Latest / The Nerdy Photographer Podcast / 166 - Casting Light and Shadow: Photography as a Modern Form of Magic

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166 - Casting Light and Shadow: Photography as a Modern Form of Magic · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:05
  Casey Fatchett: trust me, it's going to work.
• 0:11
  Just wait. It takes some time. Oh, hey there. Welcome to the
• 0:14
  nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your host, Casey Fatchett. In
• 0:17
  addition to providing informative and entertaining
• 0:22
  photography related content, I also go on adventures with the
• 0:23
  crew of the starship Fibonacci. Before we get started, I'm just
• 0:24
  going to remind you to be sure to subscribe to the show and
• 0:28
  leave us a review. They are super helpful to us for finding
• 0:31
  new listeners. Currently, I'm working with the inhabitants of
• 0:35
  hekatus lunares on a special form of wet plate photography to
• 0:39
  capture some astrological phenomenon that are otherwise
• 0:41
  invisible to the naked eye.
• 0:46
  They say it's magic, and honestly, it is, isn't it? We go
• 0:51
  through a ritual, use the right ingredients for the spell, and
• 0:54
  we create something out of nothing. In this episode of the
• 0:57
  show, I talk with photographer Justine Johnson kenahan about
• 1:00
  photography and art in general as a form of magic. Let's face
• 1:04
  it, science and magic are inextricably entwined that
• 1:08
  conversation after the break,
• 1:14
  yeah, I see it too.
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  Hello and welcome to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your
• 3:46
  host, Casey Fatchett and joining me on this episode. Photographer
• 3:49
  Justine kenahan, Justine, welcome.
• 3:51
  Justine Kenahan: Thank you for having me so excited.
• 3:54
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah, we're gonna get into a really
• 3:55
  interesting conversation, but before we do that, we're gonna
• 3:58
  roll the dice breaker. It's a 16 what is the best advice you've
• 4:04
  ever received about photography, or like running a photography
• 4:08
  business?
• 4:10
  Justine Kenahan: If you're shooting film, shoot twice so
• 4:15
  that if your first photo doesn't come out, perhaps the second one
• 4:19
  will. Also recently, I heard some really good advice about
• 4:25
  developing also shooting film, but developing film. You have to
• 4:29
  be in the right frame of mind to do to do that. If you are not,
• 4:34
  mistakes will happen. You will probably lose film, and you will
• 4:38
  never forget those roles of film that never came out, so be in
• 4:43
  the right frame to develop.
• 4:45
  Casey Fatchett: I can, I can definitely tell you that that's
• 4:47
  true. I've gotten away from doing my own developing, just
• 4:52
  because, like, I am not a great developer. I learned I. Learned
• 5:00
  in college and, like, I guess, you know, also, like, there's
• 5:02
  part of me that's, like, I don't want to keep the chemicals and
• 5:05
  stuff anymore or like that, those sort of things. But, yeah,
• 5:10
  I have totally been there where I've, like, ruined,
• 5:17
  Justine Kenahan: it's, it's a rite of passage, I would say, to
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  ruin a roll of film that you are really proud of, or that was
• 5:23
  really important to a project or something. But yeah, I think
• 5:28
  just just being patient is also really good advice, too. So all
• 5:34
  those three things, being patient, being in the right
• 5:37
  frame of mind, and also shooting twice is, I think probably the
• 5:42
  three fold approach to some good advice I was given throughout my
• 5:47
  life.
• 5:48
  Casey Fatchett: I mean, I learned shooting film when I was
• 5:53
  younger. That's how I learned photography, and I think that it
• 5:56
  taught me a lot of important lessons, which I've forgotten
• 6:02
  over time, shooting digital. And then, like, yeah, that I every
• 6:05
  once in a while I'll get back, and I'm in one of those phases
• 6:08
  now where I'm getting back into film photography as some way of,
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  like, you know, reconnecting with those kind of basic,
• 6:16
  foundational things, yeah, because you really have to,
• 6:20
  like, especially if you're dealing with an older film
• 6:23
  camera that has no, like, I've got my own canon, rebel Eos,
• 6:30
  Elon 70 or whatever, which is fully automatic, has like, you
• 6:33
  know, aperture, priority whatever. Like, you know, it,
• 6:36
  it's, it is very similar to, and since it operates in a similar
• 6:42
  way to a DSLR, but I have lots of old film cameras that are
• 6:48
  totally manual. Those are the things I learned on and you
• 6:52
  really learn your exposure triangle really well when you
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  have to shoot everything manually, yes, and you can't
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  switch your film speeds like you can in digital and just be like,
• 7:01
  Oh, I'm just gonna bump this up to 1000 ISO or 12,800 just
• 7:07
  because it gets dark. Nope. You have to deal with the
• 7:10
  limitations of the film that you're given. And it kind of
• 7:14
  forces you to be more creative, I think,
• 7:16
  Justine Kenahan: more creative, more resourceful, more
• 7:20
  adaptable, too. I mean, if you aren't familiar with
• 7:24
  photography, math and you're just shooting, I think it's just
• 7:29
  a good practice to understand you get what you get if you're
• 7:33
  operating in that kind of mind frame, you know. But it's also
• 7:38
  good to to acquire those types of cameras, because you see
• 7:41
  history. You see how the history is formed through the technology
• 7:45
  that was available at that time, and how the the film has sort of
• 7:50
  kind of stayed the same, you know, but yeah, going back to
• 7:55
  those, those foundational elements of photography and how
• 8:00
  film has come through all all that time in history. I mean,
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  it's, I just took a workshop, actually, with Jonathan Pitts
• 8:10
  Wiley over the weekend at hunts, and he was saying how, you know,
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  memories are best captured on film, and it's always a really
• 8:18
  good thing to go back to that, because there's nothing like
• 8:22
  the, nothing like the crispness that you can get. You know,
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  it's, it's a
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  Casey Fatchett: it's a chemical, like, what reaction it is
• 8:34
  alchemy. And, like I have always said this about film
• 8:36
  photography, and you know, the listeners, if you hate hearing
• 8:40
  me repeat it. Like, sorry, there is just something magical about
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  film photography. Like I started out in is a physics major in
• 8:50
  college. I have a minor in physics and, oh, wow, that's
• 8:53
  cool math. But like, people like, oh, you know, like the
• 8:58
  energy that comes off of your subject, the light reflected
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  that is quantumly entangled with the particles in your subject
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  has come back and goes through that film and creates a reaction
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  that gets all these interactions on a very like molecular level.
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  Yeah, like, it's this incredible thing that, like that there's a,
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  and I refer to digital. Digital is great for what it is, but it
• 9:28
  also, in a sense, to me, is cold in that, in that sort of, like,
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  I agree, physics, like, related thing, that there's something so
• 9:39
  touching, which is why I have a whole project, a film project
• 9:44
  that I did with my dog, with expired film that I found in my
• 9:50
  parents basement.
• 9:51
  Justine Kenahan: I love expired film. I don't know. I know a lot
• 9:55
  of people are like, Ooh, I wouldn't want to shoot on that,
• 9:57
  because it's not perfect, exactly. It's not. Perfect.
• 10:00
  Casey Fatchett: You know what's crazy? Oh, is that like? This is
• 10:03
  film that expired between 1997 and 2017 so at the minimum, it's
• 10:11
  been expired for eight years. Yeah, so many great photos like
• 10:16
  it, very like, whatever. Like, I got a ton of great images. The
• 10:20
  best ones came from that roll of film that did from 1997
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  Justine Kenahan: like, it's a content wise, or just
• 10:29
  Casey Fatchett: sharpness, still amazingly sharp, still, like,
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  it's black and white roll, like, the contrast is still great.
