Magic, Or The
Closest Thing To It
Maren Celest on Working
With Ben LaMar Gay
Chicago photographer, filmmaker, and musician Maren Celest shot the photographs used for Ben LaMar Gay’s Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun. She also filmed, edited, and animated the accompanying video for a track from the album called “Muhal”. Tracing The Lines editor David Brown recently caught up with Celest to pick her brain about that collaboration and those processes, as she remembers it. The following piece is compiled from parts of that casual conversation.
One thing I always try to do when I work with anyone, especially artists, is that I like to sit down with them and really find out what the project means and represents to them. Where it's coming from, where they want it to go.
The vibe I got from Ben after that conversation was that there was a lot of family history to address—childhood concepts, concepts that he still honors and thinks about, that began way, way back. I think that that album [Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun, IARC0017] was probably very different for him too, in that, if I remember correctly, it was things he never thought he'd release. Things from many different time periods. A huge variety of music.
[on the album artwork]
The album cover itself was the first thing we did, and the Pullman train system is a big part of what he had in mind as far as the visual aspects, as well as the title. I really wanted to do the album artwork on 4x5, which is a large format film. I knew that it would give an incredible resolution and just be so nice when it was printed for physical media, but what I actually ended up doing was a bit different. A friend had given me all this actual silver Russian photo booth paper, and I cut it down to 4x5 size. So the cover image of Ben was actually shot onto paper, and the negative that I developed is actually this paper that I then scanned. It has an almost tintype quality.
I knew that I needed to do some test shots ahead of time, so I went with a friend to where we were going to shoot the cover and she posed for me. Paper isn't designed to be nearly as light sensitive because you're working with it in the dark room under red light. The reason I really wanted to test it is because my shutter, even in broad daylight, had to be open for, I want to say three seconds.
I believe I brought four of them when I went back to shoot with Ben. Every cartridge can hold two 4x5s. You can only do one image at a time, and it's a lot of setup. You get one shot, then you have to do it all over again. If you forget one element, you're not going to get the shot. You have to load the cartridge, remember to pull the dark slide out, set the shutter, set up the shot. Ben had to stand super still. I think we ended up only doing two of those four 4x5s and using both of them. One was included on the inside of the album package. For the other one, which was used for the cover, we got so lucky. A train was passing. So we just kind of went with that.
If another photographer saw this image, they'd probably be wondering what the heck is going on, because it doesn't look like film. It looks like a tintype, but it's not a tintype. Then, if you look closely on the left side, there's a little linear pattern with some bubbles in it. That's from my tongs—from flipping the paper over—which is weird because that doesn't normally happen. I don't know why that happened there. And then there's some imperfect developing stuff on the right side. I don't know what happened there either. Maybe just that the paper was old and not the typical paper. We got really lucky with that, and I think we just did those two shots and used both of them.
It was really satisfying and fun. Usually if something looks that good the person’s eyes will be shut, or someone's making a funny face that you would never use. It's like magic. It is magic, or the closest thing to magic. Developing paper, especially. You're just watching an image come out of nowhere and it's an image of the actual past.
I think my favorite thing about this photo on the cover is Ben. It was so cold. It was freezing. I think that's part of why we were like, “I think we got it.” I did some digital backup as well, and I think I did a little tiny bit of 35mm. It was golden hour—it was really beautiful golden light. But my favorite thing about the photo he went with [for the cover] was that one imperfection. That blob.
Ben's breathing out in this photo, and I love that he chose to do that because he knew he had to stand really still, and I can't see when I'm taking the photo through the camera. So that little blob looks like his breath. Maybe that's why we did that? Because it was so cold that we knew the breath might show up, but it didn't.
