You might also looking up the work of Abelardo Morell. Part of this is due to the fact that people very rarely feature in Kenna’s work and that’s because he’s often shooting in a) remote locations, and b) at those times of day when people are often asleep. Make sure you’re using a solid tripod, as even the slightest movement on the camera during a 30-second exposure can ruin an image. He uses a lot of symmetry and rule of thirds but is not afraid to break rules if the composition calls for it. It forces you to study the light and the conditions of the scene. Michael Kenna is a great landscape photographer who deserves to be mentioned amongst the best. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Michael uses sepia tone on his images to give the highlights a bit of colour. Michael Kenna operates in monochrome and is a master at tonal contrast. Photocrowd is a contest platform for the best photo contests and photo awards around, Digital photography is a fantastic and accessible format but it can sometimes mean we lose some crucial factors that are part of film’s charm, most notably the slowness, unpredictability and the complications that arise when using an analogue format. Anybody can copy anybody else’s technique; however you need your own personal vision to really create you own image of he world. He studied photography at London College of Printing in London, England. Michael Kenna: [Laughs] Night and day are one and the same, they are parts of the whole. As photographers, how do we capture a scene in a minimalistic style without blatantly copying artists like Michael Kenna or Hiroshi Sugimoto? A couple of years ago my daughter, Olivia, went to spend a summer in Argentina as an exchange student—our summer, their winter. In this post, I’d like to show you how to photograph like Edward Weston. Learn all you can from all the master photographers but then turn all that knowledge into your own unique vision. Pro Cameraman interviews Michael Kenna. This is what the bit of wind did to my long exposure when it buffeted the camera. For a large majority of Kenna's photos, the tonal range of the entire photo lies on the two extremes. ‘During a long exposure, the world changes,’ says Kenna. By being jet-lagged, he was awake enough to take a 2 a.m. photograph of a swing set, bracketing the image from 1/30th of a second to one hour. … You could almost say they’re fairly nondescript. If there is one photographer you will need to follow constantly, such is Michael Kenna. In his early years of education, he attended the Banbury School of Art, where he took up studies in painting and photography. Featured Photographer, October 2013: Michael Kenna This month, our featured guest photographer is the exceptional professional photographer, Michael Kenna ! Along the top of the camera Raw window you will see a little gradient icon. The exposures ranged from 10 to 30 seconds and even though I had a sturdy tripod the wind still gave me a bit of camera shake on some of them. Namyeong Lion Rock, Mongdol Beach, Jeollanam-do, South Korea. You have got your own talent. Torii, Study 2, Takaishima, Biwa Lake, Honshu, Japan, 2007 by Michael Kenna Win prizes from SLR Lounge and Visual Flow, Win ON1 Photo RAW 2020 + 1 Year of ON1 Plus, Created The first day was stunning, bright blue sky with small puffy clouds, long sandy beaches with sand dunes, photography heaven. It’s a bit like using Garageband on the computer. What counts most is the location, the composition and the atmosphere. As a photographer, you can’t take it personally and get upset about it. Accessories for your furry friend’s safety and comfort life ‘Rivers flow, planes fly by, clouds pass and the Earth’s position relative to the stars is different. Minimalism is the key word when discussing Kenna’s work. MK: It’s called Easter Island and is published by Nazraeli Press. See www.prestel.com for details. Kenna was born in 1953 in Widnes, England. He uses a technique called the optical centre. HOW HE WORKS AND INFLUENCE OF PHOTOS ONHIS PERSONALITY Michael Kenna: There are many characteristics associated with night photography that make it fascinating. To help us compose we set the Sony A7R camera to black and white mode so the images appear in the viewfinder as black and white (most mirrorless cameras have a similar feature). Photographer Michael Kenna spoke to Clique about his professional process, and gave rare insight into the philosophy he has developed over many years taking stunning landscape images. In 1953, Michael Kenna was born in Lancashire, England, into an Irish Catholic family. Kenna’s work can often feature water and shooting long exposures means he can reduce the water to a glassy surface. Asides from his use of film, Kenna is perhaps most famous for his use of black & white. I find this very annoying as I (Tim) am a sun worshiper and hate overcast days but there we go. How to engage your audience in any online presentation Mostly, have fun doing it. Pro Cameraman Profile: Born 1953 in Lancashire, England. Each additional stop will double the length of the exposure. Kenna's photography focuses on unusual landscapes with ethereal light achieved by photographing at dawn or at night with exposures of up to 10 hours. Kenna’s images are infused with feelings of isolation, calm, and perhaps even a little alienation. 