When director Rachel Elizabeth Seed started making “A Photographic Memory,” she wanted to understand who her mother was. The film was finished a week before its showing at True/False Film Fest on Friday, March 1. After a decade of working on the film, Seed ended up with an exploration of photography and a nuanced understanding of her mother’s life from early childhood to her death at 42 years old. 

When Seed decided to make the film about her mother, Sheila Turner-Seed, who died when she was just a few months old, her family was not surprised. Seed’s mother was an accomplished journalist and photographer of the 1970s. Her “Images of Man” series features video interviews with some of the most influential photographers of the time, all of whom became close to Turner-Seed throughout the interview process. The interviews discuss the philosophies, instead of simply technicalities, behind photography.

As the film shows, Seed grew up around cameras. She can’t remember a family gathering that didn’t have at least one family member recording everything. Her father, Brian Seed, photographed for Life Magazine, Time and Sports Illustrated. In the film, he says that it was his fate to have a daughter who was interested in photography and film as well. 

Early on in the film, Seed digitalizes and watches “Images of Man.” At the click of a button, both Seed and the film’s viewers hear her mother’s voice for the first time. Seed hears her talk and laugh with her interviewees. For a second, it seems as though her mother is alive again.

Still, Seed’s filmmaking cautions viewers from getting too lost in her mother’s interviews. The film is grainy and her voice is backdropped by the video player machines whirring. While her body from the neck down is visible, her face is never shown. When the video ends, her mother is gone again. 

Seed continues to explore the lines between photography,video and real life throughout the film. Excerpts from her mother’s journal are intertwined with her old photographs and childhood videos. 

The journal entries reveal that Turner-Seed’s life was full of uncertainty. She struggled with being a woman in a male-dominated industry, understanding what kind of person she wanted to be and finding love within her busy life. At many points, photos of Turner-Seed smiling are accompanied by voice-over journal entries expressing her discontent with life. 

The more Seed learns the more her own life starts to resemble her mother’s. When she explains her mother’s complicated romantic relationships, Seed plays clips from her own wedding. When she finds that her mother got an abortion against the will of her husband, Seed argues with her husband about having kids. When her mother runs away to New York, Seed does the same. 

Visually, Seed represents this shrinking separation between herself and her mother through photographs. She layers their self-portraits on top of each other, displays their photography side-by-side and at one point digitally inserts herself into an old interview her mother did with a TV program. Instead of rejecting the merging of mother and daughter, Seed embraces it with open arms. 

The only thing to pull Seed back to reality is talking to those who knew her mother. She tracks down her old friends, bosses, co-workers and lovers. Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the photographers interviewed for “Images of Man,” offered Seed a kind interpretation of her mother that was missing through her journal entries. To him, Seed-Turner was a warm and calming presence.

As Seed dives deeper into the external perception of her mother, she comes to understand that archives can only go so far. Old film negatives, journals, yearbooks and interviews would be meaningless without the interpretation from those living. 

“A Photographic Memory” argues that people contain more complexities than the media we try to immortalize them in. Photographs may attempt to make moments in life ever-lasting, but as Cartier-Bresson told Turner-Seed in an interview many decades ago, “Life is once, forever.”

Edited by Annie Goldman | agoldman@themaneater.com

Copy edited by Sterling Sewell | ssewell@themaneater.com 

Edited by Sophie Rentschler | srentschler@themaneater.com

Acclaimed photographer Kevin Fleming will lead a photography workshop from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, March 9, at the Lewes Public Library. Attendees can learn to be better photographers in just one day.

The workshop is limited to six people, so everyone will receive individual attention.

Fleming will begin with the basics of photography including shutter speeds and f-stops. From there he will cover how, when and where to find and create better photographs. The workshop is perfect for beginners and intermediate photographers.

Cost is $125 and includes lunch catered by Arena’s and a free signed copy of Fleming’s “Heart of America” book. 

For more information and to register, go to KevinFleming.com.

Visakhapatnam: Potina Sai Vijay, a photographer from Bakkannapalem village within Maduravada police station limits, who had gone missing on February 26 while on his way to a wedding shoot in Ravulapalem of East Godavari district, has been found dead. Police have arrested a suspect in the case.

Sai Vijay’s parents Srinu, an auto driver, and Ramanamma, who runs a store, filed a complaint with police on February 29 after their son’s phone had gone unanswered.

Investigations revealed that the photographer had come in contact with a person named Shanmukh through social media. Shanmukh, on coming to know about Sai Vijay’s high-end cameras worth around ₹15 lakh, convinced the photographer to come to Ravulapalem for a wedding event.

Following this, on February 26, Sai Vijay boarded a bus from Car Shed Junction with his cameras and reached Visakhapatnam railway station. He took a train to Rajahmundry, where he met Shanmukh. They hired a car and drove to Alamuru near Ravulapalem.