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  Like, like, the other ones, there was, like, a lot of color,
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  like rolls that were like, you can see that it's like, it's not
• 10:45
  quite, yeah, but like, whatever, it looks fantastic to me. It has
• 10:50
  that character to it. But like that 1997 expired role is still,
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  I think, as sharp, probably, as the day it was, you know,
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  produced it was that you got lucky there. Yeah, it was
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  amazing. So
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  Justine Kenahan: on that topic, I recently have this call it an
• 11:14
  ongoing project, but I finished a chapter of this ongoing
• 11:17
  project where I it's called The Art of Lost Art. And usually
• 11:24
  I'll say that when I'm, you know, I kill a role or something
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  doesn't come out if I'm developing or if I get it
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  developed. And I don't know there was an issue in the
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  camera. But most recently, I had collected eight Polaroid
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  photographs that I had taken, but for whatever reason, the
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  film chemicals or the emulsion in the chemicals of that actual
• 11:51
  slide did not come out. So these were important moments in my
• 11:56
  life, like the birth of my daughter, we brought a Polaroid
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  camera into the labor room, and the photos did not come out,
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  which I think is insane. But the whole concept is that there is
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  an art behind lost art, because there's a story there that was
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  attempted to be captured on film, and it wasn't, or it was
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  partially, but you can't really tell what it is. So I had come
• 12:27
  up with this idea of collecting these photographs and talking
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  about the stories behind them. So while you can't necessarily
• 12:35
  see what the content is because of XYZ reasons, there is a
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  there's a thought, there's a moment there that was captured
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  in my mind, or, you know, as whoever the photographer was at
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  the time, either my husband or myself, or someone else in my
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  family. You know, something happened there. We wanted to
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  take that image, and it didn't translate on film, but we
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  remember it as a memory. So I put together this, this cohesive
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  series of eight photographs where I talk about the moment
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  behind that image that did not develop correctly. So I, you
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  know, turning something negative and disappointing into something
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  that actually has some kind of meaning behind it.
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  Casey Fatchett: But I think it's still there. There's something
• 13:28
  there, and maybe tell me if I'm wrong, there's still something
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  there that is in even though it didn't come out, it has still
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  crystallized that memory for you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's
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  like made you hold on to that you know in your memory, like,
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  still, because you're like, Oh, I do remember when that
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  happened, even though I don't have the perfect photo of it,
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  yeah, now I am like, I keep it in my memory, and this helps me
• 13:55
  access it. Helps me access that moment in time. This was what I
• 14:01
  always refer to. Like, photography is my favorite form
• 14:04
  of time travel. Oh, that's great, yes, as a beautiful
• 14:08
  photo, like, it takes me like or beautiful, but what I consider a
• 14:14
  good photo takes you to that moment. And like, in my career
• 14:18
  as a wedding photographer, I think the most the greatest
• 14:22
  compliment I can ever receive, is I really feel like I'm in
• 14:25
  that moment with those people I don't know them. Like, I'll have
• 14:29
  like, people who are coming to me as new clients, and they'll
• 14:32
  be like, this picture on your website or whatever. Like,
• 14:35
  there's just something about it, like, I just feel like I know
• 14:37
  those people. I feel like I'm there with them, and I'm like,
• 14:40
  Yes, that is, that is the magic of photography. Speaking of
• 14:45
  which, we're getting to the topic of what we're like
• 14:48
  originally, like, agreed, like, what this discussion was gonna
• 14:51
  be about. You have described art and photography as kind of a
• 14:56
  form of witchcraft.
• 14:57
  Justine Kenahan: Yes.
• 14:59
  Casey Fatchett: Now what does that. Mean to you on a personal
• 15:03
  and creative level?
• 15:05
  Justine Kenahan: Yeah, that's a good question. I kind of came up
• 15:09
  with the term art witch, after just doing some some soul
• 15:16
  searching, right? And photography has always been a
• 15:20
  lifeline for me. It's always been a creative outlet since I
• 15:23
  was a kid, even as an adult, when I started my photography
• 15:29
  business. And I guess it's the term art which explains the
• 15:38
  magic that I can create through the relationship between myself,
• 15:45
  the camera and the subject. So when I'm shooting, I'm creating
• 15:49
  magic. I'm, you know, creating this piece of work, or this
• 15:55
  image, or this series or this project with a subject and
• 16:02
  turning a single moment into something bigger. I say I do my
• 16:08
  best magic when I'm producing art, and that's just sort of how
• 16:13
  I came to be. So you know while, while you know you yourself,
• 16:20
  call yourself an earth witch. I mean, I, I'm a, I'm a water
• 16:24
  witch, you know, I'm an ocean witch, if you want to call me
• 16:28
  that too. But really, like my, my soul is poured into my
• 16:33
  photography. And I guess that's the, the most purest form that
• 16:37
  you could sense my magical abilities there.
• 16:41
  Casey Fatchett: I think the, I mean, it's interesting, people
• 16:44
  use it like the thing of, like, witchcraft or magic or whatever.
• 16:49
  And that really isn't the term like spell is literally about,
• 16:52
  like, like you're going about, like writing something out, like
• 16:56
  you're spelling it out, you're creating a ritual. Like, yes, so
• 17:01
  what in taking photos do you see that as a type of spell or
• 17:07
  ritual? Like, what and if so? Like, what element of it is, of
• 17:12
  the process is magical?
• 17:14
  Justine Kenahan: Yeah. Oh, I love that. It is absolutely a
• 17:18
  spell. I have, like, certain breathing techniques that I do
• 17:24
  when I'm shooting. I've kind of passed those on to some. Someone
• 17:29
  reminded me of that recently, that I gave them early career
• 17:32
  advice, which I forgot about. But basically, like exhaling
• 17:36
  when you press the shutter down, that you know, can help reduce
• 17:42
  camera shake and all of that, but call it a breathing
• 17:45
  exercise, call it a mindfulness exercise, you really have to, at
• 17:50
  least for me, yeah, I'm, I'm in this funny space between
• 17:56
  relaxing and being like in The cardio zone. You know, if I if
• 18:02
  I'm working my Apple watch, I can see my heart rate is high,
• 18:04
  but I'm relaxed into this moment, into this kind of
• 18:08
  trance, where I am totally focused on no pun intended, or
• 18:16
  I'm totally focused on the the moment and the pose and the
• 18:23
  light at the certain moment and the angles and the composition
• 18:26
  is just all this, you know, this, this state of mind. So
• 18:32
  it's it's that. But in order to get there, I have to kind of
• 18:37
  ground myself beforehand and maybe chat with with the
• 18:42
  subject, or really, kind of like, relax and get comfortable
• 18:45
  with the subject, and then we shoot, and then after, after
• 18:48
  that. It's like a, like a, just a release. It's really a release
• 18:54
  for me, if I have, like, pent up energy, it's like I'm just
• 18:58
  channeling this energy into this spell, call it a spell, and it's
• 19:05
  all good. You know? It's like, I'm create. When I'm creating, I
• 19:08
  am at my most pure. And that sounds like so poetic, whatever,
• 19:14
  but it's true. I mean, I just feel like I am at my most
• 19:16
  authentic self when I'm doing the thing. Sometimes it's
• 19:22
  stressful. I used to shoot weddings. I know how that goes.
