Maria Nunes is a Trinidad and Tobago photographer, filmmaker and producer. In 2021, she was named a Laureate, Arts and Letters by the ANSA Caribbean Awards of Excellence.

She is well known for documenting aspects of Caribbean cultural heritage and is acclaimed for her work covering festivals, traditional Carnival, steelband, calypso, and the performing arts.

Her interest in the arts draws inspiration from her lifelong love of music, which has led to work very closely with Trinbagonian jazz trumpeter and bandleader, Etienne Charles, to document the creation of two of his compositional works — “San Jose Suite” and “Carnival: Sound of a People”. She has also travelled with him to West Africa, Central and South America to document some of his most recent research.

In 2018, her first book — “In a World of Their Own: Carnival Dreamers and Makers, Photographs by Maria Nunes” — was published in Trinidad and Tobago by Robert and Christopher Publishers. Since 2019, she has expanded her documentation of Carnival traditions to Grenada, Dominica and Montserrat, and will continue to explore the carnival traditions of the Caribbean as a major focus in her work.

Her longstanding work in documenting steelpan culture in Trinidad and Tobago has grown to include producing a series of digital video projects for Mark Loquan Music as part of his “A Better Tomorrow” initiative: “Kareem Brown” (2021), “Women in Pan” (2022), “Duvone Stewart: The Man Behind the Music” (2023), and “Panyard Universe” (2024).