Michael Kenna is widely known for minimalism, master printer, and celebrated black and white photographer. He has stuck to using film and the use of traditional silver gelatin photography, influencing many others to baulk the digital world and use black and white film too. He has published numerous books many of them now collectible and expensive if you can get hold of one. These include the start of an autobiography - ‘Upholland’ - which reminisces on his school years which helped to shape his career. While initially training to be a Catholic priest, we are fortunate that his career took a different path. His early photographs back in the mid 1980s of Northern England are dark, gritty and documentary. They were taken close to his home town of Widnes. Following this series, Michael bought his first medium format camera in 1986. Then his first visit to Japan in 1987 profoundly influenced his subsequent photography.  It is probably his photos from his many visits to Japan that he is best known. It is the simple photos of trees and fences in the snow that are most striking. Snow and water offer the photographer the ideal background that does not distract from the subject of the photograph.

Bill Brandt's Snicket, Halifax 1986

Kusshara Lake, Japan, study 9 2009

Sunday Morning, Burnley, England 1984

Six Gondolas, Venice, Italy 1980