Melissa Mercier: Perfectly Private – 4

I feel lucky to be back in my hometown of Montmagny this year for mother's day spending time with two wonderful women. My mother and my grand-mother are both very special and important people in my life. I have always considered them best friends as well as family. Montmagny is a very popular hunting town [...]

Melissa Mercier: Perfectly Private – 3

Here’s something that you maybe didn’t know about me – I design, print and trim my own business cards. I also make greeting cards that I like to send to special people. To compliment my series “Irrational Fear Of Confined Spaces” I also make a limited edition of small signed books. I believe in consistency [...]

Melissa Mercier: Perfectly Private – 2

I was reading a very interesting article analysing the ‘Instagram obsession’ and the nostalgia that comes with it. Some people are dubbing the application “the Auto-Tune of photography”. Others say that it is tapping into the sense “that a photograph is itself a precious object”. I find this statement quite intriguing as artist like myself [...]

Melissa Mercier: Perfectly Private – 1

I have always made it a point to protect my private life. Part of my upbringing instilled a strong sense of keeping certain things private and carefully choosing what to make public. This has become an interesting paradox as I’ve grown to become very active online via my facebook, twitter, pinterest and blog. It seems [...]

A Day in the Life of Italy – Sette (Corriere della Sera)

As every year the editors of Sette assign me with many other photographers for a picture story on the special ”a day in the life of Italy”  based on  an idea of ​​the chief director Giuseppe di Piazza. This year it happens on Jan. 12th. I chose to do a portrait suggesting them famous names. I put down a [...]

Melissa Mercier: Dextrophobia – Fear of things to the right side of the body

A music box should represent comfort, security, hope and dreams, but if you suffer from dextrophobia and it’s placed on the right side of your body even this innocent children’s toy becomes unbearable. People who suffer from this phobia fear anything placed on their right side. Odd, but true. I find this phobia very unusual. [...]

Melissa and the self portrait #19: Scolionophobia; The fear of school.

Remember your first day of school? That day is filled with excitement, fear, change, bravery and the crossing of a threshold. I am a bilingual Canadian, but I grew up speaking only french in the province of Quebec. This self portrait reminds me of the courage that it took to leave my small home town [...]

Melissa and the self portrait #18:Looking into a mirror

Looking into a mirror is like peering into the eyes of God. There are no lies, no places to hide from the truth that comes from within. I imagine the fear of looking into a mirror is really the fear of facing one’s self. I played with these ideas in this self portrait, keeping the [...]

Melissa and the self portrait #15 –Clinophobia

One of those hot summer nights; too sweaty to sleep under the sheets, yet the silky cotton is too soft to resist. This image explores Clinophobia, the fear of going to bed incorporating the feeling of spying or being spied upon depending on the viewer’s perspective. For this image, I used: Hasselblad body Phase One [...]

MSoX meets Hasselblad @ Photokina 2010

The MSoX met Photographer Relations Manager Christian Nørgaard from Hasselblad at Photokina 2010.