Michael Kenna
February 21st, 2023
Michael Kenna
By: Connor Albaugh
It has been a good amount of time since the last blog. I had the opportunity to process my first roll of film and mess around with the process with making photograms. Processing film took a long time, but being gentle and patient is done with the intention of seeing your negatives in the greatest capacity. For photograms, finding the right lighting as well as the correct items to use to articulate each of the pictures was the hardest part. I used a lot of paper in the process, but continual practice allowed me to gain good experience with this technique and learn about something that I hadn’t been familiar with. With this being said, we shift our focus to a very decorated photographer who uses a fascinating technique to capture wonderful compositions. His name is Michael Kenna.
In “Widnes, England in 1953,” a photographic star by the name of Michael Kenna was born (Article #1). Kenna was “line of five siblings in a working class family” (Article #2). He was raised in an “Irish-Catholic” background, and he chose to pursue “priesthood and attended a seminary school at the age of 10” (Article #2). This is the complete opposite of photography, until his life took a turn for the better. “Seven years later, Kenna left seminary school and decided to study painting and photography at The Banbury School of Art” (Article #2). Staying in seminary school showed his true devotion to his family beliefs, but appreciating his own individual talent and eagerness to pursue this field of art made this possible. Kenna only stayed at this school of art for a year until “he transferred to The London College of Printing to major in commercial photography and graduated in 1976” (Article #2). His education took him to different areas in the United Kingdom and his ability to see different places gave him variety in what he would eventually take to be his profession: photography. A year after his graduation, he moved to San Francisco, California “because of the vibrant art scene in 1977” (Article #2). Michael Kenna had the world at his fingertips, and didn’t waste anytime making an impact in the field of photography.
As a photographer, all of us start somewhere. Kenna’s first real experience was traveling to “Japan in 1987” (Article #1). Seeing this part of the world for the first time, he fell in love with the atmosphere and the environment quite quickly. “The landscapes in Japan inspired him” and has ultimately “photographed almost the entire country” (Article #2). He was able to develop such a love for this country because he was able to travel and see all the different parts. This was only one of his influences for his photography and the style he would eventually coin. His most “remarry influence was British photographer Bill Brandt, who was a social photographer and photojournalist in the UK (Google). Brandt’s work became very important to Kenna after his death in 1983 (Article #2). He really enjoyed his photography and his work that he ended up “visiting and photographing a number of places in Brandt’s work” (Article #2). He took these two with a grain of salt and has shown how incredible he can be as a photographer.
Michael Kenna had opportunities not many people have in their lifetime; traveling to another country. However, with the influence of a fellow photographer and his experience in Japan, this allowed him to develop his own unique style. Kenna is “”best known for his black and white landscape photography” (Article #2). A large majority of his photographs used something called “long exposure” which is the process of keeping the shutter of the camera open for certain amount of times. Some of his photos used exposures “up to 10 hours in length” (Article #2). The longer the shutter is open, the more light that is allowed into the frame and the more one could add to their overall composition. Let’s take a look at the photograph at the top of this blog. The title is “Eleven Hours” and was taken in “Eastlands, New Zealand in 2014” (Article #4). When I was looking through a lot of Kenna’s long exposure photographs, the detail was so rich and you could easily see the elements in each of his photos that were due to having a long exposure. However, the photograph of New Zealand caught my attention. The large depth of field within this photograph allows the viewer to see all of its elements in focus. The movement of water in the body of water, the streaks of stars from the rotating earth, and the detail in the water and the sky can be easily seen. The bright color of moving water in the foreground of the photo allows the viewers eyes to drift to the silhouette of the mountains in the background. Once the viewer makes it to the silhouette of these mountains or rock formations, this leads the viewer into the brighter light behind the mountain as well as the brighter streaks of light from the stars in the sky and eventually into the small and darker circle of star light in the highest point in the sky. The lighting is excellent, as the bright light in the background serves almost as a spotlight from the smallest circle in the sky all the way down to the body of water. The formation of the star light and how they have rotated during the open shutter make it seem like one is entering a different dimension as the light gets brighter in the middle of the image while it gets darker farther from the bottom and the top of the image. The circle of starlight makes me feel as though I am in a tunnel and this environment of the water and the silhouette of the mountain are a certain area I pass through before reaching the end of the tunnel, which would be the darkest and smallest circle of starlight at the top left of the image. The contrast on behalf of different shapes of white, black, and grey is well executed. The brighter potions illuminate the background as well as show the streaks of star light and water moving, the darker shades show the mountains as well as well as the rock structures in the water, and the grey shows the middle of where there is light, but not an overwhelming amount. Last but not least, the overall composition combining all of these elements comes together to make a visually captivating image. The light from the stars makes it very difficult to look away and I could see myself viewing this image for a long time of how abstract it is, all made possible by a long exposure time from Michael Kenna.
In conclusion, Michael Kenna and his work is incredibly captivating and impressive. A large majority of “his prints have been shown in numerous exhibits throughout the world with permanent collections in Paris, Washington DC, and London” (Article #3). He has “published a total of 18 works” and “has received numerous awards from his artwork including an honorary Master of Arts in 2003, the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2000, etc.” (Article #1). He has plenty of artifacts that show and detail where he has ventured to in the different parts of the world. With the amount of work he has done, he “has shown no signs of slowing down in his endless pursuit of nature’s haunting beauty” (Article #3). His long exposure photographers not only invoke deep thought from his viewer, but force the viewer to feel a sense of silence as well as the detail one can capture when they take their time and give the best versions of themselves with something they are truly passionate about.
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