Photographer Uses Tinder to Meet Portrait Subjects
A photographer has created a unique portrait series by photographing men she met on the dating app Tinder.
Mel McVeigh’s photo series A Chance of Love came about after she changed her Tinder bio to simply ask: “Can I take your portrait?”
“For me, Tinder was an unsuccessful dating app until I changed my profile and created a conversation,” McVeigh writes for Insider.
How Did the Series Start?
McVeigh was attending a photo workshop led by notable French photographer Claudine Doury who suggested that McVeigh use Tinder as a way of finding photographic subjects.
It took a couple of days to find a match, but soon McVeigh found herself driving from the South of France to Belgium so she could meet a total stranger and capture his photo.
McVeigh says there was no spark with the Belgian bachelor but meeting him and taking his portrait was a fun day.
The photographer expanded the project and traveled to Spain, the U.K., and Australia to take portraits of men she had met on Tinder.
“I met artists, producers, cinematographers, travelers, and creatives,” she writes for Insider. “By asking an inherently creative question in my profile, it attracted men who were creative, who wanted to be vulnerable, and who wanted to be part of something unique.”
‘A Chance of Love’
The series creates an interesting dynamic for both photographer and subject — after all, they met on an app designed to connect people in a romantic fashion.
“Did I date some of them? One or two, yes; the rest, I did not. Did I fall in love? No,” McVeigh writes.
“I wonder whether the photographic project changed the dynamic, but in the end, I speak with them all as friends I met over time and continents during a wild period of history.”
McVeigh shot the project toward the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, between 2021 and 2022.
The photographer is publishing her series into a photobook and is exhibiting her work at the BSMT Space in London from May 10 to May 14 when some of the men in the project will meet each other for the first time.
More of McVeigh’s work can found on her website and Instagram.
Image credits: All photos by Mel McVeigh.