• 19:26
  I stopped doing it because it didn't feel good to me. It was
• 19:29
  something that I was like, I'm way too tense for for this to be
• 19:33
  feeling good, you know? But when I'm creating with a subject,
• 19:39
  whether it's headshots or I used to shoot boudoir, and I still
• 19:44
  shoot fine art, and, you know, things like that. It's a, it's a
• 19:49
  very trance like state when, where I'm in. And I think my
• 19:53
  subjects feel that too, because I get that same reaction from
• 19:56
  them when, when, you know, we stop shooting, we wrap up, we
• 19:59
  you. It's usually we feel it. We feel like we got the shot. We
• 20:03
  feel like we've done everything we want to. And if we don't, we
• 20:07
  dive right back in, we take breaks, but we dive right back
• 20:10
  in and we keep creating. And I've heard that from I've heard
• 20:16
  the testimonials from my clients before saying like this, let's
• 20:20
  create magic. And they said it before I coined that term art
• 20:23
  witch. So you know when, when people say, you know, working
• 20:30
  with you, is it's a different experience. I'm like, Yeah,
• 20:34
  cool. Well, that's, that's great, because I'm definitely
• 20:37
  all in when I'm shooting with you, and then afterwards too. I
• 20:43
  mean, there's a self care element to it. I am usually
• 20:47
  pretty depleted energetically afterwards, so I have to really
• 20:51
  kind of either spend some time alone or just like, crater
• 20:55
  myself on the couch and just completely decompress. But there
• 21:00
  is, there is certainly, like, a, like, a deep, energetic
• 21:06
  connection there that I can't really explain other than, like,
• 21:12
  some sort of magical element
• 21:15
  Casey Fatchett: you're certainly there's ritual to it. There's
• 21:17
  like, I mean, I mean, just you saying, it made me think more
• 21:20
  about, like, what my process is for weddings, or any, any shoot,
• 21:23
  honestly, like there is a whole ritual I go through every time.
• 21:28
  And in a similar way, feel totally spent at the end of the
• 21:32
  day, but I'm wired so, like, that whole thing of like, being
• 21:35
  amped up, but I have, you know, expended my energies in a, you
• 21:41
  know, my wife always jokes, like, I get home from a wedding,
• 21:44
  you know, two o'clock in the morning, but I am just like,
• 21:46
  totally awake. I need, like, an hour to, just like, come down.
• 21:52
  My body is tired. My body is just like, physically drained,
• 21:55
  but like, mentally, I am, like, still, so spiritually or
• 22:00
  whatever, just like, Yeah, it's so it's such a high level that I
• 22:03
  need the time to, like, come down and sort of recharge, or,
• 22:08
  like, just like wind down, to be able to go to sleep, or any
• 22:14
  shoot. Like, it's just sort of like the you put this, like, the
• 22:17
  ritual of, like, prepping the gear, all those things. And, you
• 22:22
  know, like you mentioned it with, like, oh, like, the cardio
• 22:25
  rate goes up, you know, even though I'm relaxed. Like, people
• 22:28
  talk about athletes being in the zone, yes, all the time. Like,
• 22:33
  you know, like this, there's, like, there's, it's the same
• 22:36
  thing. It's the same
• 22:38
  Justine Kenahan: I used to so I recently switched over my camera
• 22:44
  system. But I used to have used to shoot on a cannon, and I
• 22:47
  would carry around these very heavy lenses, right? So I would
• 22:51
  have people, they're like, oh, wow, that camera looks very big.
• 22:54
  I'm like, yeah, like, I won't let you hold it, but guess what?
• 22:58
  Like, it's I weighed it. It's like three and a half pounds,
• 23:01
  right? So it, when I was using those cameras, it was literally
• 23:06
  a workout. And you know, when you're shooting with two
• 23:09
  cameras, or you have, you know, the strap, and you have multiple
• 23:13
  cameras going, it's just, it's, it's a, like, your weight
• 23:16
  lifting, right? And even when you're, if you're exercising,
• 23:19
  you're working out, you get that that high as well. I get that
• 23:24
  high when I shoot. And it's it's very hard to explain for to
• 23:28
  somebody who hasn't experienced being a photographer before,
• 23:33
  because it's like, it sounds so cookie, but it's a very
• 23:38
  interesting sensation. When you get like, a runner's high. From,
• 23:45
  Casey Fatchett: I was just gonna say the same thing, yeah.
• 23:47
  Justine Kenahan: From, from photographing someone, yeah.
• 23:53
  Casey Fatchett: My wife never been a runner. I used to be a
• 23:55
  runner. And she's like, I just don't understand that. Like,
• 23:58
  that feeling the runner's high. She's like, Yeah, would run. And
• 24:00
  just, like, never, never get that. I'm like, Yeah, unless
• 24:03
  you've experienced it, you don't understand, like, what that
• 24:06
  that? I don't know endorphin rush or whatever, that's going
• 24:09
  on chemically inside of you that just, like, makes you just feel
• 24:13
  like it's a alive,
• 24:16
  Justine Kenahan: yeah, alive. That's so good, yeah.
• 24:20
  Casey Fatchett: And like, it happens when you, like, you're
• 24:22
  really in the moment as a photographer. Like, I was, like,
• 24:26
  you mentioned mindfulness, and I was just thinking, like, yeah,
• 24:29
  like, this is such a thing that, like, getting yourself to be in,
• 24:33
  I, you know, in any sort of photography that I do. But like,
• 24:37
  also, especially with the wedding stuff, where I just
• 24:39
  like, oh, I need to be in tune with this moment, yes, and
• 24:44
  understand it. And like, that's how I capture moments between
• 24:48
  people that you know, like, aren't necessarily noticeable,
• 24:54
  but like, you Oh, people will come back to me and say, like,
• 24:54
  Oh, you got this wonderful picture of my aunt and my mom
• 24:58
  talking, and they haven't seen. Each other in like, two years,
• 25:01
  and like they just like they're laughing and carrying out like
• 25:04
  you wouldn't have known unless we told you, like, what was all
• 25:09
  gonna be like you just summed up that photo just like, sums up
• 25:12
  their relationship so much, and just being open to it, and like,
• 25:18
  aware of your surroundings and mindful of what, what is
• 25:21
  happening in that period of time. Like, it happens so much
• 25:25
  like, go out into nature and stuff like that. Just be like,
• 25:28
  yeah, I really need to, like, let this sort of absorb this
• 25:31
  moment and not just, you know, impose my will upon it. I think,
• 25:36
  yes,
• 25:37
  Justine Kenahan: yeah. And that it's, it's interesting that you
• 25:39
  bring that up because I was thinking about this earlier too.