2016. He takes the pictures at either dawn or at night and exposes them to light after 10 hours. I am using Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud (2018) however this technique will be very similar in any software that enables RAW file editing including Affinity Photo, a favourite of ours on the iPad. hope this wasn't to harsh. Carnegie Hall and CitySpire Center, New York, New York, USA. After further study in London, he worked as a commercial photographer and printer before relocating to the USA. We greatly appreciate his time, and thank him for answering our questions and sharing a few of his wonderful images with us! Interview with Michael Kenna October 2003. From an early age Kenna aspired to be a priest and, aged eleven, began studying at a seminary school. We have written extensively about using filters in black and white photography in other posts. In an interview with Procameraman.jp Michael talked about his favourite film as Kodak Tri-X 400 ISO. Some days we look at well-known photographers images and something in us just cries out “I wish I could create images like that”! While the tree itself stretches out like a series of arthritic limbs, the weight of the trunk in the lower right corner is counter-balanced by the three branches stretching up toward the left. It shifts your relationship to framing and how you present forms, lines and shapes within a landscape (or whatever genre you choose to work in). Rich Dog Accessories. 1, No. Taking the essence on the scene into a beautiful composition. Digital Photo 1, 2012. Michael Kenna's beautiful black-and-white images have been described as haunting, minimalist and ethereal. About 2 hours drive north of us, is the beautiful undeveloped coastline of Norfolk that offers plenty of scope for interesting images. Have a look at our other ‘How to photograph like…’ series that includes Edward Weston and Ansel Adams to see how to create images like they have. From an early age Kenna aspired to be a priest and, aged eleven, began studying at a seminary school. By removing the colours of a scene, Kenna is able to remove one more distraction from the image. If you open it from Raw into Photoshop in greyscale mode you will have to convert it to RGB colour to add the toning adjustment layer. You do this by holding down the Shift key while clicking the open image (object) button in Photoshop Raw. Once you have finished weeping with inadequacy come back and let us look at how to photograph like Michael Kenna so you too can create similar style images. And by his admission, he chooses to examine one or two elements in a scene, "instead of describing everything that's going on." You might find that your own style, added to this technique creates some amazing images you’d never thought of doing before. Some to lighten the water, some to increase contrast and detail on the rocks. As he photographs on a Hasselblad which has a square format, a vast number of his images are square. Michael Kenna is widely considered to be one of the masters of contemporary fine art photography. I can happily photograph during the day or night or dawn or dusk. 2010. This gives you one colour, and even though it’s not black and white, it helps to show the shape and form of the scene. We can easily do this to our RAW files in the RAW converter or, (and we prefer this method), use a Gradient Map adjustment layer in Photoshop. Michael Kenna's prints are 8x8 and not 10x10. michael kenna Interview by Kyoko Kobayashi Michael Kenna. Michael Kenna's prints are 8x8 and not 10x10. In 1927, photographer Charles Sheeler was commissioned to take images that exalted the Rouge complex, and Kenna uses these images as his starting point. That’s why you must visit a location on more than one occasion. Well, the first days’ images were ‘pants’. Even though he started off his career as a commercial photographer, he followed his passion for his personal work and then moved to United States in the late seventies. Finally, a how to photograph like Michael Kenna post would not be complete without talking about toning. In a similar vein of influence, Michael Kenna has stated that he thinks of his work as "more like haiku rather than prose." In 1953, Michael Kenna was born in Lancashire, England, into an Irish Catholic family. Michael Kenna is known in the world of photography for his unique black and white abstract photographs of deserted landscapes. Michael Kenna is a famous English photographer. It can often be the case that you don’t always get what you want the first time around. Michael Kenna. As a master craftsman Kenna is probably using a combination of film development chemistry and darkroom techniques to augment the original stark image. Michael has also exhibited widely. Don’t rush things. looks like Kenna works a lot with film. If you don’t know Michael Kenna’s work, have a look at his web site. 2007. ‘How do I know ahead of time where that will lead? To photograph like Michael Kenna, try to ignore the colour aspect that can be overwhelming. Even though Michael Kenna uses sepia tone over selenium I thought it looked better on this particular image. Share on Facebook Tweet Mail it The Lancashire-born master of minimalism has spent years honing his approach to landscapes. I opened the image in Photoshop as a Raw smart object. Kenna uses the metaphor of haiku poetry – just a few words suggest an enormous world. To photograph like Michael Kenna, use long exposures with the camera on a tripod to get movement in clouds and water. Real becomes surreal, which is wonderful.’