My other favorite part is his eyes, because they're the only part that he moved a little bit, because he is standing right by the train. He did such a great job, not flinching, but he moved his eyes just a tiny bit, which is part of why I wanted to use that medium. A teeny tiny movement like that really changes things. So often in old photographs and tin types, you'll notice that people have these really ghostly eyes, and it's because the shutter speed was so slow and you can't really keep your eyes perfectly still. So it's catching just a tiny bit of movement in the eyes, and it gives them this shiny, ghostly, beautiful quality.
[on the “Muhal” video]
We drove around Bronzeville together for a day, which is Ben's early life stomping ground, and we had some locations already in mind that we knew we were going to go check out. The coolest one for me to be able to be a part of was going with him to his elementary middle school and meeting some of his teachers and walking around—you know what it's like to walk around your old school. Being able to experience that, to just watch that and feel that through him was really wild and cool. Probably really weird for him, but we had a great time.
Another really cool Bronzeville spot we went to, which I don't think is actually in the video, was this old jazz club that had a bunch of different names. I think the most famous moniker was the Cotton Gin. Pretty much everyone you can think of played there at some point. A beauty supply store had recently opened in the space when we were there. It's this bright fluorescent beauty store—a big, big place—and then you walk to the back and there’s a stage and this really great, fun 1930s-style kind of folk jazz art mural on this wood paneling, just hanging out in the back of the store. It's really cool, and I think you can still go see it. I believe it's still that beauty supply place. I drove by it not that long ago.
So, for the “Muhal” video what I did is I went around Bronzeville, both with and later without Ben, taking quick succession stop motion frames of these different places. It was just like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Some of it was even video that I would just do frame by frame or every other frame.
Then I put that on my computer, set up my camera on a tripod, and put a piece of tracing paper over my computer screen and drew on the tracing paper with pencil and charcoal. Over every frame. Sometimes I had to erase in order to keep going. So it's animated by hand. I mean, it's not every single frame, and I worked around things where I could, but it's all done by hand. It's like stop motion drawing, and then basically translated back into stop motion. I finished the last frames in a hotel room in Cairo while touring with Manual Cinema.
[on collaboration, communication, preparation, learning]
Working with Ben was just so great. It was one of the healthiest working relationships that I've had. The animation was extremely meticulous and laborious, but it was also extremely satisfying. Also, Downtown Castles is one of my favorite albums of all time. Really, truly. When I got to hear the music, I was just like, oh, wow. I was already having a great time, and now this is so much more on top of what I thought was already so meaningful.
Ben wanted to change the direction of the video at one point, and I think he was really struggling with how to bring it up to me. I was like, Ben, it's okay. I want to make something that you feel good about. Please just tell me. It's not an emotional thing for me. Let's do it.
Sometimes it's really tough when people can't be real with you and you end up making something they don't resonate with. That was the first time that someone I was working with had a big ask—or what they thought was a big ask—but wasn’t afraid to share it. Definitely very worth it and not a big amount of skin off my back either. He wasn't feeling like some of the stuff was accurately reflecting what he wanted to convey. So I was like, well, let's get it right.
I learned a lot about how to open up lines of communication very early on. Again, I already liked to meet with the artists, have a conversation with them, connect with them on a level that was more than just work, so that I could understand them and understand the energy beneath their vibe, underneath their aesthetic. Where it's coming from, who they are. With Ben, I learned that part of that conversation needs to be about letting them know it's safe. They're not going to upset me or perturb me in any way by telling me exactly what's on their mind. And that's been really useful.
I think that was also one of the first times that I knew I absolutely could not get away with doing everything on the day of. Doing those test shots ahead of time was clutch, and that's something I always try to do now as well.
I think that all goes back to the foundation that we built together through communication. I was very in touch with how things felt and what was important, or as in touch as I could be—there’s always going to be blind spots. But I think establishing that understanding is not just for the other person and not even just for the relationship. It's for you too, because then you know how you feel, how meaningful it is, and where the meaning lies for you and where it lies for them. And then you can do something that is able to carry what it's supposed to carry with it.
Tracing The Lines is a creative exploration of International Anthem Recording Co. and the community that surrounds it.
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