• 25:42
  So like my roots in photography, sort of started in both with
• 25:50
  portraiture, but also with street photography. So in my
• 25:54
  early 20s, right after I graduated college, I got a job
• 25:58
  in Boston, so spending a lot of time in the city, and I was so
• 26:04
  energized by the energy in the city where I just hadn't
• 26:09
  actually it was shooting mostly on my phone. I think at that
• 26:12
  point it was like an iphone four. So really it wasn't great
• 26:16
  quality compared to the digital experience now, but at that
• 26:22
  moment, I was just so like, in love with what was happening
• 26:27
  around me and just looking at everything, just being present,
• 26:32
  right, like looking at people's shadows on The on the sidewalk,
• 26:37
  and just compositionally people versus architecture, and just
• 26:44
  like icicles during, like, the snowpocalypse of 2015, or
• 26:50
  something, you know, like just really absorbing what was
• 26:53
  happening and just observing, absorbing and observing. And
• 26:59
  that, I think, set me up for success in my photography
• 27:05
  career, because I learned just to watch right, just to kind of
• 27:09
  look at what was happening around me, and instead of
• 27:12
  manipulating it, or, like you said, imposing your will on it,
• 27:16
  or, you know, forcing something, you're just you're just looking
• 27:19
  at what is, what is there? What it is in its purest form, a
• 27:24
  happenstance, right? And so that's sort of how I apply my
• 27:28
  work now, where I'm just looking at something naturally. You
• 27:33
  know, with, if I'm working with a subject, I'm sometimes I'll
• 27:36
  guide poses and with fine art as well, but I do just sort of
• 27:42
  watch things happen and watch how the light hits certain
• 27:46
  angles of people's faces, or, you know,
• 27:50
  I'm working on a project now that's a little bit of
• 27:52
  documentary and portraiture, and it's the same thing. It's just
• 27:56
  observing surroundings and people in their environment and
• 28:00
  just watching it happen naturally, and capturing that
• 28:03
  moment. And again, it ties back to the just kind of sinking into
• 28:10
  the flow of life, right? Like, like a lot of the so the project
• 28:15
  I'm working on is called in her magic, and I know that you
• 28:19
  wanted to talk about that, so segue right into that. This is
• 28:21
  my next question. Was going to be like, What drew you to these
• 28:25
  to this topic? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I so this, this topic, this
• 28:31
  project, is focused on women who identify as witches, who also
• 28:37
  own metaphysical shops. So it's exploring the intersection
• 28:41
  between witchcraft and business, and I feel like that's kind of a
• 28:47
  very interesting crossing point, because it addresses money and
• 28:55
  capitalism and spirituality in the same project, in the same
• 28:59
  context. And my kind of origin story with that is I, as a
• 29:06
  child, have always been interested in the supernatural
• 29:11
  and magic and witchcraft and the occult. I have some family
• 29:16
  members that are witches, and I just have always been interested
• 29:20
  in that so when I was younger, there was a metaphysical store
• 29:24
  in the local mall back in the 90s, and I was just so drawn
• 29:29
  there all the time. And I always wanted to know, like, how does
• 29:31
  this come to be, how does somebody open a shop like this?
• 29:34
  Like, who are they? What's their story? And two years ago, I
• 29:41
  still had this idea in my head. I was like, I should make a
• 29:44
  project about this. I've always been interested. I've always
• 29:46
  wanted to talk to those people to find out more, and I didn't
• 29:50
  really have a format for it, but I went into a local shop that
• 29:54
  was nearest me, and it was the first time I had been in there,
• 29:58
  and I just walked around and started talking. Me to the shop
• 30:00
  owners and pitch the project without really having any sort
• 30:03
  of structure to it. I was like, I have this idea. Would you be
• 30:06
  interested? And they said, Yes. And then later that day, I found
• 30:10
  out I was pregnant, so I had a lot of a lot of thoughts around
• 30:17
  that, like, oh man, my timelines pushed out. Like, this is
• 30:20
  definitely going to halt the progress. But after thinking
• 30:24
  about that, I realized like this was the universe's way of
• 30:27
  saying, like you want to create, so you're going to create and
• 30:33
  and in a weird way, it sort of just kind of like flourished. I
• 30:39
  had this idea. And while I, you know, still have, like, very big
• 30:45
  commitments to my family and everything, I'm still committed
• 30:48
  to this project through so, you know, I'm working with these
• 30:54
  subjects, these women who have, you know, open these businesses,
• 30:59
  and they aren't typically in front of the camera, right? So
• 31:03
  when I'm there, I'm photographing them in their
• 31:05
  natural environment and just the flow of the environment. And
• 31:09
  I've had a lot of success so far. I've had a lot of good
• 31:12
  feedback. I've worked with about eight businesses in the last few
• 31:15
  years, which is pretty good considering I have a full time
• 31:18
  job and a family, and this is just a passion project that I'm
• 31:21
  seeing through.
• 31:24
  So, yeah, it's sort of where I am.
• 31:25
  Casey Fatchett: That's, I mean, I think that you're also dealing
• 31:28
  probably with, like, some of the There's stigma around, like,
• 31:32
  yeah, the like, people talk about witchcraft, whatever. But
• 31:36
  if, like, something that you know, you come to find out, if
• 31:42
  you're doing a little like, even just like a tiny dive into it,
• 31:47
  into the history of things, and finding out, like potions and
• 31:51
  things like that, or like, coffee is a potion. Yes, it is
• 31:56
  tea is a potion like this is things that people like. We mix
• 32:00
  some herbs together, and we made like this thing that, like, soup
• 32:04
  is a potion. Soup. Like, yes, soup is a potion. Soup, potion.
• 32:08
  You put it in your cauldron, you cook it up, you know, makes you
• 32:12
  feel better. You put some like, whatever, the herbs and things
• 32:15
  into that, like, you know, they're beer,
• 32:20
  Justine Kenahan: anything, cooking, cooking, Alchemy, too.
• 32:23
  You know, it's, it's a transformation of anything. And
• 32:27
  I think, yes, there is a stigma. And part of my project is, and,
• 32:33
  yeah, part of the project is also like having conversations
• 32:37
  with the subjects and learning. You know what their stories are,
• 32:43
  how they got here, how they got to open magical practice. But
• 32:48
  you know what? What are the trials and tribulations of the
• 32:54
  the stigma of witchcraft? You know, do people come in here,
• 32:58
  kind of like, spooked out, or, you know, do you get a lot of
• 33:01
  hate, or do you get a lot of like, curiosity? And the answer
• 33:04
  is yes to everything. People have. Some of the stories that
• 33:10
  I've heard about what these women have dealt with is very,
• 33:17
  very interesting to say the least. But I the common thread
• 33:22
  that I'm that I'm getting from all of these businesses is that
• 33:25
  they want to create a safe space for people to come in and ask
• 33:28
  questions and feel good, you know. So a lot of the time,
• 33:32
  these shop owners are like local therapists, in a way, people
• 33:36
  come in and say, I'm having, you know, an issue with a neighbor.
• 33:40
  Can you help me, you know, protect my property, or I'm
• 33:43
  traveling and I'm a little anxious. Can you give me some
• 33:46
  like crystal that will make me feel better, like something like
• 33:49
  that. And they, they hear, they come. They're, you know, the
• 33:54
  shop owners are, if you want to call them mystics, if you want
• 33:58
  to call them healers, if you want to call them psychics or
• 34:01
  mediums, like they kind of run the gamut historically, which
• 34:06
  is, have been healers and, quote, unquote witch doctors,
• 34:11
  or, you know, like anyone that's prescribing some sort of healing
• 34:15
  element to Someone's someone's ailments, or midwives as well.
• 34:22
  They were persecuted as witches in history because they were
• 34:28
  misunderstood. So what I think is really interesting about this
• 34:33
  project is unpacking all of that like you know, unpacking how
• 34:40
  these mistakes and misunderstandings throughout
• 34:42
  history have impacted the community's perception, but also
• 34:47
  how they are coming to into their own power, into their own
• 34:52
  magic, opening these shops and giving a community a space to
• 34:58
  just relax and. And heal.
• 35:03
  So as a photographer, I've you know a documentary photographer,
• 35:07
  I was like, Yeah, I want to. I want to know everything. I just
• 35:10
  want to photograph these people in their environment and see,
• 35:14
  see what it's like. So it's brought me a lot of joy to do
• 35:18
  this, and I think as I'm hearing more and more people react to
• 35:24
  the project, I think a lot of people are very interested and
• 35:28
  thankful for this sort of exposure and visibility as well.
