Mascha Joustra graduated in May 2015 at the Fotoacademie Amsterdam, specializing in documentary and portrait series.

"I have the urge to tell and am interested in observing human behavior. I try to highlight human emotions in my work and at the same time I see beauty in objects or nature.
You could say my work is social documentary, but I think I use my images as metaphors to tell my own story. But the images are never staged or altered, that would feel wrong. It sometimes feels like a relief to express feelings through images. I work with different cameras, analogue and digital, whatever is on hand.."
Mascha self published a large series of photographs documented in a voluminous photobook called ‘Elders’ (‘Elsewhere’) designed by SYB. In this large series of photographs her quest is finding out whether a historic dualism in religion in the Netherlands is still dominating the different regions.

In 2015 the book has been shortlisted for the ‘Unseen Dummy Award “ in Amsterdam,