Michael Kenna

Michael Kenna is a British photographer born in 1953 and still living. He was born in Widnes England and left seminary school at the age of 17 to pursue photography elsewhere. Kenna is most well known for his nature landscapes in black and white. He has claimed to draw inspiration from two main places, Japanese landscapes, and Bill Brandt, another British photographer. Kenna is also well known for his images taken at night that utilize long exposures. (Jackson Fine Art)

The first image I am choosing to talk about is this one. I really appreciate his light-to-dark balance in this photograph. I also love the angle of this photo because I've tried to take photos like this before and they never turn out good for me and I feel like this one is really pretty. Another thing I really like about this photo is how some of the trees are a lighter grey and some are completely black. I just think the contrast is really good. Additionally, I know how hard it would be to take a photo like this with a film camera and get it exposed so it develops like that so I feel like I can appreciate that as well.


The second piece I am choosing to talk about is this one. If I had to guess, I would say this photo was taken in the early early morning when it was still dark out. Kenna probably set up his camera on a tripod and set it to a very long exposure (like a few hours) so he could capture the stars moving through the sky and the beginning of the sun rising up. I like this photo because of the silhouette of the tree against the lighter background and I also really like the way that the stars look in the sky and how they are streaky due to the long exposure. I feel like this photo would have also been very difficult to pull off but I think Kenna did a great job with it.



Overall I feel like Kenna is a very strong photographer. I think it is easy to tell that a lot of time and effort goes into his photos and they aren't really just photos that you can snap once super quick and get a good one immediately which I feel like I can appreciate. Although landscapes aren't my favorite thing to shoot, Kenna does a great job of making me interested in them.



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