Somerville pop-up combines photo booth and art installation for a ‘love letter to Pride’

A Pride-inspired professional photo studio is coming to Bow Market this June and you could be the art.

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Starting June 5, Saturated, a new pop-up bySomerville-based photographer Amanda Macchia, will give the commemorative photo strip a Technicolor makeover. Macchia describes the immersive experience as “a mix between visiting an art gallery and going to a photo booth.”

She designed the 9-by-18-foot space located on Bow Market’s second floor (between Amantolli and Nook cocktail bar) to feel like a professional photo or film studio set. A custom, color-drenched mural by her friendand artistLindsey Parker will serve as a vibrant backdrop for photos alongside a fiber arts piece by Somerville artist Quintin Marcus, also known as Yarnqueer on social media. The effect, Macchia hopes, will be like “walking into a rainbow.”

Once inside, attendees can participate in what Macchia called an “editorialized photo booth experience.” While Pride is the pop-up’s theme, the portrait studio, which is open Friday through Sunday, is available for everyone to explore and book — from families to couples to individuals to pets.

“We wanted to invite everybody into our love letter to Pride,” she said.

All attendees have to do is show up with their pizzazz and a photographer will provide music and guidance for posing for each shot.

“You are going to step into the studio and have a mini photo session with a photographer that is really skilled at creative directing and bringing out joy,” she described.

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Each pre-booked, 30-minute session at Saturated will cost $50. In addition to the shoot experience, the package includes five professionally edited digital images and a Polaroid to take home. Walk-ins will be available ($65 for 15 minutes) and the curious are welcome to enter for $15 and explore the exhibit as a spectator, taking their own selfies along the way. Macchia hopes the cost will help make a professional photoshoot experience accessible to a wider audience. On Monday through Thursday, the location will be available for private rentals for photographers and content creators.

To celebrate Pride, Saturated is partnering with Bow Market’s micro-wedding chapel Dearly Studio to give away free ceremonies and photo sessions to three LGBTQIA2S+ couples on June 18. (Interested couples can enter online through Dearly’s website, dearly.studio.)

“The space isn’t really about making money at all,” said Macchia, who also owns an eponymous wedding and family photography business, Amanda Macchia Photography. “It’s about creating a really beautiful space where people can come and get their pictures taken and have a joyful moment, so it really made sense to align a giveaway with that.”

Saturated, Fridays-Saturdays, noon-7 p.m., Sunday, noon-5 p.m., Runs through June. Bow Market, Bow Market Way, Somerville. More information and to pre-book at studiobyamp.com/saturated.

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