COURTESY PICTURE PROJECT CLT

Melissa Fuller (left) and Sharetha Cooper are co-founders of Picture Project CLT, a selfie studio on Independence Boulevard.

At an east Charlotte selfie museum, there’s much more than self-portraits.

Picture Project CLT, founded by Melissa A. Fuller and Sharetha Cooper, opened on Independence Boulevard six months ago for a variety of purposes. The interactive selfie studio holds over 30 sets where visitors can shoot photos with a ring light or staff photographer. The space also holds an event room for parties and private events, and it has a podcast studio with professional recording equipment.

For the co-founders, bringing the studio to life was a long, collaborative journey and continues to be a growing process. Cooper brought the camera, and Fuller brought the vision. The two began their friendship as children (they are also long-distance cousins) in Eutawville, S.C. and later grew into their own niches.

Cooper found photography in 2014 through her oldest daughter. For her fourth birthday, she took her to get pictures made but had difficulties with the photographer because of her special needs.

“At that point, I was like, well I’m not going to put her through that anymore. I’m gonna learn to take her photos myself,” Cooper said. “That prompted me to buy my first DSLR. When I got it, I had no idea what to do with it. I knew nothing about photography, but I like taking photos. And so, I was determined to learn.”

Through things she learned on her own and from other photographers, Cooper started her business, Sharetha Monique Photography, a year later — capturing couples, expecting moms, babies, and families.

Fuller looked to her mom for her event planning and design expertise, something she remembered being “tricked” into liking growing up.

“It was four of us at home, and she loved to set the table. Doesn’t matter the holiday, there were set ups with linen and all that kind of stuff,” Fuller said. “And then as I went to school, I ended up being the event planner for every organization I was a part of. Even when I worked in the schools, I always spearheaded everything, and it was something I was very comfortable with.”

Fuller founded The Melissa Project in Atlanta in 2016 which operated as an event designing company specializing in modern luxe styles and petite weddings. She relocated the business to Charlotte in 2020.

And that’s when the best friends put their skills together.

Coming out of the COVID-19 shutdowns early that year, Cooper began to do photo sessions again, but this time, clients had bigger demands. Especially those celebrating milestones during the pandemic, clients wanted their photo sets to be more elaborate, asking for backgrounds not typically done by Cooper.

“I said, I know the perfect person that can do these sets — Melissa! So she would come in, and we would collaborate on creating a set for peoples’ birthdays, celebrations, cake smashes for the babies, everything” Cooper said. “When I started seeing selfie museums, I inboxed her and I was like, ‘Hey! We do this all the time,’ and we always talk about like how much time it takes to set up a set…And I was like ‘So, you know we can do this on a larger scale and people can reuse the stuff afterwards,’ and so she’s like, ‘Fine, OK, we can do it.’”

Cooper and Fuller began working on the business plan for Picture Project CLT in February 2021 and signed the lease on the space months later in May. The location on Independence Boulevard was a shopping center they passed by every day, and it was suitable due to the space for both photo sets and events and the ample free parking.

However, installing the photo sets and opening the doors took longer than they anticipated, as the co-founders dealt with the lasting effects of COVID-19, supply-chain issues, architectural difficulties and built the sets themselves. Fuller got the inspiration for the sets from “everyday things” and some of the shoots Cooper had previously done.

“It’s like, ‘oh, well this is an empty building, so we’ll just sketch out the drawing,’” Fuller said. “So we knew what we wanted it to look like, Sharetha knew how big she wanted the booths to be. And I sketched the whole drawing out…and we were like, `Here contractor build this,’ and they were like, “No, that’s not how this works.”

Said Fuller: “We learned a lot along the way, like different people we had to hire to actually draw it to reality for them to do the work.”

By December 2021, Picture Project CLT was up and running, and since the holiday season, the business has seen slow, but consistent growth. People are still discovering it — mainly through social media — and it’s leaving very positive impressions on visitors.

“[They] really go out their way to make sure the customers are satisfied with the background, the props, all of that,” Zahria Sanders, a visitor to Picture Project CLT said. “When you get there [Cooper] definitely makes sure you’re comfortable taking pictures. I think that’s a huge part with family portraits or self-portraits — making sure that you feel comfortable so that your pictures come out how you want them to be.”

Outside of photo shoots, the studio has hosted teen birthday parties, graduation parties, workshops, a podcast, and a networking event for other creatives and small business owners. Picture Project CLT also offers memberships that allow other professional creatives to utilize the space for their own work.

The co-founders also have big aspirations for the business, operating with the mindset of opening another location in the future.

“From the beginning, when we started this whole process, we didn’t start it with just thinking about this location,” Fuller said. “We knew when we started it, we wanted to see how this location would grow and build, but we know we want to open, definitely, another location.”

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