Ep 013: Kennedi Carter
A SHOT: To start, can you describe the photo that we’re going to talk about?
KENNEDI CARTER: It’s a photo of a couple on a bed in kind of a dark room, a little bit. There’s some sunlight in it. It’s a little moody. And they’re in embrace.
Where is this, and when was this taken?
Hackensack, New Jersey. And it was shot during a period where I had just been wanting to make a photograph that was of a couple. I remember there was a point where I just liked styling shoots myself and doing everything myself and putting something together just to put it together. That’s kind of what happened. I was in Brooklyn for a little bit on a trip. There was a model that I wanted to shoot with. Her name was Nya [Kong] and there was another model that I wanted to shoot with, and his name was Richard [Anderson]. I asked if they would be willing to do a shoot together. They said yes, and I found a location through a friend of mine who lived in New Jersey. It was her grandmother’s house. Her house had stained-glass windows, almost like what you’d have in a church. I drove out there, and that was the first and only time I will ever drive in New York because it was very scary. We all ended up pulling up at the same time, which was also very rare because usually I or someone else is late. And yeah, we started shooting.
What’s your setup for when you’re taking a photo like this?
I feel like my setup is always evolving. Once I get comfortable with a certain piece of equipment, I kind of get bored with it. I should probably find something that I wanna stick to. But this photo in particular, it wasn’t shot on film. Now most of the things that I shoot are on film. But I shot that on a Sony a7R II. It just came out really good. And it shot so good in low light.
How do you prepare on the day for something like this? How much do you plan?
I typically plan weeks in advance, and that’s what happened with this shoot. So I just show up and take the picture and not have to worry about all the stuff. At that point, I’d scouted the clothes that I wanted them to wear. He was wearing chaps. I found them at some thrift store when I was in New York, and then I had her in a slip dress because I’m a bird for a slip dress. I love a slip dress. I just kept it kind of simple.
You mentioned that you wanted to shoot couples. What specifically about a couple made you want to create this?
Growing up in my house, my mother she had a lot of black art around the house. It was stuff that… I’m trying to figure out how to describe it. They were just these open-edition prints that were of black couples, and they were always hugging or very close. They were these intimate paintings and portraits that she would buy at the store. I think that kind of just shaped this intrigue that I have with romance and I guess the optics of love and being close to a person and then intimacy, as well.
At that moment, I was getting over a breakup that I’d had, so I think taking images of couples — or forming these fake images of couples — was almost like an act of grieving maybe but, I guess, kind of manifesting the love that I felt I deserved or wanted to deserve. Just making things that are beautiful and making people appear as though they are in love — I always was very attracted to that.
Did anything surprise you about this image?
There was this gradient that was in the photo going from top to bottom. It was just like dark here, and then you have her little hat glimmering, and then her face becomes more present. You can see it more, and then you see her clutching onto this boy, and his eyes are closed. It was just a nice transition when I look at it from top to bottom.
Is there storytelling in this image? When you look at this do you feel that this image has a before and after to it?
I don’t know. I think even when I was seeing those paintings that my mom had, I felt like there was a story, but I could never know what it was. It was just a story of maybe love and warmth. I think that’s what I got, from that image as well. It wasn’t a story. It was more of a feeling. Even now I feel like, just the feeling of when I see that photo now, it’s changed so much because Richard, the person pictured, he died maybe two months ago in some tragic accident. He was shot out in Virginia. And I don’t know. I just feel like the overall feeling of when I see that photograph has been just completely morphed.
Did you stay in touch after you’d shot this?
Mm-hmm. But I still have to send these prints to his family so they can have it. I remember him telling me, and one of his cousins telling me post his death, that that was one of his favorite shoots that he had did.
Knowing that about this image, you were still able to introduce it as, “This is an image about love. This is about couples.” Is it difficult to see this in the same why that you originally photographed it and intended it to be?
I feel like it’s still just this warm, loving image, but there’s this melancholy that I have attached to it now. Even when people find out, it changes what they think or how they react to the image, as well. With death, we have such cold feelings toward it. But sometimes it’s the only thing in life that you know for sure is going to happen one day. And maybe that should be comforting. But I know to most that it’s not. It can be scary because you don’t know what comes after. It can be almost bruising to the ego. Even when I think of all that he accomplished as a model and what he did and his potential and how overall, I guess, just beautiful as a person he was, it almost is bruising to the ego to feel like that can be taken away, when in actuality it’s never, you know, snatched away. It’s still there. And I think also that the love you put into the world is still there also. I don’t know. I think it’s still just this loving photograph that he aided, though I don’t think he was even modeling. It almost felt like acting. It feels almost theatrical.
So much of your work has a documentary aspect to it. But this is fabricated. You set this up. They aren’t a couple. What effect does that have on this image?
