Michael Kenna

 1. I immediately fell in love with Kenna's work when I first saw it, because it is simple and yet stark. I love the mysterious and sometimes a little spooky energy it has due to the shots being in black and white. His work has a peaceful, almost nostalgic energy due to the long exposure that makes it feel like the viewer has been suspended alone in time and space.

2. Michael Kenna is a monochromatic landscape photographer. He often finds simple objects, natural and manmade, and captures them in a way that makes them stand out, despite (and perhaps because of) being in shades of gray, black, and white.

3. Michael Kenna and Ansel Adams both captured the beauty of black and white landscapes, utilizing the contrast between light and dark to emphasize certain elements of their photos. Adams gravitates towards impressive, sprawling landscapes in places like Yellowstone National Park, or Yosemite, while each of Kenna's photos tends to focus on one complete subject, like a tree, rather than a continuous landform like a mountain range or canyons. I like both of them, but I still prefer Kenna's work due to its focus and therefore emotional meaning that can be extracted from it.

(Ansel Adams)

4. If someone remade Kenna's work today, I believe it would make more of a political statement focusing on societal issues such as climate change. His photos have great power in emphasizing and contrasting what he views as important, so someone with the ability to remake his work could really utilize that power with their own vision.

5. Kenna's quote tracks with the photos I've seen of his so far, and the way he describes his technique in this quote puts into words exactly what his pictures achieve. The background of what he photographs can look two-dimensional, but not in a flat or unexciting way, because it only emphasizes the "brush strokes", or subjects, he is photographing.