• 35:32
  I find it fascinating.
• 35:34
  I'm curious how you approach photographing spaces that are
• 35:42
  considered energetic or spiritually charged in that
• 35:45
  sense of, you know, respectfully, documenting that,
• 35:52
  yeah, so, so the cool thing about these spaces is that, like
• 35:55
  they have, they have a caretaker, right? So the space
• 35:59
  itself is a living object. It's a living being. You can, you can
• 36:04
  feel that in most of these spaces where, you know, there's,
• 36:07
  there's an energy. It's either like buzzy or it's relaxing. I
• 36:13
  for me like I feel things, I perceive things I feel things
• 36:17
  I've always felt like spirits and things and as a kid, that
• 36:21
  always scared me, because I didn't know I thought it was,
• 36:24
  like scaring myself, you know, like, oh, there's a shadow over
• 36:27
  there. I'm, you know, I feel like it's something weird, but
• 36:30
  I'm just going to run away from it. But the feeling in a lot of
• 36:35
  these spaces is a good feeling. It's a it's a nurturing, like a
• 36:38
  warm hug, I haven't walked into any shop yet where I'm like,
• 36:42
  That's gross, you know, I don't want to be here. I have walked
• 36:46
  into many, many houses where I don't feel like that, or like,
• 36:50
  you know, like spooky spaces. But in photographing these types
• 36:55
  of environments, I always like, firstly, I'll ask the shopkeeper
• 37:01
  or the the subject like, what's your favorite area? And we
• 37:05
  typically start there, why is it your favorite area? And I want
• 37:09
  them to explain to me why.
• 37:11
  Because I feel like, if there's, you know, if there's a table
• 37:16
  that has, like, like, one of the shops had this old wooden table
• 37:20
  that I was like, Oh, that table has a personality. Like, tell me
• 37:23
  about this table. I want to photograph this table. And also,
• 37:26
  like, get her angles, you know, like, this table is talking to
• 37:29
  me. I always want to make sure that I'm being as respectful as
• 37:34
  possible. And if there's an area, say it's an altar, their
• 37:37
  personal altar that they don't want photographed. I won't, you
• 37:42
  know, it's kind of just like, Okay, leave leave this alone.
• 37:47
  And I kind of sense that in certain certain shops, if it's
• 37:51
  like a personal space where I'm like, Okay, I'm not really
• 37:54
  welcome in this, in this part, I'll always ask people like, Are
• 37:59
  there places off limits that you don't want me to show and
• 38:02
  they'll say yes, or if, if there is an altar, and I'm like, Ooh,
• 38:05
  pretty crystals, like, I'll say, Can I I'll ask if I can
• 38:08
  photograph it. And if they say yes, then of course I will, but
• 38:12
  I'll approach the the the environment, like I would a
• 38:17
  person, you know, consent, of course, like making sure that I
• 38:20
  can photograph these specific elements of that space. But you
• 38:25
  know, also, like thanking it when I when I leave, you know, I
• 38:31
  do that to my house too, like thank you house. Or, you know,
• 38:34
  buy a house. And you know, if the or if I, you know, stay at
• 38:37
  an Airbnb or something. I did that when I was in New Orleans,
• 38:42
  um, recently, I was, I was staying at an Airbnb, and I was
• 38:45
  like, this house is charged. Oh, my goodness, I'm going to, like,
• 38:49
  compliment it and make sure that it knows that, like, I'm, uh,
• 38:53
  I'm being respectful. And if it doesn't want me in a certain
• 38:57
  room, which there was a certain room that everyone in that, in
• 39:01
  that group of people, was like, Yeah, I'm not gonna go in there.
• 39:04
  All right, all right. Noted, heard, yeah, okay, you can feel
• 39:08
  it.
• 39:09
  Casey Fatchett: So in what way you kind of brought up to, like
• 39:15
  this, like history, lineage of women practicing metaphysical
• 39:21
  and spiritual work. How do you think that photography can
• 39:26
  amplify or honor that sort of lineage and, you know, promote
• 39:35
  less, less stigmatized environment?
• 39:41
  Justine Kenahan: Well, I think it's, there's a couple things
• 39:45
  there, I think is bringing visibility into into the context
• 39:52
  there. Because, you know, witches had to go into hiding
• 39:56
  for a long time, right? Or. It was never accepted to talk about
• 40:03
  witchcraft or to identify yourself as a witch in fear of
• 40:08
  persecution, execution, being ostracized in a community. So
• 40:16
  you know, historically, the the folks, the men and women who are
• 40:23
  labeled as witches, were usually the outcasts in society. So if
• 40:29
  it was like a single woman living on her own or didn't
• 40:33
  interact with the community, she was labeled as a witch. Or if it
• 40:38
  was like I said, healers, witch doctors, midwives. They were
• 40:43
  labeled as witches. So it was never really like an okay thing
• 40:47
  to say, Yes, I'm a witch, I think, until modern history, and
• 40:52
  I think in like, you know, over time with pop culture and
• 40:56
  everything, being a witch is now trendy again. And it's, it's
• 41:00
  something like, you know, you you put on seeing bumper
• 41:04
  stickers on people's cars, and like, yeah, you know, especially
• 41:08
  now it's, you know, right after Halloween, like, people just,
• 41:12
  it's all over the place, T shirts, whatever magic two is
• 41:15
  coming out, yeah? Or Hocus Pocus, like, couple years ago,
• 41:20
  or whenever that came out, right?
• 41:21
  Casey Fatchett: They're making a third one
• 41:22
  Justine Kenahan: good they should
• 41:24
  Casey Fatchett: with the original kids, grown up.
• 41:26
  Justine Kenahan: Oh boy, grown up,
• 41:28
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, for Hocus Pocus, like, it's gonna be the
• 41:31
  original three, which is like, oh, three kids. Like, now
• 41:36
  they're adults, like, because which they didn't do. And I was
• 41:39
  like, kind of bummed in the second one. I was like, Well,
• 41:41
  why didn't we hit? Like,
• 41:43
  Justine Kenahan: I think Thora birch was in it for like a
• 41:45
  minute. She was, she had a cameo, but, but, yeah,
• 41:48
  Casey Fatchett: be her. And like, the other, like the older
• 41:51
  two, the brother and the Yeah, back for that stuff,
• 41:56
  Justine Kenahan: but yeah. And then you have, like, Wizard of
• 41:59
  Oz, or the, you know, the stereotypical like, green witch
• 42:04
  with the hooked nose and everything. This project, I
• 42:07
  think, is just, really just an effort to, like, normalize,
• 42:11
  like, oh, so and so, who you know from, you know, your
• 42:15
  Pilates class or your Zumba class, they're a witch. Guess
• 42:19
  what? You know, they're a normal person, but they just have these
• 42:23
  abilities, or this connection to the earth, or, you know, just
• 42:27
  just ways to kind of, like normalize things. And while
• 42:30
  things like I said, you know, it's kind of trendy to label
• 42:34
  yourself as a witch, now, I feel like there's just, this is, like
• 42:40
  a way to authentically honor those that came before us, those
• 42:44
  ancestors that came before us, in in showing that like this is,
• 42:49
  this is a space that they've cultivated. These are tools that
• 42:52
  they use. This is the items that they stock in their shops, the
• 42:57
  reasons why. And then this is a pretty picture of their face.
• 43:02
  And, you know, I want to always bring out the best in people.
