Michael Kenna and His Landscape Photography

     Michael Kenna is a British photographer known for his landscape photography and his long exposure times. According to jacksonfineart.com, sometimes his exposure length for a photo can be ten hours. Kenna was born to an Irish-Catholic family in Lancashire, England in 1953. Oddly enough, I couldn't find an exact date for his birth, which leads me to believe he may be a private man. Despite this, we know that he was one of six children in his family. He aimed to become a priest when he was younger, but left the schooling for it when he found his passion for the arts.

    A notably rather boring life for an artist, and the most normal upbringing of the photographers we have talked about so far. I find artists with a more tragic or traumatic upbringing tend to have better art. Though this is my personal opinion, Kenna proves me wrong on it as I find his works very aesthetically pleasing. According to multiple sources, including his own website, michaelkenna.com, he tends to take his photographs at night rather than in the day. This means he uses the artificial light of man rather than the natural light of the sun, which, again in my own opinion, makes for more interesting and beautiful photos.

    This photo from his visit to the United Arab Emirates is of the city of Dubai's skyline. The picture is obviously taken at night, Kenna's signature style. I love how he uses the lighting of the city itself to be the light source for his photograph. There is so much life in this photo. It reminds one of just how many people make up such a large city as this, and how many lives just one area holds. I love city skylines. I've always found them so beautiful in a way I can't describe. The tall skyscrapers mixed with the small buildings below and beside them, and the lights shining from the highways that surrounds the entire city make me appreciate the hard work of those who plan city layouts.

    

        This photograph to the left is titled Moonrise, though to me it looks like something else. In 1996 a rocket set to launch and orbit Earth for fifteen years ended up crashing right in the middle of a village near Xichang, China. There are many videos on YouTube showing the incident and aftermath from many perspectives. Only six deaths were reported by the Chinese government. However, there are many that believe this number is entirely inaccurate since the aftermath was so intense. This photograph taken by Kenna of one of his famously long-exposure sessions is merely of the moon above the mountains near Beijing taken over many hours in the night, but to me it looks like one of the many documented pictures from the Intelsat 708 incident that happened so many years ago.

    This last photograph was taken by Kenna at Sandjeika (or Arcadia) Beach in Ukraine in 2013. It seems as though the moonlight bathes the beach in a beautiful light, and that Kenna took the opportunity to take this stunning photo. As the war rages on in the once peaceful country, this photograph is a reminder of how beautiful and precious life is. This very beach is still in use today despite the war going on around it, bringing joy to the citizens of Ukraine as its peoples' homes are shattered and stolen from them by tragedy and violence. This picture taken at night just ten years ago makes the beach look as if it's recharging for the next day, awaiting anxious citizens of the city nearby to try and give them a somewhat normal life in the everyday hell Vladimir Putin has waged on their country.