melissa milligan
photography

bio

As her mother would have told you, Mel’s fascination with photography started at the age of 2, when she disassembled her mother's Brownie camera in the confines of her playpen. 

Six years later she received a GAF 110-format camera for Christmas, and her real love of photography began. In 1979, the 14-year old bought her first SLR: a fully manual Pentax K-1000.

Shortly afterwards, she took a course in photography and darkroom at Cape Cod Community College. In the years to follow, she honed her talents in numerous locations throughout Europe, the UK, the Caribbean, and New England - particularly Cape Cod, Boston, and the North Shore of Massachusetts.

Mel’s love of animals and nature combined with summers spent snorkeling, swimming, and boating on the Cape, invariably led to her becoming a certified SCUBA diver in the late 90's, Since then, she's surpassed Master and Century Diver levels and has earned 13 specialties.

In 1999, she acquired a Nikonos V amphibious outfit and again united her love of nature with her passion for photography. Mel’s photographed myriad reef systems and shipwrecks; her favorites being Bermuda, Key Largo, and Walker's Cay, Bahamas — where she’s dived numerous times with hundreds of sharks in the famous Shark Rodeo. 

Mel holds a B.Sc. in Communications from Emerson College and an MBA from Northeastern University. In 2000, she left a career in High Tech Marketing to pursue photography full time. Her education and years of experience have sharpened her artistic eye, her talent for composition, and her ability to connect with the viewer to tell a meaningful and moving story. 

Although she now shoots primarily with Nikon Pro gear, Mel’s faithful Pentax K-1000 still accompanies her to locations around the world – on- and off-road, above and below water.