• 43:05
  That's just how I am as a person and how I am as an artist. And I
• 43:09
  always say that like I'm I'm here for you. You know, the
• 43:13
  photography is mine, but I'm trying to capture you as a
• 43:17
  person comfortable in your environment, and capture your
• 43:20
  essence in your own environment. You know, if you're standing in
• 43:24
  front of a wall with the incense that you've blended, I want to
• 43:29
  that's something that you made. You're a maker, and that what
• 43:32
  was infused with intention. That's your witchcraft, that's
• 43:36
  your practice, that's your ability. I want to be able to
• 43:41
  capture that. So the intention behind my work is to bring out
• 43:48
  the magic of other folks, other other women, who have come out
• 43:54
  of the broom closet and have opened the shops for the
• 43:59
  community to serve other people, bringing it back to the the
• 44:04
  roots of witches, of healers and makers and, you know, just kind
• 44:10
  of like modernizing that a bit.
• 44:12
  Casey Fatchett: I think it's, I mean, we can also look at it as
• 44:14
  like, you know, photography in its beginnings was looked at as,
• 44:20
  like, some sort of, you know, magical process, yes, just sort
• 44:26
  of, is, I mean, it's magic
• 44:31
  Justine Kenahan: physics,
• 44:32
  Casey Fatchett: yeah, it's a lot of things. But, you know, all
• 44:34
  that stuff is intertwined in my, in my mind, I can, I can
• 44:37
  scientifically tell you, like, like saying before, like, just
• 44:41
  the the the energy, your energy, on a quantum level, you see
• 44:50
  things as being solid. Like each thing is being solid. When I
• 44:55
  touch something, the clap, it's actually like, there's a lot.
• 45:00
  The clouds, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny particles. When you get way
• 45:04
  down to the bottom, it's their little clouds, and those clouds
• 45:08
  intermesh, like this is things like you You take energy like,
• 45:13
  if you've ever gotten shocked by static electricity, you
• 45:16
  understand how there's this sort of like interaction between
• 45:21
  things. So you've experienced it, and like, the energy from
• 45:26
  something transferring to another thing. So, like, there's
• 45:30
  this is happening all the time, trillions upon trillions of
• 45:35
  times per second. You know, of like interactions between
• 45:40
  particles. And, you know, like, you can't, like, deny that that
• 45:47
  that process is happening, right? And I think it's really
• 45:51
  interesting, also, like, when you talk about, like, you know,
• 45:53
  photography, sort of like, capturing what we see, like, in
• 45:59
  a way that like had never existed before.
• 46:03
  I mean, he had people who were drawing things here, painting or
• 46:07
  whatever they did, but in a way that you could, like, actually,
• 46:09
  like, hold on to those moments. And very funny thing that I
• 46:14
  found a bunch of old glass plate negatives. Oh, wow. A box of
• 46:23
  them, and I found it just like, this is like, I can't remember
• 46:27
  how many years ago in a local antique shop.
• 46:30
  Justine Kenahan: Oh, my god,
• 46:33
  Casey Fatchett: yeah. It's just like, this is somebody's these
• 46:36
  are 100 years old. They're from like 1918 through like 1932 so
• 46:40
  like, 14 years but it's like, for the most part, most of them
• 46:43
  are over 100 years old, right? And that's gives me this look
• 46:47
  into the time traveling into their lives, yes, and these
• 46:52
  memories and things and I have, I figured out, like, a system
• 46:56
  for like, because you can't put this in a scanner. It's this
• 47:00
  plate, whatever. There's nothing built for, like, scanning these
• 47:05
  pieces of glass. So I, like, devised a system for, like,
• 47:10
  basically, photocopying, yeah, put it on a whiteboard, like,
• 47:15
  mounted a camera over it, like, photograph the negative, and
• 47:18
  then, like, bring it into my computer and switch to a
• 47:21
  positive and look at it. And, you know, I've resurrected.
• 47:24
  Here's a little magic for you. I've done a little resurrection
• 47:30
  on these, this life,
• 47:33
  Justine Kenahan: You're an inadvertent necromancer,
• 47:35
  Casey Fatchett: inadvertent necromancy, this whole life
• 47:40
  from, you know, yeah, 100 years ago, I see people I've never
• 47:46
  met, yep, who are not famous or otherwise, like, historically
• 47:52
  notable. I saw their dog. No, it's just like, like, as I was
• 47:59
  looking through these, yeah, as I was looking through them, just
• 48:03
  like, as negatives, like, looking at there was, there was
• 48:04
  a shot of a butterfly that I had always because kind of enamored
• 48:04
  of, and I was like, Oh, this one's my favorite. But there
• 48:05
  was, like, another one that was like, dog house, and it couldn't
• 48:14
  really make it out. I couldn't really see it in the negative
• 48:16
  and, like, I kind of tell it like, Oh, I think this might be
• 48:19
  out of focus, but it's not and it got better when I, like,
• 48:23
  scanned it, like, switched over to a positive. It's a dog house,
• 48:27
  and you see the dog like, sitting in the, like the opening
• 48:31
  of the dog house. There's another hole in the upper corner
• 48:34
  of the dog house. The cat is poking its head out, and, like,
• 48:38
  looking down at the dog, and I'm like, that is so amazing. This
• 48:42
  is, this is great. Like, this is, like, you know, and it's,
• 48:46
  you know, this isn't in a museum, yeah? And, like, yeah, a
• 48:50
  book somewhere. This is just, like, this is somebody's
• 48:52
  memories, Yep, yeah,
• 48:55
  Justine Kenahan: it's so, it's so interesting when you're
• 48:58
  shooting film. So, so I'm doing this project on a digital
• 49:03
  camera, but I, for the past few years, I kind of fell out of
• 49:09
  love with digital and I had been shooting film, so I acquired a
• 49:14
  large format Calumet camera, four by five, and I had been
• 49:20
  shooting on that portraiture, very interesting stuff, and I
• 49:26
  took a mirror selfie of myself and my husband before we got
• 49:32
  married. So we were in our we did our first look, and then I
• 49:35
  did that. So I have three self portraits of us in our wedding
• 49:41
  attire. And I just love the fact that it's archival, you know,
• 49:45
  like something like that will exist for 100 plus years. And
• 49:49
  granted, it's only the negative, but there's something so
• 49:53
  beautiful and enriching and just like, obviously timeless when it
• 49:59
  comes to. To, you know, analog photography, even, even
• 50:03
  negatives. I mean, like my, my step grandfather was a World War
• 50:08
  Two vet, and he was also a photographer, and I do have some
• 50:16
  of his work on just the negatives, and I've been able
• 50:20
  to, like, retrieve them and blow them up and and everything. And
• 50:24
  it's just, there's like, that is, that's where the magic is,
• 50:28
  right? Like someone is literally creating something that will
• 50:32
  exist for centuries, maybe, hopefully, yeah. And then
• 50:38
  sometimes the paper is archival, the paper will exist for that
• 50:43
  long too. And I just think it, there's, there's such richness
• 50:47
  to that where you can't really duplicate that with a lot of
• 50:51
  other artwork. I mean, you, well, yes, you can. What am I
• 50:55
  talking about? Like, yeah, like these, like Renaissance
• 50:58
  paintings and stuff. But there's just, I mean, you are literally
• 51:02
  capturing a moment in time, right? You're not painting it.
• 51:06
  You're not staging it. It is, it is a moment in time that was
• 51:11
  transferred through physics onto something that is archival. I
• 51:17
  think there's just you can't compete with that. There's
• 51:20
  something about photography that cannot be replicated in other
• 51:24
  art forms.