. Today I watched a video on Vimeo which definitely falls into the latter category. This is an interesting point to raise as it’s a clear demonstration of how your choice of camera should actually be fairly low down on your list of priorities. ‘Drama, atmosphere, mystery, beauty. As he himself admits, Kenna is a photographer who often makes ‘pilgrimages’ to sites where other photographers have worked. It was previously published in French, but will be published in English by Nazraeli Press later this year. Until recently the majority of Michael Kenna's work was shot on 35mm, he started using a hasselblad about five years ago and shortly hereafter also started working with a 4x5. As you can probably tell by the tone of this post, Michael Kenna is one of my favourite photographers and although I don’t go out to copy his work, it has always had a great impact on my personal style. Oct 10, 2017 - Michael Kenna / Born 1953 in Widnes, Lancashire, England, best known for his black & white landscapes. 2018. 2007. As you can see by the dots on the picture I did 13 different brushes. Michael Kenna grew up with five siblings in a working-class family in Widnes, England. As photographers, how do we capture a scene in a minimalistic style without blatantly copying artists like Michael Kenna or Hiroshi Sugimoto? Drag slider to see more. Michael Kenna December 2001 Jim Kasson interviewed Michael Kenna at his home in San Francisco. Kenna first visited Japan in 1987 for a one-person exhibition and was utterly seduced by the country's terrain.” (Bellow, 2012) “Over the years, Kenna has visited and photographed almost every part of Japan. Final Ansel Adams style photograph . Kenna resists making specific, conscious decisions ahead of time and instead allows the location to dictate the photograph. Yedang Reservoir Tree, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea. After a long hot summer we set off for 2 days photography knowing that we wanted to create something simple and stark. Kenna’s world is stark, and could be that of a time when all humans have disappeared. He sees in his work that unpopulated interval between acts of a play, when there s a tension in something When composing I used a combination of symmetry and the rule of thirds for my horizon. Shooting film also means you are restricted to the number of frames per film and how many rolls of films you have on you. Michael Kenna: A Twenty Year Retrospective, was recently published by Treville. To sum up a post of how to photograph like Michael Kenna we need 2 things. July 2012. Cranes to show how to photograph like michael kenna. Just remember that you don't know the person's story. Shooting in square format is a result of the 6x6 and 6x4.5 film that Kenna uses in his Hasselblad cameras. All of this we can do in our RAW files using adjustment brushes. Michael once referred to his images as a Haiku rather than a literary work. Over the years he has traveled throughout almost the entire country constantly taking photographs. Beautiful simple composition and lots of shadows and highlights in a toned Black and White image. If they refuse or object, move on. will be determined by how long you want your exposure, so think about that first. Despite working with a plastic toy camera, Kenna is still able to achieve images that are technically brilliant and full of atmosphere. lets just say this..... as an artist Michael Kenna's work has inspired you. This is about 10% above the centre of an image and is where the eye naturally rests. He photographed primarily using an 8×10 large format camera, and was known primarily for his black and white “landscape like” still lives. Some of his take up to 12 hours to achieve. Michael Kenna: [Laughs] Night and day are one and the same, they are parts of the whole. Final and original image from our Michael Kenna style photographic trip. See our how to photograph with ND filters tutorial. The middle tones are there but are in the minority. While Kenna shoots his commercial work with digital cameras, he has become renowned for the fact he shoots all his personal work on medium format Hasselblad 500CM film cameras. 2007. This is crucial for the minimalist aesthetic Kenna is searching for. Look around for simple details, structures or shapes. However, if you’re really looking to have a go at recreating Kenna’s work, then be prepared for some seriously long exposures. Conditions such as rain and mist reduce the scene down and draw attention to the vital elements of the composition. We use Manfrotto and Gitzo heavy duty tripods with robust heads. You have got your own talent. I could not guess how many photographs of China and its mountains I’ve seen, but I had never before seen any that looked like Michael Kenna’s – even those by contemporary Chinese photographers. You can make music very quickly, but to really master an instrument takes years. We can also assume he uses a red and or polarizing filter to darken and lighten parts of the image. Finally, Michael Kenna has a number of photos like Hillside Fence, Study 5, Teshikaga, Hokkaido, Japan 2004: These ultra-minimal photos, of which Kenna has realized many, show little more than a fence line (often made up of posts or sticks) against the bright white of the snow. I wanted to do some longer (30 sec) exposures to give the water movement so I attached our ND filter. Kenna first visited Japan in 1987 for a one-person exhibition and was utterly seduced by the country's terrain. Kenna has visited Japan several times in a 30-year period, particularly the area of Hokkaido. Ally and I live in a county called Essex, which is about an hour’s drive from central London (or 2 if the traffic’s bad). However, art quickly became his strongest subject and at the age of 17 he moved to Banbury School of Art in Oxfordshire. Lastly I added a selenium tone adjustment layer. His small, delicate prints are like jewels. While some may criticize Kenna’s work as being overly romantic and atmospheric, Bill Jay, a photographic journalist in San