I think something’s so cool about building something from scratch and it not being based on — I mean, just essentially that it’s being fabricated or it’s more theatric than anything — is that people often project the feeling that they see or whatever they feel from the image onto it. Even as I was making it, I was projecting something that I was going through myself onto it and having them embody that. That’s what makes it so cool to me. When you see that image, you would think that they actually knew each other and that they were in love or there was something there. I just love the fact that they had never even met before that. It was almost as if they were meant to make that photograph together.
What direction did you give them?
That’s the thing. I really didn’t have to give direction. They just were posing and doing different things, and I’d see something, and I’d be like, “Can you hold that?” And then I’d give instructions within that pose. I think I almost try and wait until people get tired and they’re ready to be done because then they’re willing to like… They get tired, and they relax almost. So it’s not something that’s super strong. It’s almost just, “Okay, I’m just gonna do it.”
That’s interesting. What do you like about that?
I think during moments of exhaustion — and I feel like that’s so sadistic to say; I don’t want people to think that I be trying to make people exhausted and ready to be done — but just falling into something and it just be this moment of relaxation or exhaustion where I need to rest. I think that’s what I search for, moments of rest.
How would you describe the embrace in this image?
It just feels like… I said “rest” before, but it feels as if they’re resting, looking for a place of rest. Even when I talk about this photo to people, I try to think of what romance feels like among other people but also what it feels like to black people in particular. I kind of refer to it as like when you have a partner and they’re almost like this air bubble of safety where you can breathe and just rest and be yourself. When you see so much, so many things happening and you’re flooded with trauma and seeing so many fucked up things all the time, it’s exhausting. And sometimes it feels like no one else can get it, except for the people that are most close to you and hold you close like that.
What does it mean that she’s the one holding him?
It feels almost like she’s protecting him. I think that’s also what makes me sad when I think about what happened to him. I think this is also me just projecting, but sometimes you just want to feel safe and protected. It feels so soft, but it feels almost like she’s a shield.
I also love that her fingers have sunken into his hair. How important is that element of the embrace?
I didn’t even notice that myself. But even thinking about hair and being so close and touching the scalp. As babies and our moms smell our heads, it’s just a level of closeness, I think, that people really don’t get unless they’re our lovers or the people that birthed us.
Where do you see strength in this image?
In his arm.
What do you think that adds?
It was just another level of texture to the photo. Like his skin, you can see he has these small bits of acne as well that I love. His skin almost feels like terrain, I think. But seeing his muscles pop through that arm and then fall into that softness of her dress and the softness of his hair kind of reminds me of Samson in that Biblical story a little bit.
Is there vulnerability in this image?
I think there is. I think moments like these, you wouldn’t walk around and see it on the street, and you wouldn’t do it with just anyone, which is also weird because he is. They didn’t know each other.
In general, what does intimacy mean to you in an image?
Intimacy could be something that, like, you’re really close to someone, but I think it can also mean a mental closeness as well as letting someone in. Intimate photographs could be there’s someone that is very hard to get close to or being very close to someone and they’re doing things that they normally wouldn’t do around other people. You’re seeing them for who they are. Then I think there’s physical closeness, too.
How much of you is there in this embrace?
I think all of me. Part of the reason that the relationship that I was grieving ended was because I didn’t know how to communicate my emotions, so I think I pumped all that energy and feeling into making these photographs of couples and people together.
What did you want to say?
I think if the person that I was grieving were to see these images, I wanted them to feel that I still loved them.
You titled this series of images, “Soon as I Get Home.” What’s the idea there and where can you see that in this photo?
Home is where you make it. And I think another person can be your home. And I like to think that I was that other person’s home, too, and vice versa, and there was this longing for them to come home. I also love the song by Faith Evans, so that was a great influence.
What does the hat that she’s waring add to this image?
I just loved Josephine Baker at the time, so I searched everywhere for a flapper hat. I ended up finding one, and it made no sense, but I think it just ended up adding so much texture to the photo. It makes her look almost like not even human, maybe just some type of ethereal being, or an angel or something. I don’t know. She just looks cool in it.
Is there fantasy to it?
A little bit. I think it added… That’s the word. It added maybe like an additional layer of surrealism to it.
In speaking about your portrait show from last year, which you titled “Flexing / New Realm,” you said “I try to use my work as a way to imagine new worlds, almost as this act of manifesting a world that I want my own children to live in.” Does any of that theme apply here?
Mm-hmm. I think so. Whether it be romantic or within friendships or with your parents, I think everybody longs to feel love or love someone or put love into the world and be safe. I want to figure out how to manifest almost like a safeness.
Can you talk about the curtain pattern here? What do you think the curtain pattern that is around this adds to this image?
