R. Renee Branca

There’s a strong connection between music and readers, and so music is very much a part of the way I tell stories. I’ve done this my entire writing life, but I’ve gotten more deliberate about it over time.

When I taught darkroom photography, I wanted to see how imagery and literature–two very different kinds of storytelling–might be used together to create something richer than either form on its own. So I would spend very long hours, usually at night, developing prints and trying to craft narrative to accompany them. Our darkroom had an old CD player, covered with black electrical tape to hide any lights from the control buttons, and I would bring a binder of CDs with me. It made solitary work in the dark a lot more enjoyable.

The darkroom was shared by anyone with a key, and around the time of my first phototext exhibition, another photographer started leaving these amazing mixes behind in the CD player. Whoever it was shared my taste, but they also were listening to things I’d never heard before–and almost all of it resounded with me. These mystery mixes were incredibly eclectic: one disc had Humanwine, Robert Johnson, Beirut, Tom Waits, Gil Scott-Heron and songs from the Hair soundtrack, and something about those choices just worked really well in that atmosphere–the red safety lights, vanilla scent of stop-bath, the water running through the wash drum.

A new mix would appear every few days, and I began to think of whoever left them as the “Darkroom Compañera.” (I went with the feminine because so much of my musical taste had been influenced by boys and men. I liked the idea of another woman, working late into the night on her own project, creating these playlists and inadvertently introducing me to new artists).

At one point I found myself stuck on the “text” part of the phototext, unable to figure out how to tell a story that worked with the piece, unsure even who I was telling the story to. I thought about the compañera then. If I saw her (or him, or them), what would I say about this work? This person who understands instinctively that “Winter in America” is a perfect counterpoint to “Let the Sunshine In” when you’re struggling alone in a darkroom, trying to make something new? Picturing her as the reader somehow made the story easier to tell; I did it whenever the writing became difficult.

I never did learn her identity, and I’m sure she has no idea how much she and her music helped shape those stories. But I’m glad she left those compilations lying around when she did.