MICHAEL KENNA

"I expect a viewer to be able to enter an image and

react with the environment. I try to create "stage sets"

for them to perform on."

By Daria Zinchuk

group 202

CONTENT

The aim

Who is he?

Biography

Interests

Start of his career

Development of the career

How he works?

Where he works?

His photos

His opinion about his work

The point of his work

Publications

Links

The aim of this presentation is to show you how talented is this man

and to tell his story of becoming successful.

"I feel closer to the elements when I

photograph at night, close to nature

because I have to watch."

WHO IS HE?

Michael Kenna is a critically acclaimed

photographer and master printer. He works

all over the world over the past few years.

Sometimes his work is specific to a project, an

exhibition, book or commission and at other

times it is just exploration. He values being a

member of Arts London Alumni for the way

it keeps him in touch with his own history and

the sense of continuity it gives him.

THE BIOGRAPHY

Michael Kenna was born in 1953, in

Widnes, Lancashire, an industrial town in the

north-west of England. He attended St Joseph’s

College, Upholland, a Catholic seminary school

from 1964 to 1972, and went on to the Banbury

School of Art, Oxfordshire, for a year before

starting a three-year course in photography at the

London College of Printing. He graduated with

distinction in 1976.

“In my early years, I was [quite] good in the

arts, painting in particular, and that’s what I

wanted to do at the time. However, after spending

some time at the Banbury School of Art, I realized

that there wasn’t [much of] a chance I would

survive as a painter living in England. I studied

photography in part because I knew I could at

least attempt a living doing commercial and

advertising work.”

INTERESTS

His interest in more artistic work was sparked during “The

Land” exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in

1975, directed by the photographer Bill Brandt. Kenna

acknowledges Brandt’s major influence on his work, along

with that of other great European photographers such as

Atget, Emerson and Sudek, or Americans with as widely

different aesthetic positions as Bernhard, Callahan, Sheeler

and Stieglitz.

THE START OF HIS CAREER

While working commercially in his early career, he went on with

his own research, concentrating primarily on the landscape. “[I

pursued more personal work] as a hobby, [and that continued for

a number of] years …” In the late seventies, he moved to the

United States and eventually settled in San Francisco.

There he met Ruth Bernhard (1905-2006), a legendary

photographer, most famous for her nude studies, but also well

known for her still lifes. For over ten years, he helped her with

printing, a field in which she was a stickler for quality. “I learned

an immense amount from Ruth. She [was] a remarkable and

unique woman.... She has been a very powerful [influence on

my life and work].” Kenna later moved to Portland, Oregon, then

to Seattle, Washington, where he is now living.

AND THEN…

Kenna constructs his work in large chapters, long-term projects

which may require him to go back to places he already knows

and has photographed many times, exploring them over and over

again.

“I like to be working on three or four projects at once, and even

when these projects are supposedly finished I often continue

working on them indefinitely.” These projects often take as much

as seven or eight years to complete. This was the case for The

Rouge, Le Nôtre’s Gardens, Monique’s

Kindergarten, Japan, Ratcliffe Power Station or Mont St Michel.

Sometimes the work takes even longer: his study of

concentration camps, exhibited in 2000 — and donated to

France — took over ten years and led him to the sites of all the

Nazi camps still remaining.

HOW HE WORKS AND INFLUENCE OF PHOTOS ON

HIS PERSONALITY

Michael Kenna: There are many characteristics associated with night

photography that make it fascinating. We are used to working with a single

light source, the sun, so multiple lights that come from an assortment of

directions can be quite surreal, and theatrical. Drama is usually increased

with the resulting deep shadows from artificial lights. These shadows can

invite us to imagine what is hidden. I particularly like what happens with

long exposures, for example, moving clouds produce unique areas of

interesting density in the sky, stars and planes produce white lines, rough

water transforms into ice or mist, etc.

Film can accumulate light and record events that our eyes are incapable of

seeing. The aspect of unpredictability inherent with night exposures can

also be a good antidote for previsualization. I find it helps with jet lag too!

Indeed my first night photograph, made in 1977 of a set of swings in

upstate New York, was a direct consequence of not being able to sleep. At

the time I used the "empirical method" of exposure measurement, (i.e. trial

and error), with much bracketing. The results were very interesting and

since then I've worked on my technique a little.

WHERE HAS HE WORKED?

AsiaSouth

America

EuropeNorth

America

WORLD

Africa

LET’S HAVE A LOOK AT HOW HE SEES THE

WORLD

INDIA 2006-2008

JAPAN 2003-2008

KOREA 2005-2010

CHINA 2008

Thailand 2006

ITALY 1980-2003

POLAND

Czech Republic

THE UK

SPAIN

Switzerland

NORTH AMERICA

The USA

MEXICO

AFRICA

SOUTH AMERICA

MOSCOW

HOW HE FEELS ABOUT HIS WORK

The process of taking photos“The whole process is satisfying for me. I love being out at odd times of the day and night, experiencing the world in fascinating places where I would want to be even if I wasn't making photographs. I love traveling and all that comes with it. I intensely dislike processing film -and fortunately there are some excellent labs around...

Seeing the first proofs is always exciting, editing, making work prints, then the challenge of making final prints, even retouching the first print - all these stages are enjoyable and immensely satisfying. Then there is the exhibiting, getting reactions from others, making books, etc. Photography is immensely challenging, with a good deal of work, but I am thrilled to be a part of it.”

THE POINT OF HIS WORK

For Kenna, these images allude to the “solitary

aspect of the journey through life,” he says.

“We may feel connected, but we come here alone

and leave alone, with no idea of what will happen

next. We all know we’re going to die, but we don’t

know how or when or what happens afterwards.

There are many question marks, and I like

photographing them.” It gives room for his

imagination, and ours, to try to answer.

PUBLICATIONS

All his travellings are depicted in his books.

Sometimes he writes them before the journeys, he

shares his expectations and the reasons for going

to a land. Some of his works were made when he

was inspired by other famous photographers - Bill

Brandt, Ansel Adams, Josef Sudek, Alfred Steiglitz.

LINKS

His publications

Biography

Interviews

Images