A portion of this Interview by Michael Behlen was originally published in Issue 3 of PRYME Magazine in 2015.

In 1999, Mikael Kennedy hit the road. He was in his early 20’s and had previously spent the better part of his high-school years living through his older brother’s letters written while he was hopping and riding freight trains. What choice did he have? Traveling seemed to be a genetic predisposition flowing through his veins that he couldn’t resist. He almost immediately followed in his brother’s footsteps, but with one main difference: he carried a Polaroid camera. Those years went by fast and for good reason, he was “running out of time.” He hitchhiked to and from nonspecific destinations, touring with bands as a way to travel, and living out of his car when he had one so he could pursue his very simple goal: live his life to the fullest while he still could. Because who knows when it could all be over?

To Mikael’s surprise 22 years later, it’s still not over. What started as a way for him to document his life on the road quickly turned into the critically acclaimed blog and (now retired) nine-part zine series Passport to Trespass that followed his decade and a half ping-pong like nomadic journey across the world. Even today his zines read like a modern-day photographic equivalent of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. The photographs contained in them range from authentic scenes of absolute social freedom, intimate portraits of traveling companions, and mysterious Avant-garde art created out of the places he just happened to be. He wasn’t so much of a visionary as much as he was simply being himself, which is exactly why selections of his images have now appeared in print in The New Yorker and Nylon and profiled online by GQ, Esquire, and Newsweek magazine, among others.

Now, in 2021, Mikael is a Los Angeles-based commercial and fine arts photographer who has shot for the likes of J. Crew and L.L. Bean, and is even a sought-after antique rug dealer who has been covered by Martha Stewart Living magazine. He’s as surprised as you are. However, looking back on his work you can see that it was the painful grit and dedication to his non-linear path to success that makes what he achieved that much more real. Like his photography, his life’s Polaroid work is an echo of his own story: a simple and honest visual diary of a man who was lost in his own journey searching for those moments of pure life. As a whole, Passport to Trespass and even his later publications like Hobo King are not philosophical, but they are indeed deep. They aren’t pretentious but carry a weight of seriousness. By all accounts, including my own, he was one of the first artists to inspire me to use instant film, not for the look but because of the feeling. Thank you Mikael for being a role model to all of us as a man who used art to live his life instead of living a life for the glory of it. We still have a lot to learn from you.

Please enjoy the following interview, partially conducted in 2015 in PRYME Magazine and updated for 2021. You can connect with Mikael Kennedy on his Website and Instagram.

INTERVIEW

Michael Behlen: Our original interview first took place in 2015. What has changed in your world? How has 2020 been to you?

Mikael Kennedy: 2015 seems like a lifetime ago. In early 2015 I was living in Joshua Tree, CA for a month while my wife worked on a record, the first day we were there we decided we couldn’t live in NYC anymore, living in the city had always been a struggle for me, I grew up in the woods, the concrete just felt wrong to me. Two weeks later we found out my wife was pregnant. When I look back at my life everything seems planned or to have followed a clear path even if I have no idea what I was doing at the time. There are these very pivotal moments or places where my life changed forever, Joshua Tree in 2015 was one of them, New Mexico in 2007, an island off the coast of Maine in 2001. So we moved to Los Angeles and our daughter was born, everything changed then. 

2020, well, I was traveling constantly at the beginning of the year, Miami, L.A., and then Morocco for work, which has always been a dream of mine. When I was in Morocco we started watching the world change, Italy locked down, I flew out and home through Paris as it was locking down and landed in LA just a few days before the city got hit and went into lockdown, and then our entire world changed….so, we adapted. This touches on the death questions you ask me later but I find strength in not struggling against things I cannot change, I didn’t lament the loss of my previous existence, I had no choice so I just look forward. In some ways it was a very good year for us, we turned our world inward. There’s this old quote from Milan Kundera’s unbearable lightness of being where he talks about using a breakup as a “golden broom” to sweep out the things he didn’t like about his life, I read that in high school and it has always stuck with me. So I used this time, this slow down to really look around at my life, what did I value, what did I want to get rid of? I feel like I shed a lot of really negative things this year and that felt good. 

