Duane Michals: Aquarius Sun/Cancer Moon

The Illuminated Man, 1968

Duane Michals is an Aquarius Sun/Cancer Moon, like today’s astrology. Be still my heart! I love Duane Michal’s work so much, and he’s fun to watch on the documentary Duane Michals: The Man Who Invented Himself. Nostalgic + dreamy, confusing and abstract, airy with lots of ghosts appearing. This is Aquarius/Cancer when they get to play, which they bond over. Aquarius likes to observe—Michal’s work has an outsider quality, while a Cancer moon, such an emotional, squishy moon, brings the heart and knows how to getcha emotionally. Michals has an Aquarius Sun, + conjunct Aquarius Mercury + Mars—a lot of Aquarius! His ruling planet Saturn is conjunct the asteroid Niepce in Capricorn, and his Neptune (planet that rules photography) is conjunct the asteroids Photographica and Talbot. Practically destined to be a long-term weirdo forward-thinking but backwards-looking photographer.

Aquarius and Cancer might not be the best of friends on paper, but when it works, it works. He references dreams so much in his photos, which Cancer has a strong tie to, and which Aquarius are interested in.

Michals is a self-taught photographer, very Aqua, and instead of photographing in a studio, he takes pictures of people in their environments, at home, in apartments. This is Cancer’s influence.

His chicken scratch handwriting on the photos makes it personal (Cancer), and his in-camera double exposures uses the camera in new ways (Aquarius). He is a storyteller, who doesn’t take himself too seriously (Google his Who is Sidney Sherman photo for a funny photographer’s inside joke.)

He’s been at it forever (that late-degree Capricorn Saturn conjunct asteroid Niepce) and is still working. He changed the genre in so many ways—an Aquarius leading the field into unknown dimensions!

Spirit Leaves the Body, 1968