• 51:27
  I mean, it's just like, even if you shoot digital, print your
• 51:27
  Casey Fatchett: Print your photos.
• 51:33
  stuff, print it out because you let me tell you, like, that's
• 51:37
  another thing like I mentioned, like finding that film in my
• 51:40
  parents basement. But I also found, like, stacks and stacks
• 51:44
  of photos.
• 51:45
  Justine Kenahan: Yes, old Polaroids. Well, no, just like
• 51:50
  original Polaroids.
• 51:51
  Casey Fatchett: These tiny, like, almost like postage stamp
• 51:56
  sized photos, because they used to print, like, like how people
• 52:01
  printed stuff. And there's just such, learn your photography
• 52:05
  history, folks. There's, like, so many great, like, little
• 52:08
  things like, these were pictures of my grandparents on their
• 52:10
  honeymoon, yeah, and these tiny little photos that they in. And
• 52:16
  there were other ones. There were postcards. You could get
• 52:18
  your photo printed out, picking your negative printed out as,
• 52:21
  like a postcard like that was one of the like in, like, the
• 52:26
  40s or 50s, like you your personalized postcards, like,
• 52:30
  printed out on the back it had, like you could, you know, put in
• 52:33
  the address and whatever, all these things, like, yeah, like,
• 52:37
  I'm getting to see people I never met. I never met either of
• 52:41
  my biological grandmothers.
• 52:43
  Justine Kenahan: Oh, wow.
• 52:43
  Casey Fatchett: They both passed away when my parents were young,
• 52:46
  and my grandfather's remarried. So I had met both of, like, my
• 52:50
  step grandmothers, but I met my biological grandmothers and
• 52:53
  finding all these pictures of them, and, like, special
• 52:58
  connection to them, and because they were printed out, because,
• 52:59
  they were printed out. Because, like, yeah, I don't know what,
• 52:59
  like, I don't know what happened to the negatives of those, but,
• 53:03
  like, they printed out these photos. I've got a picture a 99%
• 53:09
  sure it is from a wedding that's in a folio. There's nothing
• 53:15
  written on it. I don't know who these people are, but it was
• 53:19
  like in and I remember seeing it before with my parents, and I
• 53:23
  was and I asked them, Who are those people? And they're like,
• 53:26
  not sure if they related to somebody or it was like friends
• 53:31
  of like, great grandparents, who they just happened to be, like,
• 53:34
  they were, like, the witnesses for their wedding. I'm like,
• 53:37
  seeing my grandfather, who was like a dairy farmer. And I
• 53:42
  always, like, saw him on the farm. I saw him like in his
• 53:45
  element. He was the president of the Dairy Farmers Association
• 53:48
  for a while. But, like, I always, I mean, I saw him like
• 53:53
  dressed up occasionally, but like seeing photos from his
• 53:57
  wedding, where he was he looks like a gangster, like Fedora on.
• 54:03
  He's got, you know, he's got his suit on, and he was young, and
• 54:07
  just, yeah, it's, it's, it's a glimpse into the past. Like I
• 54:13
  said, time traveling, yeah, yeah. And, you know,
• 54:18
  Justine Kenahan: in looking through, you know, old albums,
• 54:20
  family albums and everything. I mean, there's something almost
• 54:25
  lost now where you know everything's on your camera roll
• 54:30
  and that I feel like it's so unfortunate, but you know, like,
• 54:33
  I can go back 11 years on my on my phone, and I literally, not
• 54:40
  kidding. Have like, over 100,000 photos on my phone. Not even
• 54:44
  kidding. But you know, when you go back through your parents or
• 54:49
  your your family albums, that is, that's a real, real special
• 54:55
  experience and and recently, you know, I had my. Daughter is
• 55:00
  going to be tuned next week, which is mind blowing to me. But
• 55:04
  we decided that we were going to kind of try to replicate that in
• 55:08
  a way, and take Polaroids of her growing up. So I have two, two
• 55:16
  full albums right now, and I think it's just so special
• 55:20
  because those it's film. It's one of a kind film. You know,
• 55:24
  you don't have a negative for the Polaroids, but your parents,
• 55:28
  if you look at your parents stuff, I mean, they were
• 55:30
  shooting on Polaroid Land cams. And, you know, like,
• 55:34
  Casey Fatchett: I've got, like, I've got the old land camera.
• 55:36
  Justine Kenahan: Oh, I do too. And I think it's really, really
• 55:39
  sweet to go through, go through your family history, and then
• 55:46
  maybe try to do something like that for for your own family,
• 55:52
  whether it's printing Your your like, like we're doing with the
• 56:01
  Polaroid albums, but just making sure that you capture those
• 56:05
  moments, okay, making sure that you capture those moments and
• 56:14
  print them so that they exist beyond just the technology that
• 56:19
  we have. So, yeah. And the other thing I want to say too is, as a
• 56:26
  photographer, I've acquired, oh, my God, I think I have 40
• 56:30
  cameras downstairs. I see all the vintage cameras behind you.
• 56:35
  I have a similar collection, and they kind of come from, you
• 56:39
  know, if somebody says, like, oh, I have a garage full of
• 56:42
  boxes, and one of the boxes has old cameras. You want it. I
• 56:45
  always say yes, always say yes, never say no, because you never
• 56:48
  know what you're gonna find. Every time I go into an antique
• 56:52
  store or, like, there's always look any sort of like flea
• 56:55
  market, or anything like or anybody says, I've got this old
• 56:59
  camera. Like, take it. Yep, yep. Savers, oh, man, they're the
• 57:03
  best, because you can go to savers and they, I got a
• 57:08
  Polaroid, 600 out of savers, and it was $10 that's the best,
• 57:14
  Casey Fatchett: even if it's thing, like, I had a friend who
• 57:17
  contacted me. It's like, I have all these, like, little more
• 57:20
  recent. There's like, Nikon, like, I don't shoot Nikon.
• 57:24
  They're like, oh, like, I have this old, like, these Nikon
• 57:27
  lenses, but they're kind of broken, so I don't know if you'd
• 57:30
  want them. I'm like, Yeah, because you know what I'm gonna
• 57:32
  do with this. I'm showing, this is an audio medium, but I'm
• 57:36
  showing the same this, this kind of broken lens. I'm gonna do a
• 57:39
  video about how to do what aperture really is, but I can
• 57:42
  take this lens apart. I don't have to take apart one of my
• 57:46
  working lenses. That's a great idea. And like, show how
• 57:50
  aperture works with the, you know, a broken old film lens
• 57:54
  that I can, like, actually take apart and not have to worry
• 57:57
  about it going back together.
• 58:00
  Justine Kenahan: And the other good thing about acquiring old
• 58:02
  cameras from random people, or even, like my mom used to do
• 58:09
  estate sales, so I would go to the estate sales and, oh, that
• 58:13
  treasures you would find there. Oh, my God, but finding people's
• 58:17
  old film and developing it, it's like it's a treasure, because
• 58:21
  you can go and just like, revisit someone's memories of a
• 58:26
  party. Or, I don't know who these people are, but it's
• 58:29
  always fun to, like, just, it's a little bit voyeuristic.
