Martha Naranjo Sandoval’s new photobook has an intriguing title: Small Death. The two words, when placed together, are loaded with meaning and potential interpretation, something the photographer intended. “I wanted a title that was not static and pointed at different things – petite mort, muerte chiquita,” Martha says. “But to me it also alludes to other kinds of small death. Like when you emigrate and leave some of who you were behind.”
In 2014, Martha packed up and moved her life from her home country of Mexico to New York. As many can likely relate to, these moments in life feel so momentous – but, when mixed up in the mayhem of packing, planning and moving, we can forget to take time to create something that memorialises it. The instinct in Martha, however, was strong. “My life was about to change. I wanted to document my new life in a whole different country, being truly on my own for the first time,” she says. She was also inspired by someone else to pick up her camera – her father – who started photography following a big change in his life, the birth of Martha.
There was one final, more practical reason – the ease of creation. In Mexico, analogue photography had proved hard to practice. “Getting film was hard, developing was hard, scanning was hard, printing was hard,” says Martha. “I had the suspicion that it was going to be easier in New York, so I brought my analogue camera with me when I was packing.”