Margate was the tip top, of course. They don't know who made the shell grotto or when and why. There are all these kinds of lovely little mysteries around it.

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