I started my photography career out of grad school in Boston in the '90s
​as a product photographer for a design firm, but being confined to a studio bored me. I started freelancing for a local arts and music paper shooting live bands, which I loved but couldn't pay my rent on front row seats and image credits. Then I focused on high-end weddings and events shooting in a similar photojournalistic style and the porridge was just right. Over the past 25 years, my work has appeared in wedding magazines, art books and received mainstream press. In 2008 I was featured as one of the top twenty wedding photographers in the world. I loved being a rockstar wedding photographer.
​MELISSA
MERMIN
​​
visual storyteller
unfiltered
artist
The 2008 post-economic crash combined with the rise of digital cameras getting cheaper/better created an explosion of online visual talent (AKA pre-Instagram content creators.) The photography industry became even more saturated under its own weight and my hot career began to cool as I battled depression and personal struggles. I left my then-fiancé and business partner, moved from Boston to San Francisco to re-set and figure out who I was.
Going into the darkness turned on a light of introspection, personal growth and healing.
As I started shooting fewer weddings, I hustled doing other jobs- everything from entry-levels sales gigs to becoming a licensed California real estate agent for a few months, but I hated sales and working for someone else. I started attending workshops on love, intimacy and sexuality. I took an intensive training course at IASHS and received certification as a Somatic Sex Educator, Neotantra bodyworker and I taught kink/sensual domination and erotic embodiment workshops. I also became politically active: I was part of a panel of speakers on stigma and sex worker and LGBTQ rights. I spoke at debates, fought for justice, women's healthcare, organized film, art festivals and benefits, protested sexual violence, celebrated pleasure and marched at Pride (I do think the Rainbow Brite unicorn costume is my spirit animal ; )
Berkeley therapist vibes;) Home page from my site erosevolution.com, 2017
Working in the field of sexuality and "shadow" felt like the wedding industry flipped on its head which was refreshing-- it wasn't the perfect white dress on the perfect heart emoji day, happily ever after because love will solve all problems. (Not once have I ever seen a wedding publication write about sex in couples' relationships, yet sex and money are the two issues that drive couples to separate and we're told never to talk about them in polite company!) It was an amazing feeling to know the impact of my work made a huge difference in my clients lives-- to break free from shame, connect with their pleasure and to live their authentic lives out and proud. But *I* needed to live my authentic life. I missed being behind a camera and creating art. That was my true passion.
I shifted my focus from documentary weddings to sensual boudoir portraiture with a body-positive feminist perspective.
When I pivoted from seeing clients as a sex educator, I wanted to create fine art nude and sensual lingerie boudoir images that were for every body. I wanted them to feel completely comfortable with me before and after the shoot (especially hearing the horror stories I heard from models working behind closed doors with male photographers.) I started photographing my sex worker friends who needed fresh branding content and women/femmes who wanted to step out of their comfort zone and feel beautiful, liberated and safe to show off their sensual side. I needed a new name to distinguish it from my wedding photography-- I identified with the myth of the mermaid (my last name sounds like 'merman' and I felt like half of me was part of a secret underworld hidden away from my wedding community.) The perfect name was born: SirenSong Boudoir Photography
​In mid -2024, I had a third evolution, a re-evolution coming back to my photojournalist roots
My third re-evolution is full circle comeback but now upgraded to Melissa 3.0-- with perspective, wisdom and a deeper appreciation of what it means to be a working artist. During the pandemic I started taking courses with a life coach and had this epiphany: my passion, my purpose, what I'm great at and what the world needs was sitting in front of me all this time, I had just turned my back on it. I don't regret taking a sabbatical to examine my life and trying on other careers. I'm back in my element as a wiser, more experienced wedding photojournalist, filmmaker and sex-positive boudoir photographer.
TOO MANY PHOTOGRAPHERS ON THE DANCE FLOOR?
Here's a very demure professional image of me working an event from 2019. I was hired as the sole photographer/media person for this company's annual party, which I did year after year for a decade. As I was setting up to do portraits, there was suddenly a crew of Paparazzi and live content creators hired by another PR firm that swarmed in on the area I was shooting (hence my WTF face.) There were so many of us, women dressed all in black carrying professional gear in such a tight space it made it nearly impossible to not be in each others images. Are there too many photographers in the world chasing their dreams in a tight space? Probably. But in life, if you want something bad enough you gotta roll with the punches and take your shot.
2024 was my year of the comeback. I worked with a great web designer (who knows Wordpress and SEO) for several months, my wedding photography website was birthed and I'm so proud of it. I joined Instagram this year for the very first time as a wedding photographer. I'm starting to connect with my local (Portland) wedding industry community and re-connect with San Francisco photographer colleagues from a decade ago. It feels very familiar and very weird at the same time, kind of like going to your college reunion with the same hallways and rooms you remember but the only person there that aged is you. It also feels like I exited a time travel machine a decade into the future and I'm trying to catch up, figuring out how to navigate social media's algorithm while trying to stay in integrity of who I am as an artist.*
It's been a long, strange trip that I needed so I could re-set and appreciate being home. I'm also grateful for the last decade trying on new hats, new identities, wild adventures and my sex educator, queerdo sex worker-rights community of badass babes. If I just stayed in my vanilla wedding photography world, I wouldn't have all the juicy stories that will fill chapters in my memoir (and I also discovered late in life I love creative writing.)
​
More facts about Melissa
​
-
Rides a bicycle almost every day
-
Has 27 vintage cameras on display
-
Devoted plant mom and obsessed gardener
-
Knows too much about managing an Airbnb
-
Most creative between midnight and 3am
-
Can do a spot-on Boston and New York accent
-
Starting to accept her gray hair
-
Loves dad jokes and bad puns
-
Still thinks PB & J sandwiches are the best
-
Proud cat lady
-
Ever evolving, always a work in progress
-
Believes courage & honesty will set us free
*Social media doesn't like art, they like 15 second clips of women dancing in their modern sexy kitchens with positive affirmation words floating by while kitten memes bob their heads to the catchy Chappell Roan song which makes it cute and funny and somehow...addictive and profitable? If you made it this far reading my site, congratulations! You and I clearly connect, so hire me for your destination wedding next year in the Maldives, your elopement next month in the Willamette valley or your blow-out 40th birthday in Tahiti with the Kardashians. Contact me here and we'll make some pictures together.