MB: Tell us about when instant film came into your life. What inspired you to start using it?

MK: I found my first Polaroid SX70 camera in a thrift store in 1999, that was the beginning. I was living pretty free then, just bouncing around, back and forth across the country. My friend and fellow Polaroid artist Mandy Lamb and I were splitting batches of the expired film on eBay when we could afford it. Nothing looks like a Polaroid. I was immediately drawn to the beauty and the imperfections of the image. It matched the image I saw in my mind, of what I wanted to see. We were traveling so much at that time that having a self-contained process was really helpful. There were no negatives to worry about, no need to find a lab to process the film.

MB: In 2006 you released Passport to Trespass, Vol. 1, alongside passporttotresspass.com. What was your motivation behind creating the ‘zine? Where did you get your title?

MK: The title came from a time when my brothers and I were caught trespassing in North Carolina, I showed the Police officer my camera and the Polaroids I had taken and he let us off. I started to refer to my camera as a “Passport to Trespass.” The name came to mean deeper things as the project went on. It began to embody the idea of the life I was trying to live. Of constant movement and constant exploration, of freedom. The ‘zine came out of my punk rock childhood. I used to break into the copy room of my high school and make zines; we did it in college as well. I liked the idea of having a physical copy, a record of it all. The internet is great but it’s only of value to me in how it relates to or affects my real life. Part of the love for the Polaroids was that they were physical objects, art objects more than just photographs. I also always liked the idea of having a cheaper takeaway version of my art from my gallery shows. Not everyone can afford one of the photographs but I didn’t want that to exclude them from participating in the work, from being able to take a piece of it with them, so I got really into the idea of having affordable versions of my art out there.

MB: As time went on you published a total of nine volumes of Passport to Trespass and various other publications. What is it about ‘zines that inspires you?

MK: I started an art collective in Seattle in 2003 called Interrupt Art Productions with some friends of mine. I started building web pages for everyone who didn’t have one. We did shows, published albums, made ‘zines of the work. The premise behind it was that we weren’t going to wait for someone’s permission or acceptance to put our work out there. We were just kids making art, we had no connections to the art or publishing world, but it all came out of that punk rock DIY ethos, that “fuck you we can do this without you” mentality. So we all made ‘zines. The transitioning into self-publishing photobooks was a natural progression. One of the beautiful things that have come out of the proliferation of the internet is that it really puts a lot of power back in the hands of the artists: you can record and release your own album, publish your own work. With that opening up comes a lot of noise but that’s a fair trade-off.

MB: Do you have a favorite edition of Passport to Trespass and if so, which one was it and why? 

MK: My favorites are the later books, Between Dog & Wolf & Hobo King. In those books I allowed myself to become untethered from documentation and slip into a dream state. With Passport to Trespass, I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time, I was just staying in constant motion, to be honest, I was also pretty high most of the time when I was making that. The drugs made me feel like a ghost, like I was able to float through the world. I had no plan. I just did what I knew how to do, wander and take photos. Both of the later books were dreamscapes, ideas I had. I think if I had to choose a book Between Dog & Wolf would be it.

MB: It has been close to 15 years since Passport to Trespass Vol. 1 was released. Looking back: How does this make you feel? Any plans for a re-release?

MK: I have an open offer from a publisher to do a Passport book and I would love to but I’m not ready yet. Some of the wounds are too fresh, it still feels too personal to me. I was pouring myself out there, it feels very young and not completely in a bad way. I also always find it funny when someone writes a memoir in their 20’s, I’m in my 40’s now and still want more time before I put out the definitive version of that story. I’m not sure I’d ever reprint it exactly how it originally came out, more so I’d like to build on it, I think I understand better what I was doing now, what I was searching for in that work.

MB: You shared with me that your camera was your passport to trespass; originally, through places, you shouldn't be. Where has your camera (or rug addiction) taken you later in life that you shouldn't be, location, socially, or career-wise?