Almost like a timelessness. I look at it, and it’s hard to place when exactly it was made. I love that in photos. And that’s something I often consider when I look at my work or just different things that I’ve taken photos of. I love a really timeless image, where you can’t really place when it’s taken. Even thinking about how I will look at my work 50 years from now, the fact that it’s gonna age and it’ll be in reference to when I was making work whenever I was making work — that’s so interesting to me. So when I look at these curtains, it feels like something from the ’70s. They feel so groovy, and they just bounce around the whole photo in different shades. You have I guess the closest portion of the curtain on the right, and then it’s kind of dark, but there’s a gradient that it’s like light to dark. Then you have it getting lighter, then darker. It just adds this dimension to the photo that I love.
I don’t think we need to necessarily talk about photographing Beyoncé for the cover of British Vogue, but I’m interested, how does experiencing something like that affect how you reflect on this photo?
A lot of the stuff that I’ve taken before that shoot, I think of it as a catalyst for landing that job. With every photo that I take or that I appreciate or that I love, rather, that I’ve shot, it’s like if I ever need guidance on something where I’m trying to figure it out, I feel like I’ve done something that’s similar before, and I can use it as a point of reference. With this shoot, since I worked so heavily with her team figuring out a direction for it, and I think with this project too or this particular image rather, I worked so long trying to plan it out, it helped me figure out how to reference and build a reference or a mood or to convey a feeling. I think that’s what that shoot did. It taught me how to build a photograph for the first time.
When you step into a spotlight that’s bigger, do you feel that work like this that you shot just because to make an image of love, you wanted to make an image of couples, do you think that this work then takes on a greater weight?
I think it does because now that I’m making these images of celebrities on, I guess, a wider scale, it’s always for someone else. There are rare opportunities that I get to make something just because I can. It’s rare that I have full creative control over something, and when I do, it feels as though it forms my eye and how I want to… how I want an image to look. So these images where I’m just able to do what I want, I have my personal work. I just value it so much. It always ends up being a point of reference for the things I do in the future.
What about this photo feels like a Kennedi Carter photograph?
I think I’m still trying to figure out what a Kennedi Cater photograph is.
But you made it. Do you feel that your work has the intention to convey what you want to say?
I think it does. When other people tell me that they feel the same way about a particular photograph, I think I got across what I was wanting to get across. Often times it lands. Sometimes it doesn’t. But even when it doesn’t, I made it for me.
What do you get out of your work making it for yourself?
It’s almost cathartic. It’s like a cathartic experience. Sometimes I can be bad with my words and not have much to say. I think even when I was a kid there were times when I just didn’t have much to say, so it became almost like an outlet to get my feelings out. Or if I just have a photo in my brain and I finally get it out, it just feels good, especially when it is everything that I pictured in my head. And sometimes it’s not. Then nobody will ever see.
Is this what you wanted to say?
I think it is.
I usually ask, “What do you think Kennedi 10 years ago would have to say about this photo?” but you’re pretty young, so I don’t know what you would have to say 10 years ago. You would have been 12 years old. So maybe instead, what do you think Kennedi 10 years from now will have to say about this photo?
Kennedi 10 years from now will still be upset that I didn’t ask him to take his socks off. That’s the only thing that grinds my gears about that picture. I didn’t ask him to take his socks off.
What have you learned that has given you the instinct to take this photo?
I don’t have to say everything in a picture. I can say it in the now. Or I can say it in a picture ’cause it’s easier. I just have a hard time communicating my feelings. ‘Cause it’s hard. Feelings are hard. But I prefer letting the pictures do the talking.
Do you ever worry that it’ll be misunderstood?
Sometimes. Sometimes I think they are. But again, I made it for me. There just so happen to be other people that like looking sometimes.
To close the conversation, what’s something unrelated to photography that’s been feeding you creatively lately?
Reading books. I started feeling like I was buying too many clothes, so I make myself read a book every time I wanna buy clothes. And I read three books in two weeks, so I was wanting to buy a lot of clothes. And I saved a lot of money, but now I’m spending all my money on books.
What did you read?
I read this amazing book called Last Night at the Telegraph Club. It takes place in 1950s Chinatown and is about two girls that fall in love. It was really good. I need to get into reading more nonfiction books. I just love fiction. I’m here for the drama. I’m here for the mess. One of my favorite authors died recently. His name was Eric Jerome Dickey, and I’m actually quite sad about it. I would sneak my mother’s books that were of his off the bookshelf because she said they were too grown for me to read. Man, Milk in My Coffee was an amazing book.
Interviewed on February 4, 2021.
(This transcript has been edited for brevity.)
Links:
Kennedi Carter
”Flexing / New Realm” at CAM Raleigh
British Vogue: “ ‘I’ve Decided to Give Myself Permission to Focus on My Joy’: How Beyoncé Tackled 2020”