“I’m getting old,” cackles Michael Kenna, when I ask how it feels to look back on 50 years in the photography business. “Much wiser,” he says, before cackling again. “I wish.” I’m talking to the English photographer over video from his office in Seattle, Washington, where he is surrounded by filing cabinets and binders stuffed with some of the 175,000 negatives that are his life’s work. Over the past half-century, Kenna has marked himself as one of the world’s most distinctive and influential landscape photographers, known for minimalist compositions often featuring otherworldly light.
This year marks half a century since he started working as a professional photographer, and he’s ringing in the occasion with a book, Michael Kenna: Photographs & Stories. It features 51 images, one for each year of his career. “We were going to call it Michael Kenna (1973-2023): Photographs & Stories,” he explains. “But I’m not dead yet, and including dates gives a different idea.”
Kenna turns 70 in November. “I’m fine about being my age and staying in the game for 50 years. When you start, you have no idea you can maintain your passionate hobby and survive.”
Born in the industrial town of Widnes, Cheshire, Kenna studied at St Joseph’s College, a seminary boarding school in Lancashire, with the intention of becoming a Catholic priest. But the image, rather than the Word, turned out to be his true calling, with Kenna enrolling at Banbury School of Art in Oxfordshire in 1972. A year later, he says, “I began doing semi-professional jobs: working for magazines, making record covers, book covers … I was working pro, as well as being a student, as one does to survive.”
Kenna moved to San Francisco in the late 70s, and has lived in the US since, relocating to Seattle in 2007. His subjects over the past five decades have been remarkably varied: English power stations; US car factories; the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea; Catholic confessional booths; Buddha statues.
But Kenna’s core focus is natural landscapes, using his film cameras to create meditative black-and-white images of trees, coasts, snow, bodies of water and lone structures. “I try to photograph the unseen,” he says. “It goes back to my early religious background of training to be a priest, of living with silence, discipline and prayer; seeing the light on the altar and believing wholeheartedly there was a God, an unseen presence around us that’s very powerful.” Although his religious beliefs have since changed, “I still believe there’s an unseen presence,” he says. “When I photograph anything, I’m trying to look beyond and below the surface.”
Likening his approach to a friendship deepening over time, Kenna repeatedly revisits countries and locations, including Italy, France and, particularly, Japan. “Nothing ever feels like it’s closed, finished, or like the end of the book,” he tells me. “It feels like there are always possible new chapters.” Japan is a key inspiration, a place he’s returned to often over the years, the wintry north especially providing the stark landscapes captured in many of his best-known images. He first visited in 1987. “I was blown away by the aesthetics, the spiritual and religious aspects, the curiosity of people, friendliness, cleanliness,” he says. “I went up to Hokkaido, in the north, in the middle of winter, and it looked to me like an absolutely stark sumi-e ink painting, a completely white canvas with Kanji characters marked on it. I’ve been in love with the place ever since.”
He recently exhibited new work from Japan at SOL LDN and he’ll be returning to Japan in 2024, to not only photograph but also perform – by invitation – at a major karaoke concert in Asahikawa. “There’s a bar I go to every time I visit Hokkaido called Oak. To start, I wasn’t very good. But my singing has improved.”
I’ve spoken to Kenna several times over the years, and he always strikes me as very Zen – a man who has figured out that the secret of life has more to do with slowing down and appreciating nature than rushing around or arguing with strangers online. “I don’t spend much time stressed out at my desk, hunched over a computer. I’m not a fan of social media – I don’t have a Twitter account. I spend a lot of time walking, searching, breathing fresh air. Photography is a very nourishing profession. It’s very meditational. I like to take my time and enjoy the company of my subject matter. For me, it’s about doing something you love doing. That’s the essence of life.”
Minimal impacts: six photos by Michael Kenna
Field of Sticks, Hokkaido, Japan, 2023
“Hokkaido makes a lot of white wine. My guide took me to a wine-making area. This scene was by the side of the road. I jumped out, walked into the field and photographed. The light in Hokkaido is sometimes so stark because of all the snow, so I had to figure out how to make an exposure that took into account the shadows and the highlights. Sticks in fields are one of my passions.”
Wave, Scarborough, Yorkshire, UK, 1981 (main image)
“I remember crossing the Pennines and picking up an Irish hitchhiker, says Michael Kenna. “At Scarborough, he jumped out and said: ‘The luck of the Irish to you.’ It was very prescient. As I walked along the harbour, a wave kept hitting the wall. In this photo, it was like the wave had raised itself up, ready to drop. I hadn’t realised how close it was to Hokusai’s famous Great Wave.”
Stone Pine Tunnel, Abruzzo, Italy, 2016
“I was in Abruzzo and went into a grove of stone pines. I could see it was a beautiful tunnel. The idea of light at the end is always wonderful. I love leading the viewer into an image without there being a destination. But the intrigue for this image is the darkness up in the canopy, which I didn’t see at the time. It has a strange, otherworldly aspect.”
Torii, Study 4, Honshu, Japan, 2007
“I’ve photographed torii gates, which are often at the entrances of Shinto shrines, since 2001. Shintoism is an animistic religion: they believe the gods reside in the landscape. You find gates scattered throughout Japan. They remind me to appreciate the landscape and how beautiful and fragile it is.”
Camp de Rivesaltes, Study 13, Pyrénées-Orientales, France, 2022
“When I arrived at [second world war internment camp] Rivesaltes, it was pouring with rain, which is unusual for the south of France. In my usual fashion, I wandered around the periphery and slowly worked my way to the centre. Just after the rain had stopped, there was moisture on the ground, and a heaviness in the atmosphere that seemed very potent. It went well with the atmosphere of the place.”
Percy’s Perspective, Hokkaido, Japan, 2023
“A Scottish photographer I know called Bruce Percy found this location in Hokkaido. When I went there, it was snowing heavily, so I couldn’t see far. I set up my camera, and suddenly the clouds parted – this beautiful white cloud came into view. I made this photograph. It happened to be the 12th exposure, the final one on the roll of film. By the time I got the new roll in, the snow had come back.”
Michael Kenna: Photographs & Stories is published on 20 November by Nazraeli Press.