MK: I think I suffer from imposter syndrome like most folks, half the time I don’t feel like I belong where I am professionally but I think one of the best things I ever taught myself is just to turn off that part of my brain, to acknowledge that it’s there and then just move on. I didn’t fly on a plane until I was 18, I grew up in a big family in the country and flying was something I thought rich people did, anytime I get on a plane on someone else’s dime I feel like a king. Finding myself deep in Morocco on a job last February was a high point of my career and life, I was able to really take a deep breath and look at myself through the eyes of 15-year-old Mikael and say, damn, this is something to be proud of.

MB: It would be hard to distinguish you as a “landscape” or as a “portrait” photographer since your work is made up of both. How do you uphold the impressive diversity that you have achieved with your portfolio? Do you lean towards either of these categories?

MK: I really like that it’s hard to define my work in that way. I do a lot of weird projects and oftentimes I catch people trying to categorize what I do, or limit my work to one thing or the other. My favorite answer is always, “You don’t get to tell me what my art is.” I think labeling ourselves ends up limiting what we are capable of. Now at some level, we are all just communicating and so it’s necessary to boil things down to an easily conveyed idea; when folks ask me what I do for a living it’s easier, and fairly accurately sums it up, to say I’m a photographer. But when I think about what I really do photography is only part of it. I run a Tumblr (kennedy1979.tumblr.com) where I post up whatever I’m working on at the time, what I’m thinking about (but always my own work). It’s a test to myself, if I can scroll through it and everything fits seamlessly together - the landscapes, the portraits, even some of the commercial work - then I feel like I’m doing it right. It’s all just a vision I have of the world; it doesn’t matter what exactly I’m looking at.

MB: What is it that draws you to landscape photography? Have you always made landscape pictures?

MK: I grew up on an old farm in rural Vermont. My time was generally spent outdoors with my brothers exploring the woods and valleys around us. When I had a camera I started out by taking pictures of the land around me, not a lot of people. To me, there is a perfection in nature, even in its imperfections, that I find calming and beautiful. The lines of things really catch my eye; that’s where it starts. I don’t wear my glasses even though I’m supposed to so I start out seeing color and shapes: that’s what the landscapes are to me. Right now I am working on printing some of the California series big. I want the image to fall apart on the paper, for it to feel like a painting more than a photograph. Also the more time I spend living in NYC the more I crave the isolation of being out in the wilderness, away from all the noise.

MB: The portraits that you create seem to have a desolate and documentary feeling to them. How would you describe your personal portrait style? What is your process for capturing people on film?

MK: Again it’s really just more a vision I have of the world. I try not to call it documentary work because it is a very limited view. At the same time, I think all photographic work is documentary in a way. I’ve been drawn recently to this Wim Wenders quote: “A photograph is always a double image, showing, at first glance, it’s subject, but at a second glance - more or less visible, ‘hidden behind it,’ so to speak, the ‘reverse angle’: the picture of the photographer in action.” I think in a way most photographic bodies of work if they are honest (which to me is the ultimate measurement), end up being self-portraits because every photograph taken is a reflection of the individual taking it.

MB: In 2015 you shared with me that once Polaroid was done, this body of work would be done. With the Impossible Project and now Polaroid: are you still shooting instant film, if so: with what camera and film stock? 

MK: I feel like this related to the death I was speaking of, Passport to Trespass was such an era of my life, I was lost, truly lost, just wandering the world, trying to feel a sense of home somewhere, to replace what I’d lost as I child I suppose. And honestly, I just started to feel at home, with my wife, in my life, in my physical body. I watched other older photographers do the same thing over and over again for years, and it didn’t feel genuine, it felt they were stuck in a loop and I had no interest in that. The ending of Polaroid almost solved that problem for me. It took me years before I was ready to really pick up a Polaroid camera again to document my life, and honestly, it was the birth of my daughter that made me do it. If I was still to be making Passport books, the past five years would really just be about her. I plan on making those books someday but just for us. Also on a technical level, the impossible project film was just trash to start with (sorry guys). They were so sweet to me and I tried to be supportive but it just wasn’t there. Now they’ve finally nailed it and I love the film again, I shoot the Polaroid Originals Film (both 600 and SX70) in my old SX-70 cameras. I also try to shoot as much Polaroid on my commercial sets as possible, I love the behind-the-scenes Polaroids of Wim Wenders and Alexandre Tarkovsky, often far more than the final form of their art. Polaroids will always feel more intimate to me, special. To hold a Polaroid someone has taken is to hold a piece of their life.

