I have been photographing in China since 2006. I began in Shanghai and was immediately entranced with the dynamic Pearl District when viewed from the Bund. I went on to Beijing and photographed the Forbidden Palace and the Great Wall, as tourists have to do. I also explored around Guilin and the beautiful Li River. Then I visited the extraordinary Huangshan Mountain range. On later travels I went up to the frozen areas North of Harbin in the dead of winter, and back all the way South to Xiapu to photograph the coastal fishing industry. Most recently I have been in Yunnan, where the Yuanyang rice paddies are like giant wood block prints, and the vast Erhai Lake glistens in the sunshine. Basically, I have barely scratched the surface of this mysterious, ancient and huge country. Photographing China could be a life’s work, and there would always be more to discover. This book is the beginning, I hope to continue my explorations for many more years to come.
Michael Kenna’s (born 1953 in Widnes, Lancashire, England) mysterious photographs, often made at dawn or in the dark hours of night, concentrate primarily on the interaction between the natural landscape and human-made structures. Kenna is both a diurnal and nocturnal photographer, fascinated by light when it is most pliant. With long time-exposures, which might last throughout the night, his photographs often record details that the human eye is not able to perceive.
Kenna is particularly well-known for the intimate scale of his photography and his meticulous personal printing style. He works in the traditional, non-digital, silver photographic medium. His exquisitely hand crafted black and white prints, which he makes in his own darkroom, reflect a sense of refinement, respect for history, and thorough originality.
During Kenna’s forty-eight year career, his photographs have been shown in over four hundred and fifty one-person gallery and museum exhibitions throughout the world, and are included in over a hundred permanent institutional collections. Seventy five monographs and exhibition catalogs have been published on Kenna’s work.