Diego who has known him for 25 years, has this to say: “The reason I like Michael’s photos is because they’re antithetical to the unemotional, deadpan work of his contemporaries. I do collect some of his work and have had the chance to speak with him in person. Sometimes he experiments with Holga cameras, too. Pro Cameraman interviews Michael Kenna. JK: Tell me about the new book. ), Tim looking for the perfect composition on the rocky pier. Your choice of filter (3-stop, 6-stop, 10-stop, etc.) Having it as 16 bit rather than the default 8 means that there are thousands of shades of lightness per channel rather than just 256. His books include Forms of Japan and Rouge, which is a study of the US industrial heartland. Kenna doesn’t always use Hasselblad cameras. Try it out. Finally, Michael Kenna has a number of photos like Hillside Fence, Study 5, Teshikaga, Hokkaido, Japan 2004: These ultra-minimal photos, of which Kenna has realized many, show little more than a fence line (often made up of posts or sticks) against the bright white of the snow. For more ideas about black and white, see our post on what makes a good black and white image. While some may criticize Kenna’s work as being overly romantic and atmospheric, Bill Jay, a photographic journalist in San Diego who has known him for 25 years, has this to say: “The reason I like Michael’s photos is because they’re antithetical to the unemotional, deadpan work of his contemporaries. You never get a sense that Kenna is showing you something you’ve already seen. Make sure you’re using a solid tripod, as even the slightest movement on the camera during a 30-second exposure can ruin an image. Edward Weston was an American photographer born in 1886, and was regarded as one of the masters of 20 th Century photography. Thirty One Snow Fences, Bihoro, Hokkaido, Japan. No Comments. Michael Kenna (British, b.1953) is a photographer who was born in Widnes, England, and is best known for his photographs of black-and-white landscapes. keeps attracting people with his unique prints which reminds of Japanese ink printing. Michael's work is strongly shaped by night photography, beginning with a first stab at the genre in 1977 in the Catskill Mountains. Not only can you lighten and darken but also change contrast, sharpening, clarity and a host of other properties. You can photograph like Ansel Adams too. Post A Comment Cancel Reply. See our post on what black and white film to choose to find out more. And voila! I switch it on and off to see what I’m doing. which he explains as the "most memorable place" for him. We recently tried out a travel tripod from Manfrotto but it was much to wobbly in even the slightest breeze so it’s going on eBay soon. They are a pain to carry but so worth it when you images are stunning. See more ideas about Black and white landscape, Michael, Landscape photography. Also note that, while you can shoot a more rectangle format and crop late in post-production, it can generate better results if you aim to get it right in-camera. Photocrowd Posted on May 11, 2018 Share this post. _ Holga by Michael Kenna is published by Prestel. Raw dodge and burn edit like Michael does in the darkroom. (This is an English expression meaning rubbish! See our post on photographing like Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. looks like Kenna works a lot with film. The stone statues of Easter Island, as seen in Moai, Study 16, Ahu Tongariki (2000) and Maoi, Study 50, Ahu Tongariki, Easter Island (2001), are iconic. This is the hardest part of the process but with a little patience you will achieve extraordinary results. The more ordinary, the better. post with technical and geeky explanations, All the Essential Techniques for Silhouette Photography to Create Unique Images, Best techniques to photograph the Jurassic coast, What is aperture – why it is important to travel photography, What is Bokeh – why it is important for travel photography, Shooting Contre-jour : Photograph into the sun, Tips for photographers travelling to South Africa, Best camera bag as presents for photographers, Phone camera tips – 6 tips to quickly improve your photography. It was the overcast sky that gave us the beautiful stark and simple images (without harsh shadows) that we were looking for. Often working at dawn or during the night, he has concentrated primarily on the interaction between the ephemeral atmospheric condition of the natural landscape, and human-made structures and sculptural mass. PhotoWork - Art & Technique Premiere Issue 1997 vol. This is a very forgiving / flexible film and well suited to the long exposures he does. The video is of Michael Kenna being interviewed by Catherine Edelman in 2016. Look at one of Michael Kenna’s iconic images, Kussharo Lake Tree, Study 6, Kotan, Hokkaido, Japan. Shooting with film requires that you take your time meditating upon the scene and ensuring you achieve exactly the right exposure. Our 10-stop filter usually allows us to achieve 30-second shutter times in normal daylight. ND to blur clouds or water and other filters to darken skies: In order to create the long exposures, to get the milky water during daytime we need to assume that Michael uses an Neutral Density filter and the camera on a tripod. About Michael Kenna. See more ideas about Black and white photography, Minimalist photography, Black and white landscape. Look through Kenna’s images and you can see he rarely shoots busy and chaotic scenes. Character, memories, traces. A square is a clean, simple shape. Telephone 415 433 6879. Brooks Jensen: Your 20th book is about to be published – this one entitled Calais Lace.