"French Canal, Study 2, Loir-et-Cher, France"

gelatin silver print

signed, dated, titled on verso

Michael Kenna has been photographing trees for some fifty years. His photographs, often taken at dusk or in the dark hours of the night, focus on the interaction between the natural landscape and structures created by humans. With long exposure times, his photographs capture essential things that only become visible over time.
Looking at a tree provides balance and relaxation. The trees photographed by Kenna are chance encounters. He describes them as his silent friends with whom he enjoys talking. In his approach, he is interested in seeing and 'listening' until their whole character unfolds before his eyes. The title of one of his photographs, Philosopher's Tree, stands for this attitude. It is an encounter that is both physical as well as intellectual and aesthetic, and when the light is just right, beholding and photographing gain an almost metaphysical dimension.
Kenna keeps revisiting some of the trees, especialy the Kussharo Lake Tree on the island Hokkaido in Japan, which he photographed regularly between 2002 and 2013. There are numerous studies about it, and by now, in Japan it is also known as 'Michael Kenna's Tree'. In 2013, the tree was cut down; a final photograph bears witness to this.
Time plays an important role in Kenn's work, not just in his engagement with his themes, but also in the realisation of his works. He uses analogue photography, with the traditional medium of silver gelatin prints, and he is especially known for the intimate size of his photographs and the excellent hand-made prints that he produces in his own darkroom. "Nothing is ever the same twice because everything is always gone forever, and yet each moment has infinite photographic possibilities." (Michael Kenna)
(Galerie Albrecht, Berlin)

No journey too far
The tree pictures of Michael Kenna

No journey was too long for Michael Kenna, no object too far away to indulge his passion for trees, mostly for naked trees with not a single leaf left on them.
There is nothing in the picture to distract the eye, neither house nor street, no human or animal. Every now and then a cloud floats in the sky, as gray and white as the snow that has blown away all traces of the earth. Sometimes it looks as if the tree, located somewhere in Europe, America or Japan, is floating freely in the air - or at least a few centimetres above the hill on which it stands all alone.

Kenna refrains from any digital processing
Nevertheless, the composition is recognizable when, for example, trees line a narrow canal from both sides and the camera is positioned exactly in the middle above the stream. The trees reach up into the sky and at the same time are mirrored in the depths of the water. It is a masterful shot, perhaps the most beautiful of the 36 that can currently be admired at the Albrecht Gallery.
The photographer, who now lives in Seattle and was born in Lancashire in 1953, whose "Abruzzo" series is still well remembered by visitors to this gallery and whose works are represented in countless public and private collections, has almost always chosen the square format of twenty by twenty for his prints. For the canal picture and the similarly composed view of a dead-straight path between rows of trees, a vertical format was more appropriate.

Sometimes one wishes for more depth of field
It speaks for Michael Kenna that he still works consistently in analog format. Digital processing or computer-generated photographic showpieces are anathema to him. His workshop is the darkroom, where he can enhance or soften the brightness values of the black and white negative, nothing more. If nature itself is at work in landscape photography, shaping the style, this is particularly true of his works. They leave out or look past what is not of interest here.
Of course, one may regret that this threatens to level out the profile of the landscape. The horizon becomes blurred, one wishes for a little depth of field. In this way, Kenna sets his very own counterpoint to the tradition of landscape photography.
It is hard to imagine a greater contrast than the magnificent panoramas by the American Ansel Adams (1902-1984) of the ancient giant trees of Yosemite National Park in California, which opened America's eyes to the endangered beauty of the land in the 1930s.

Pictures make you feel the vitality of the trees
Stylistically, Kenna could be closer to the tree paintings of the Frenchman Charles Negre (1820-1880), who was inspired by the pine trees with their umbrella-like crowns found near Cannes. In both cases, one thinks one recognizes something of the vitality of the trees, but also - in Negre's case - at least senses the economic value of the landscape. Kenna is completely removed from both aspects. He literally celebrates the standstill of nature, which the trees represent here. The trees could have died a long time ago. Aren't his photographs obituaries of nature, framed by black wooden strips? But mourning also has its own beauty, which Michael Kenna evokes with precision.

(Hans-Jörg Rother, Tagessplegel, November 13, 2023, translated by deepl.com)