Mamiyaroid 42
Superstition and Photography
Here is a piece I published on my old blog but I want to share with you because it touches on some upcoming themes. I added new photos to this version.
And it came to my attention that my print shop was not set up for taking orders, but now it is! adalenakavanagh.bigcartel.com
Superstition and Photography
I had read that Cartier-Bresson thought of his Leica as an extension of his eye, considering it a great improvement over the large, heavy cameras that were its predecessors. It permitted him to run around Paris having his decisive moments. It has taken me years to realize that (1) traveling with a camera and seeing everything through its eye rather than through one’s own may not be the best way to see the world...
Janet Malcolm, in conversation with Geoff Dyer, from Aperture Magazine.
I'm always arguing with Janet Malcolm in my head when I read her photography writing but I will always read Malcolm. I just might not agree with her. The either-or-ness of this comment is too strict a binary for my comfort. All it tells me is that Janet Malcolm is not a photographer.
When asked what I photograph I say: the color red, flowers, poignant light, ironic juxtapositions and melancholy. What usually happens is I’m walking around, something catches my eye and desire swells inside me until I pull out my phone or camera.
While I often make portraits and still lifes, much of my photography falls into the documentary or street category because I spend a lot of time walking around Manhattan and Brooklyn on my way to work, or the library, or a café to write. I don’t often go out of my way to visit new neighborhoods because I usually find something right where I am. I’m not a showy photographer; I don’t stalk my subjects or carry much gear with me. The most I might do is cross the street, which I did, in order to photograph fluffy cherry blossoms, and because of this I found film negatives of a stranger’s wedding, and an album of candid photos of Hulk Hogan.
Even though I’m not a frenetic photographer, I am deliberate, so there’s a certain type of fleshy middle-aged “ey-you” New York City man who has to get in my business when I’m taking photos. He says, “Wha, you takin’ a pictcha?” Yeah, I want to say, I’m taking a fucking picture, but I usually just give him one of my stares and take the photo. There are other, paternal men who smile and ask, “Didja get it?” For them I smile because it costs me nothing.
But there are certain things I don’t photograph. I rarely photograph the homeless even though they are everywhere in New York City. Not that I want to live in a world where only the sublime and the prosperous are documented, but I haven’t found many instances where my documenting the homeless would be anything more than exploitation. There have been exceptions, like an ecstatic street performer in the subway, but I generally avoid it.
On my way to a local café I noticed a ritualistic tableau at the base of a tree. I’m superstitious so I didn’t photograph it, but I vaguely remember about five plantains arranged in a semi-circle interspersed with okra and one or two other vegetables. My neighborhood has a large Afro-Caribbean population and I figured it was some sort of offering, but to which gods I dare not guess.
Similarly I was walking home when I saw the kind of red envelope Chinese people use to exchange money during New Year. I picked it up and saw money inside. I also picked up a plastic baggie with a gold chain and Buddhist religious cards. I took them home thinking I’d had a lucky day scavenging, but when my mother saw my findings she shook her head and instructed me to find a tree and discard the items at the base of the tree as soon as possible. She warned me not to keep anything, not even the money. She explained that someone was probably hoping to transfer their bad luck through those items and I’d been a sucker to pick it up, so I better hope someone else was greedy enough to take the bait. I’m not superstitious enough to conduct my own rituals, but I am just superstitious enough that I ran outside and found a tree far enough away from my apartment, and visible enough that it was likely someone else would be attracted to the easy money and gold. The next day I was relieved when everything was gone except for one of the religious cards, and soon enough, with wind and rain, that vanished as well. Even though these talismans are intriguing enough to write about, I won’t photograph them lest they become cursed images.
At the café, I mentioned to my favorite radical puppeteer-barista that I couldn’t make myself try the restaurant across the street.
“It’s like it’s cursed,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Do you know what used to be there?”
“What?”
“It was a funeral home.”
We nodded at each other, our eyes wide. Of course. Cursed!
Yet, there is a house I walk past often, and photograph often, even though it is the site of someone’s tragedy and misfortune. There was a fire and the house has not yet been repaired, nor sold and torn down, but simply left to decay. A once vibrant Christmas wreath has slowly fallen apart so that now it looks like one half of a heart, and the windows are boarded up, but in the spring pink roses grow among the weeds, making the scene irresistible in its poignancy, and I photograph it over and over, marking time as the light shifts, and the vegetation slowly takes over, and the shingles rot.
Until next time…
Adalena
I love to receive comments and questions about photography and cameras!
My email: adalenakavanagh@gmail.com
Instagram: @mamiyaroid (instant/film) @5redpandas (personal)
Twitter: @adalenakavanagh
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Original photography prints: adalenakavanagh.bigcartel.com (I change out the shop every month of so. If you see something you like, let me know, I’m happy to make you a print.)
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-Adalena Kavanagh