Michael Kenna

Most night photographers would agree that Michael Kenna is one of the most-respected, and most imitated, night photographers. Although some of Kenna’s work is actually taken during the daytime and processed in the darkroom to look like night work, much of his work is 100% genuine middle-of-the-night photography. He has been doing night photography since the late 1970’s, and has authored over a dozen books of his work.

(photo: Michael Kenna)

The above photograph is from Easter Island (2001, Nazraeli Press). Kenna has been so busy publishing books of his photography, that he already has two retrospectives in print, and he also releases a calendar each year, available from Photo-Eye.

All of Kenna’s work is in black-and-white; usually square, and usually quite small. Trained at the Banbury School of Art (UK), Kenna is not only a master of the craft of black-and-white printing, but his photographs capture that stark, desolate feeling that most night photographers try to attune themselves to in the middle of the night.

Kenna has been a huge influence on many contemporary night photographers, including Bill Schwab, Rolfe Horne, David Burdeney, David Frokos, Adam Moore, Lance Keimig and many others (including myself). In future blog entries, I plan to highlight each of these photographers.

If you're not already familiar with Kenna's work, you owe it to yourself to spend some time browsing through the galleries of his website.