• 58:33
  Casey Fatchett: Sure, this is how we got Vivian Mayer,
• 58:38
  Justine Kenahan: exactly,
• 58:39
  Casey Fatchett: and she blows me away. Like her her work, like,
• 58:42
  just, yeah,
• 58:44
  Justine Kenahan: phenomenal,
• 58:44
  Casey Fatchett: incredible. Like, I went to exhibition
• 58:50
  whatever. Like, they exhibited some work of hers in New York,
• 58:54
  like last year, I think it was, I can't remember, at a time
• 58:57
  since the pandemic has just become a weird time doesn't
• 59:01
  exist. Like, when was that? I'm not sure, but I went to this
• 59:05
  and, like, saw all of these things, and they're just like,
• 59:08
  her composition is just phenomenal, like, just amazing.
• 59:13
  And the thing that she didn't see, she didn't even develop
• 59:17
  most of that film, and see what she was like, what the outcome
• 59:20
  was, like, it blows me away. Like, like that she really was
• 59:25
  that was truly magical. Like, never saw the like, the finished
• 59:30
  product in most cases of her work. But she's just phenomenal.
• 59:35
  Maybe that would be my next project. I was gonna ask, what
• 59:38
  like moving forward? How do you plan to continue exploring magic
• 59:43
  or ritual through photography or like? Or is there a new
• 59:47
  direction calling you like? I was going to ask, yeah.
• 59:52
  Justine Kenahan: So this project, I don't plan on putting
• 59:55
  it down. I want to see it through. I have this. Vision.
• 1:00:02
  You know, I, when I when I pitched the first business, I
• 1:00:06
  had no idea what the format was going to be. I just knew I
• 1:00:08
  wanted conversation and photos right now, what I'm doing is
• 1:00:12
  having, like an interview, recording it, taking the
• 1:00:15
  transcript, and then pairing the transcript and or pull quotes
• 1:00:20
  with the with the photos. I just launched a new website for this
• 1:00:25
  project in her magic.com
• 1:00:27
  I launched it this week, and that was something else, right?
• 1:00:31
  So I had, I was like, well, Instagram is the path of least
• 1:00:34
  resistance in my life, so I'm just going to stick it all on
• 1:00:37
  Instagram for now, create a new account and go. And then I
• 1:00:41
  realized I have a love hate relationship with social media,
• 1:00:44
  so I'm going to see if I can make a space off of social for
• 1:00:50
  this project. So I created the website. I want to make a book
• 1:00:54
  at some point. I want to pitch it to magazines. At some point,
• 1:00:57
  I want this to live beyond just the spaces that I have it in
• 1:01:02
  now. So I don't plan on putting it down. I don't plan on
• 1:01:05
  stopping my interviews with folks I've I'm very impressed
• 1:01:09
  with the amount of with the saturation in just Rhode Island.
• 1:01:14
  I'm based in Rhode Island, so just the amount of places in in
• 1:01:18
  my immediate vicinity is incredible. I plan on taking
• 1:01:23
  this expanding out into greater New England, hopefully
• 1:01:28
  nationally. Hopefully, you know, if I travel internationally
• 1:01:32
  some, at some point, I would love to, you know, kind of
• 1:01:35
  research the local shops and do the same for there. But I have
• 1:01:39
  this long term. This is, like the long game, right? Playing
• 1:01:42
  the long game, seeing it through. I feel like I in this
• 1:01:46
  sounds so woo, woo. But I feel like I am divinely guided with
• 1:01:51
  this project, like there is just something my intuition is
• 1:01:55
  telling me, keep going, keep going, keep going. And I'm just
• 1:01:58
  listening to it. I'm just following it. When it comes to,
• 1:02:02
  like, other projects, like, of course, like you and I were
• 1:02:06
  talking about the art of Lost Art. Like, I have further ideas
• 1:02:12
  for that. I have a whole like, roll of film that I botched
• 1:02:15
  because the the film fell out of the canister in my kitchen sink
• 1:02:20
  and exposed. But guess what? It created some really cool
• 1:02:23
  markings, and I was able to salvage it. Not saying I want to
• 1:02:27
  do that again on purpose, but like, if there's any other like,
• 1:02:30
  happy accidents that happen when I'm doing the thing, whether
• 1:02:36
  it's shooting or developing or what have you, I want to make
• 1:02:40
  the best out of what you know the universe is giving me. So if
• 1:02:47
  there's another idea that comes in my head, like, you know,
• 1:02:50
  maybe just exploring, exploring. I mean, going through the line
• 1:02:58
  of Vivian Meyer, like, I feel like she is another example of,
• 1:03:02
  like, kind of a witch, in a way she was creating this magic and
• 1:03:06
  hiding it. And like, maybe, like another idea was, would be like
• 1:03:11
  exploring those, those artists who haven't shown their work,
• 1:03:14
  and like doing a collaboration somehow to bring out that, that
• 1:03:20
  magic that hasn't been released, I feel like that's such a
• 1:03:25
  important thing about being an artist is, like, putting your
• 1:03:30
  work out there, because that, that in itself, is bravery, is
• 1:03:35
  courage, it's confidence. If you don't have that confidence,
• 1:03:39
  that's okay. Keep going, like, listen to that intuition. Just
• 1:03:42
  keep going. And someday, maybe you'll get there. Hopefully it's
• 1:03:46
  not after dead.
• 1:03:48
  Maybe someday you'll you'll get to a point where you want to
• 1:03:52
  release that magic into the world and inspire other people.
• 1:04:00
  Casey Fatchett: Hey, photographers, are you ready for
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  Unknown: Hey, now for my favorite part of the show,
• 1:06:35
  what's that? Say? Useless information. This is always
• 1:06:40
  death.
• 1:06:43
  Casey Fatchett: So now it's time for our useless information for
• 1:06:46
  this episode, Justine true or false, marijuana and beer are
• 1:06:55
  her biologically related to beer
• 1:06:59
  Justine Kenahan: true.
• 1:07:00
  Casey Fatchett: That is absolutely correct, because Hops
• 1:07:05
  is cannabis, a family in potions, potions, people,
• 1:07:10
  Justine Kenahan: potions, potions and magic.
• 1:07:14
  Casey Fatchett: Justine, thank you so much for being on the
• 1:07:16
  show. I had wonderful time talking to you. Where can people
• 1:07:19
  find you? Where can people find your projects?
• 1:07:21
  Justine Kenahan: Yeah, thank you for having me. You can find me
• 1:07:25
  on Instagram. My main account is picant dot photo, and my project
• 1:07:30
  is in dot her dot magic. And you can also find my project website
• 1:07:36
  in her magic.com
• 1:07:38
  Casey Fatchett: I'll be sure to include those links in the
• 1:07:40
  Episode Notes, Justine, thank you for coming on. You're
• 1:07:44
  welcome back anytime.
• 1:07:45
  Justine Kenahan: Thank you so much. This was wonderful,
• 1:07:54
  Casey Fatchett: and we are back. I hope you enjoyed my discussion
• 1:07:58
  with Justine Johnson kenahan about photography as magic. You
• 1:08:02
  can find links to Justine's work in the Episode Notes. I highly
• 1:08:04
  recommend you go and check them out. You can also follow along
• 1:08:07
  with us on the socials at the nerdy photo. That's at the nerdy
• 1:08:11
  photo, no dots, underscores or dashes on Instagram, threads,
• 1:08:15
  Tiktok, Reddit and blue sky. Give us a follow and get access
• 1:08:18
  to all the fun, as well as tips and tutorials that I share on
• 1:08:22
  the socials every now and then.
• 1:08:26
  Yeah, I agree. It is magical until next time, everybody stay
• 1:08:30
  safe and stay nerdy. Who's that?
• 1:08:42
  Unknown: Call? Heart been beating about? Get better.
• 1:08:46
  Get better. Get better. Get better.
• 1:08:50
  Listen, you.