MB: Have you still been putting out zines? Which is your most recent release? How has the transition from instant film to other film stocks changed your style of photography, if any?

MK: I put out a series of five books after Passport to Trespass that were still Polaroid that I absolutely love Between Down and Wolf, Hobo King, Houstatonic, Year Zero, & Days in The Desert. Those zines or books felt like the true work to me, the true vision of what I was doing, more refined. I also made two zines called California & New Mexico which were 35mm shots out of my window as I drove around. When I moved on from Polaroid I still found regular photography boring, I wanted my photos to look like paintings so I started experimenting with motion and color blur. I still want to do a show of that work, I have one piece I made for it which is a 4x6 foot photo mounted on Plexiglas that floats off the wall, the show is called “Everything is a Window.” I still hope one day to be able to put that show together but life gets in the way sometimes and I haven’t really had the time or space to work on it.

MB: You started working on photography while you were "driving trucks, washing dishes, taking out people’s trash, just working." Do you think that this grit and perseverance is what has lead you to where you are now? When you started shooting Polaroids, did you expect to be shooting for clients such as J. Crew and L.L. Bean ten years later? How did that happen?

I’m proud of my blue-collar life prior to being an artist. Prior to all this, I was driving trucks, washing dishes, taking out people’s trash, just working. I have a hard time paying attention to someone who’s never worked a day in their life, I’m sure there are faults in that way of thinking but it’s important. Part of putting out my Passport to Trespass ‘zines was I would just be trying to get them in as many shops as I could. I figured no one was “looking” for me but you never know who will find you; I oftentimes would randomly mail them to folks who I was inspired by or leave them in stairwells of galleries as well. Jay Carroll (formerly of Rogues Gallery & Levis) found one of my Polaroid books in Opening Ceremonies, which sold them at the time, and reached out. He brought me in to shoot Rogues Gallery’s clothing line and it took off from there. The head designer of Rogues moved on to start LL Bean Signature and called me up years later to work on that; it’s just been a constant evolution of projects. I have a hard time sitting still so I’m always looking for something to work on.

I never expected any of this to happen, I’m still constantly shocked by where I have found myself. Not until I moved to NYC did I realize that this could be any form of a career. One thing I struggle with these days is my wife and I live as full-time artists and while I am incredibly proud that we have achieved that in our lives, you are removed from the world in a way, Springsteen talks about this, about achieving success that pulls you away from the world your success was built around. Instagram has definitely changed how I look at photography though, it ruined it in many ways, but I realized a long time ago that the world of photography I wanted to exist in or grew up on, Robert Frank’s The Americas, Allen Ginsburg’s photography couldn’t exist anymore, the world had changed too much and there was no point in lamenting that change or struggling against it, I had to adapt, to find a way to work and make work in the new world.

MB: How would you describe your evolution as a photographer over the course of your career? Do you feel that there are some consistencies in your personal style? On the other hand, how do you think you have changed?

MK: This is a really fascinating question to me right now, and I’m not sure I can fully answer it. I used to say that I wanted to get hired to take a picture because they wanted ME to do it, not because I know how to push a button. Now I view a very clear line between my art and my skill. I like that people tell me they can see a through-line or a style in all my photos but sometimes it’s nice to just show up and push a button, to think about other things. I guess it all just comes down to being true in what you do, if you do that then I think the work is good.

