How Music Photographer Mel D. Cole Made His Mark
To see more of Mel’s work, check out @meldcole on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.
In 2005, Mel D. Cole (@meldcole) was working at a pharmaceutical company, wearing khakis and polo shirts, and transferring the organization’s physical files into digital copies. Five years in, he decided enough was enough and quit.
“It was the best-worst decision I ever made in my life,” says Mel, who was then hustling as a photographer on the side, taking photos at concerts and around New York City. “I didn’t have unemployment. I was eating Oodles of Noodles again. It was bad. I didn’t know how I was going to pay rent.”
Mel managed to luck out and find a better job with more flexible hours (and no dress code), allowing him to continue to shoot while making a steady paycheck. He would eventually quit that job too, but this time to focus on photography. By then he had become known as the “house photographer” for the Roots, a gig that began in 2006, at Radio City Music Hall, while he was still shooting part-time and working his desk job.
“It was just me and another photographer, and security thought I was official, so I just played the part,” says Mel, who later posted the pictures to the site Okayplayer, which was founded by Roots drummer Questlove. “One thing led to another, people got aware of it and the next thing you know I am friends with Questlove and off to shoot Diddy.”
It was an impressive landing point for someone who was essentially self-taught. “I didn’t know anything about photography,” admits Mel, who grew up in Syracuse, New York, before making his way down to Jersey City, New Jersey, where he has lived for the last 13 years. “It wasn’t a mistake, but I just started shooting by going to shows because of my love of music. I wanted to relive the moment, so I would take disposable cameras with me.”
Mel never assumed he would be a photographer, but he knew he had talent, particularly when comparing his work to that of the big music publications. “I was like, I think these photos that I have are just as good as what I am seeing in these magazines,” he says.
While he still loves shooting music, Mel is once again looking for the next big challenge. That’s why he started up a new account dedicated to his work around the homeless, where he takes portraits of people on the street and talks to them about their lives and struggles.
“I always want to be a music photographer, that’s never going to change,” he says. “But I want to do different things with the camera. I want to do more photojournalism. I want to travel the world. I want to go to places where I am not normally accepted. So that’s the challenge for me, just to do more. And maybe I can do that through my love of music. Music is the universal language — everybody loves some form of it.”
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