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Infinite loops on Instagram bring Mike Mellia’s Daily Self Portraits to Life
That one time I was an ad man.
That one time I was out of the office.
Mike Mellia is well known for his photography work in fashion and advertising, but it’s his latest personal social media project that is giving us an inside peek into this New York-based photographer’s quirky side.
A selfie a day keeps the doctor away shows Mellia’s beautiful photography on Instagram, with a selection of his images turned into surreal video loops.
“In the back of my mind, I always had the preconception that some people were drawn to Instagram for the sole purpose of taking thousands of egomaniacal selfies, so I wanted to have my own “ironic” Instagram profile along these lines,” Mellia tells us.
“I began overwhelming my Instagram feed with ridiculous over-the-top self- portraits accompanied by captions of extreme megalomania or with the humor of deadpan indifference. I think it was so much fun because we were kind of all “in on the joke” together, and the format of a visual plus a caption is what Instagram is all about.”
Since Mellia usually works in the fashion and advertising space, these influences subtly crept into his selfies and the visuals he was producing became “a little surreal and unusual.”
“I became obsessed with the idea that something so normal can become abnormal,” he continues. “In this way, the video loops were an extension of my storytelling style, subtle but with an underlying tension.”
A selfie a day keeps the doctor away is, therefore, a fun way to see how far Mellia can take the joke and irony even further.
“Plus,” he says, “I recently had a small daughter, and now that I have Instagram, I won’t be one of those dads who doesn’t know how to turn on his iPhone.”
You can follow Mike Mellia’s ongoing selfie project on Instagram.
That one time I had dinner at Ralph Lauren’s house.
That one time I finished the Internet.
That one time practice made perfect.
That one time I taught literature humanities at a small liberal arts college.
That one time I ate fluffy marshmallows all afternoon in the Swiss Alps.
All images © Mike Mellia