The evolution of my work I think is one of the most important parts of it. I ended Passport to Trespass in 2011 for several reasons, one being that my life was changing, my interests were changing. I didn’t feel like that young kid anymore running around with a camera. It felt dishonest to continue the work in the same way; the other reason was the quality of the film was quickly becoming a problem. But to get stuck in an artistic practice is dangerous, it’s limiting, and I don’t want limits. So there were lulls where I wasn’t producing as much work and then something would just click, like the California book I did last year. I knew I needed something to do once I ran out of Polaroid film and digital photography just always feels too clean, too sterile to me, I wanted something I could feel, I wanted motion, and color, I wanted to paint, but I wanted to be able to travel as fast as I always do. So I tried something out with a 35mm camera driving around California and it worked perfectly. The work from that series is some of the stuff I am most proud of. I just shot a book on New Mexico in the same way. In the end, what I do is not about photography, or Polaroid, or anything of that sort really; it’s just about life and me figuring things out as I live. Each project I suppose represents a different part of my life.

MB: In another interview, you said: "I feel like I (that person) died at the end, or did when I moved west to Los Angeles, in a good way." Can you expand on this quote for us?

Mikael Kennedy: Well, I’m very into this idea of allowing there to be phases to your life, Joseph Campbell talks about this a lot, about changing the way he dressed when he retired to allow himself to change. I feel like I’ve died a few times in my life and moved onto a new phase. Death has always been around me, ever since I was little, and it felt liberating. Someone once said there are two phases to your life: before you realize you’re going to die and after. I realized I was going to die at a very early age, it was very real to me as a child for a lot of reasons, there was a lot of trauma there for me that I still feel like I’m figuring out, but yeah, death. I left a lot of darkness behind when I moved west, family stuff, friends, I just saw the way my life was heading and didn’t like it, so I (we) changed it. We headed towards the light and in this case, it meant the actual sunlight, the desert. Does any of that make sense?

I guess a real concrete point I can give here is that one of my dearest friends died of Leukemia in his mid 30’s a few years before I left, he was my second friend to die young from cancer and it shook me. He and I were each other’s guides through so much in our early lives, and art careers, and surrounding his death there was a lot of drama in our community, people trying to claim ownership to him, to his legacy, it a lot of ways it broke me. I walked out of his funeral, I was disgusted by it. I buried him and then I left, mentally and then physically. I didn’t want to be part of any of it anymore. I’m not sure if this even related to your question but it’s on my mind now. I guess going back to your original question, yes in a good way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not painful or hard. I think one of the most important things in life is to allow yourself to change, to grow, and little deaths are part of it.

MB: How have your punk rock adolescent (and not so adolescent) years affected your standing in the art, business, and photographic world? What is your definition of "selling out" and how has someone with so much success appear to have not sold out yet? Or have you and how have you reconciled this (with yourself)?

MK: Punk rock is everything, but when I say that, it has nothing to do with the music, I remember my younger brother once told a hardcore kid in Boston “I know farmers in Vermont who are more punk rock than you” and that really sums it up. To me punk rock was the foundation for me, some people had religion growing up, I had punk rock politics. I learned about Anti-Racism movements when I was 14 or 15, learned about the labor movement, women’s liberation, anti-fascism, earth first, that’s what punk rock means to me. I cared less about the music and more about the moral world punk ruck presented, Also being an awkward lonely kid the, reject aspect of punk rock really spoke to me as well, it gave me a sense of belonging. There’s also the ethos of fuck you if you don’t get it, we’ll just do our thing, that’s how I approached my art career. No one was giving me shows, gallerists would kind of laugh off the idea of my Polaroids at first, they didn’t get it, so I just said fuck it. I started a roaming art collective in Seattle in 2001 called Interrupt Art Productions I would build artists who I liked websites if they didn’t have one, we’d put on art shows all over the place, anywhere that would give us a space. When I arrived in NYC in 2005 we put on our last show, one big blowout called Down or Out, it was our crew, painters, musicians, graffiti artists, just all the people I’d traveled with and loved over the years, the ones who inspired me. It was a huge party in Brooklyn, the crowd filled the streets, it was a nice way to end that era.

