1. 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
2. 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
3. The aim of this presentation is to show you how talented is this man
and to tell his story of becoming successful.
4. "I feel closer to the elements when I
photograph at night, close to nature
because I have to watch."
5. 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.
6. 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.”
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. WHERE HAS HE WORKED?
Africa
South
Asia America
WORLD
North
Europe
America
26. 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.”
27. 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.
28. 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.
