Michael Kenna

( Widnes, 20 de noviembre de 1953 )

Michael Kenna He is a British photographer living in the United States. It is known for its black and white landscapes that have ethereal lighting achieved by photographing at dawn or at night with long exposures of up to 10 hours. In your photos you can capture an interaction between the natural landscape and man-made structures.

His work is found in more than twenty books and his works exist in different art collections such as the National Library of France, the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo or the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Michael Kenna was born in 1953 in Widnes, in Cheshire in north-west England, into a large Irish family. He had five brothers and his family belonged to the working class and confessed to the Catholic religion. He completed primary studies at Witnes, but in 1965 he moved to study at “Upholland College” in Lancashire in order to become a priest. In 1966 he had a “Diana Box” camera with which he discovered his interest in photographic art. In 1972 he finished his studies and on vacation he took photos with his 35mm Voigtlander and thus get some money. He then enrolled at the “Banbury School of Art” in Oxfordshire where he received a first instruction in photography. He then enrolled at the “London College of Printing” in both the graphic design and commercial photography departments.

Meanwhile he practiced landscape photography as a hobby. She also took every opportunity to practice her trade commercially: she photographed theatrical costume rehearsals; commissions for record companies and the press; He helped other photographers and sold photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Cornell Capa, Marc Riboud or Jacques-Henri Lartigue for the “John Hillelson” Agency on Fleet Street. Among them he was working for the Magnum agency in 1973. In 1977 he moved to the United States. From that moment on, he started working as a freelance.

His work focuses on unusual landscapes with ethereal light achieved by photographing at dawn or at night with exposures of up to 10 hours. Since 1986, she has primarily used Hasselblad medium-format cameras and Holga cameras, which explains the square format of most of her photographs. The main exception was for the photographs in the book “Monique’s Kindergarten (Monique’s nursery)” for which he used a large format 4 × 5 camera.

In 1978 he was an assistant to Ruth Bernhard and from 1982 he collaborated as a technical assistant in various Ansel Adams workshops. Her work has been shown in different formats, so her photograph of the ruins of the concentration camps was featured in the opening credits of the Holocaust movie: Esther’s Diary (2010). He has also done commercial work for clients such as Volvo, Rolls-Royce, Audi, Sprint, Dom Perignon and the Spanish Tourism Board. In 2000, the French Ministry of Culture made Kenna a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Publications

• Fotografías de Michael Kenna . Stephen Wirtz Gallery y The Weston Gallery, 1984
• The Hound of the Baskervilles. Arion, 1985; Northpoint, 1986
• 1976-1986. Gallery Min, 1987
• Night Walk. Friends of Photography, 1987
• Michael Kenna. Min Gallery, 1990
• Le Desert de Retz. Arion, 1990
• The Elkhorn Slough and Moss Landing. The Elkhorn Slough Foundation, 1991
• A Twenty Year Retrospective. Treville, 1994; Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2002
• The Rouge. Ram, 1995
• The Silverado Squatters. Arion, 1996
• Monique’s Kindergarten. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 1997
• Le Notre’s Gardens. The Huntington Library, Art Collections Library and RAM Publishing, 1997 and 1999
• Night Work. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2000
• Impossible to Forget: The Nazi Camps Fifty Years After. Marval; Nazraeli, 2001
• Easter Island. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2001
• Japan. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli; Treville Editions, 2002
• Calais Lace. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2003
• Boarding School. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2003
• Ratcliffe Power Station. Oregón: Nazraeli, 2004
• Retrospective Two. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli; Treville Editions, 2004
• Hokkaido. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2005
• Montecito Garden. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2007
• Mont St Michel. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2007
• Mont-Saint-Michel. 21st, 2007
• Images of the Seventh Day, 2011
• In France. Portland, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2012
• Abruzzo. Italy, Oregón: Nazraeli, 2017
• One Sunday in Beijing. Paris: Bessard, 2018.

His work is in the collections of many major museums, including the National Library of France, the National Gallery of Art, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Some of his photos