Suspecting foul play, Sai Vijay sent a photo of the car he was travelling in to his mother, along with Shanmukh’s phone number, expressing his apprehension about being with unknown people.

Subsequently, Sai Vijay’s phone had been switched off. Shanmukh’s number also turned out to be unreachable.

The photographer’s parents then filed a complaint with PM Palem police, who registered a case and started investigation. They collected evidence and traced Shanmukh as being in Ravulapalem. But when police reached there, he had absconded.

PM Palem inspector told Deccan Chronicle that they lured Shanmukh on Facebook by posing as a girl from Kancharapalem with whom Shanmukh had been in contact. They then arrested him.

Shanmukh’s interrogation revealed that he had killed photographer Sai Vijay in a room that he had hired. He had hidden both the body and the cameras in the room when police lured him out.

Police have arrested Shanmukh and are investigating the case further.

DCP said the police recovered victim’s body and handed it over to his parents. (Representational)

Two persons were arrested for allegedly murdering a photographer and stealing his expensive cameras, police said on Sunday.

According to the police, Shanmukha Teja (19) from Ravulapalem in Konaseema district got in touch with P Sai Vijay Pawankalyan (23), a photographer from Bakkannapalem area of the port city, for an assignment.

Teja informed Pawankalayan that both would work together on the ‘Ravulapalem assignment’ but he was actually planning to steal Pawankalyan’s high-end cameras, estimated to be worth around Rs 15 lakh, Visakhapatnam Police said in a release.

On February 26, Pawankalyan took a train to Rajamahendravaram, where he was picked by Teja in a hired car and proceeded to Alamuru mandal near Ravulapalem.

Police said Pawankalyan sensed that he was in trouble and messaged a picture of the car’s rear view and Teja’s phone number to his mother P Ramanamma, saying that he was with strangers and if his phone didn’t connect she could call Teja.

Ramanamma started worrying when she could not reach Pawankalyan on the phone, prompting her to approach P M Palem police station in Visakhapatnam and lodged a missing case.

Visakhapatnam Zone-1 Deputy Commissioner of Police Manikanta Chandolu told PTI that Teja and his friend Vinod (20) had strangled Pawankalyan to death with a leather belt and buried him on the banks of river Godavari near Alamuru.

When police landed at Teja’s home on March 1 at Mulasthana Agraharam near Alamuru, he was already on the run. However, they questioned Teja’s parents and confirmed the murder and also recovered the cameras hidden in a room in the house.

As Teja went incommunicado, police lured him by making a girl from Kancharapalem, with whom he was friendly, to text him and laid a trap following which Teja and Vinod were arrested.

The DCP said the police recovered Pawankalyan’s body and handed it over to his parents.

Teja and Vinod have been arrested for murder under IPC Section 302, police said. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Qiana Mestrich has joined the Center for Photography at Woodstock’s Advisory Board.

Mestrich is an interdisciplinary artist, photo historian, writer, and mother of two based in Brooklyn and Saugerties. In 2007, she founded Dodge & Burn: Decolonizing Photography History, an arts initiative that aims to diversify the medium’s history by advocating for photographers of color. Mestrich is an adjunct faculty in photography and social media at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY) and is represented in New York by sepiaEYE gallery. In 2022, Mestrich was awarded the Magnum Foundation Counter Histories grant for her @WorkingWOC Instagram archive project on women of color in the corporate workplace. Mestrich’s forthcoming book based on past interviews for Dodge and Burn will be published by Routledge.

Mestrich is one of the five artists in the upcoming exhibition, “Counter Histories: Tamara Abdul Hadi, Alan Chin, Naomieh Jovin, Billy H.C. Kwok, Qiana Mestrich,” on view at CPW’s Broadway gallery in Kingston from March 23 to May 26.

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Arts Mid-Hudson welcomes two new board members beginning their first three year term in 2024,  Malia K. Du Mont and Caitlinn Mahar-Daniels

Du Mont is currently serving as the Chief of Staff and Vice President for Strategy and Policy at Bard College. Du Mont has an educational background in Chinese from Bard College and her Master of Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School. Du Mont is an Army Reserve officer and Afghanistan veteran, and chair of the NY-18 Veterans and Military Families Advisory Board for U.S. Pat Ryan. she has served on several advisory boards, including the American University of Afghanistan and the World Affairs Council Mid-Hudson Valley. Additionally, Du Mont is a longtime choral singer and volunteers as a pianist at her church.

Mahar-Daniels is a SUNY New Paltz alumna and majored in Fine Art Photography with a minor in Art History. She has established herself as a prominent figure in the local and international photography scene, specializing in weddings and embracing the human form with an artistic touch. Beyond her professional endeavors, Mahar-Daniels is an avid hiker, motorcyclist, and traveler.

The new board members were elected at the 2024 annual meeting of Arts Mid-Hudson. In addition to the election of new board members.

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