The selling-out conversation is pretty simple to me, it’s a stupid concept. The art world is full of rich kids who never had to work a day in their lives, why do we put this stigma on poor artists, like you are supposed to stay poor to stay real? Just stay true. That’s all that matters, you can tell if someone is faking it. So I say get that paper, use it for good. fund your art, fund your friends’ art with the money you make. There are lines I won’t cross in terms of who I will work for, and it’s a huge difference between allowing my artwork to be used to promote something vs being hired because I’m good a taking pictures. I’ve been broke most of my life, and it was incredibly difficult for me to even pay for my work to be framed at times, to put on an exhibit. Just stay true to yourself, it sounds cheesy but that’s all there is, that’s really the only rule I suppose in my art.

MB: You recently moved to Los Angeles, what was the reason for the move and how has it affected your life and photography?

MK: Moving to L.A. has been one of the best decisions in my life, I feel at home here which I never felt in NYC. I need space and sun. We rent a little cottage in the hills, tucked away in nature, you’d never know we lived in a major city. I needed that. I spend most of my free time sculpting this property, digging in the dirt. It’s my form of meditation. I spent the first two weeks of lockdown swinging a pickaxe on the hillside carving out a new garden. In terms of my photography, well, it gave me space to breathe I guess. I feel like in NYC it was all about work, chasing work, I knew long ago that wasn’t the life I wanted, but supporting myself and my family was a priority so there had to be a balance. This feels more like the life I wanted and that has always been the goal, the life. Nothing else matters.

MB: How the hell did you become a rug dealer? Where did your obsession for textiles come from, how is it opened the world up to you, and how has it affected your other artistic endeavors? 

MK: Hahaha, lord, I don’t know. I just kind of fell into it. Visually they make a lot sense to me. This really could be an entire other interview but basically, my photography was never my art, my life was my art. Photography was just a byproduct or the result of the life. These rugs are maps of human existence as they document wars, prayers, culture clashes, all woven into these 100-year-old textiles. I can go very deep on this, but it started out being aesthetic driven, most of the old Persian men I work with just tell me I have a good eye for rugs. I buy what I like and then only sell what I like. It’s one of my favorite things to do, hunting for rugs, it’s like digging for treasure in the storage rooms of their collectors. It’s nice to have something to focus on other than photography, it clears my head. Also, after so many years working with “makers”, it’s nice to be able to make something of my own, I’m designing bags, clothing, furniture all with the rugs or based on them. It’s really just a lot of fun for me.

MB: How did you become one of the most sought-after dealers in both L.A. and New York?

MK: Well, I’m not sure I would call myself that but I understand what your saying here, do you know any other rug dealers? That’s a big part of why this worked much to my own surprise, these rugs aren’t something that is easily accessible to folks. I don’t think a lot of dealers were putting their rugs up for sale online, and if they did they wouldn’t list the prices, it felt like there were a lot of barriers for folks if they were interested. I just filled a void with something I loved. I actually opened a store in L.A. late last year with a friend of mine who deals Moroccan rugs, I love to bring people in and share with them my obsession and love of these objects I’ve collected.

MB: Anything else you want to share with us? It could be literally anything! 

MK: My wife Malena Cadiz is someone everyone should be paying attention to these days www.malenacadiz.com I’ve said for years, I like what I do and I’m good at it but she is on another level, she’s got two records coming out sometime this year that are going to be incredible. 

GALLERY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Behlen is an instant film addict and the founder and publisher of Analog Forever Magazine. For the last 6 years, Behlen has become an obsessive community organizer in the film photography world, including launching the independent publishing projects PRYME Magazine and PRYME Editions, two enterprises dedicated to the art of instant film. Through these endeavors, he has featured and published 200+ artists from around the globe via his print and online publications.

He has self-published two Polaroid photobooks -Searching for Stillness, Vol. 1 and I Was a Pioneer, literally a boxed set of his instant film work. His latest book, Searching for Stillness Vol. II was published in 2020 by Static Age. He has been published, been interviewed, and been reviewed in a quantity of magazines and online publications, from F-Stop and Blur Magazine to the Analog Talk Podcast. He loves the magic sensuality of instant film: its saturated, surreal colors; the unpredictability of the medium; it’s addictive qualities as you watch it develop. He spends his time shooting instant film and backpacking in the California wilderness, usually a combination of the two.

Connect with Michael Behlen on his Website and on Instagram!

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