Melanie Dunea, whose shape-shifting career has spanned from food photography to sittings with Anthony Bourdain, Oprah and Marina Abramović, is broadening her roster of subjects to include the masses.
Enter Mood Studios, Dunea’s latest venture that allows her to “make art and glamour more accessible,” she says, with the concept being like that of a high-end photo booth where she can snap portraits of attendees and print them on-site.
The idea was born out of a string of previous projects called “Don’t Play With Your Food,” wherein Dunea shot various foods that were then printed and shown on-site that same night.
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“It was the first time I exposed myself behind the scenes. I had opened the door for new people to be in front of my lens,” she says. “With the invention of the iPhone, photography has become a lot more accessible. I’ve been classically trained, I have a good education on lighting, and I thought it could be cool to share this more elevated experience.”
It’s also since evolved into private events and different experimentations with the form, as well as a residency at New York’s Zero Bond.
“At the Zero Bond residency, I ‘remixed’ photos I took,” Dunea explains. “I set up a version of my Tribeca studio, I shot people, I ripped up the photos and restitched them so that everybody could have an original piece of art.”
Those pieces follow a Cubist sensibility and an eye for all that glitters, such as a self-portrait she made on her birthday of various headshots sliced and reassembled with gold and silver tape.
Showcasing her own process allows her to channel that creativity with a wide range of subjects. For Dunea, opening her creative process to public viewership took guts. It also brought a breath of fresh air to her craft.
“When I did ‘Don’t Play With Your Food’ in Los Angeles, I had all these super famous people watching me. It is very vulnerable, but it’s also really nice because it adds a different level of collaboration. It’s not me taking a photo that’s art directed by an art director,” she says. “It changes the dynamic, and it definitely makes you sweat.”
Mood Studios has also opened up the breadth of whom and what Dunea gets to shoot. Not that her roster of subjects needs it.
“I’ve bought Big Macs for Naomi Campbell and lighters for Keith Richards,” she says, reflecting on her time as a studio assistant. “With Mood Studios it’s that people want to be there, they’re in front of my lens, and they’re excited. When I photograph a celebrity on a press junket, they’re moving from hotel room to hotel room, I have two minutes to get the shot and they’ve done 10 shoots already that day.
“I’ve photographed Taylor Swift. Why shouldn’t I photograph other people?” she continues. “There’s room for selfies, there’s room for Snapchats. But I think about letting anyone have access to me, and it’s a window into the superstar world for them. They can feel like Taylor Swift for five minutes.”
Dunea is encouraged by how photography has proliferated in the social media golden age. “It’s fabulous. I joined Instagram right away,” she says. “All of what I do is communicating through photographs, and it’s an incredible tool to share and to exchange. I’m also seeing a return from clients as people understand the difference between something shot on an iPhone and something shot properly.”