Photographers often refer to their craft as a journey, and that rings true for me. My journey began when my point-and-shoot film camera careened down a canyon wall in Death Valley and broke into a thousand pieces. I had a drawer full of snapshots from travels and backpacks, so I decided not to replace the camera and instead take a breather from seeing the world through a lens.
Then, years later, planning a trip to India, I thought, "No way am I going without a camera." Then I thought maybe I should learn something about this photography stuff. So I read up on it. Back from India with a stash of photos, I signed up for Flickr and joined the Berkeley Camera Club. The club and various off-shoot groups and activities provided a wonderful local community in which to learn and grow.
I began dabbling in all sorts of photography. Eventually a friend and I got hooked on night photography. It was so interesting to find that at night, with a long exposure, a camera could see things that I couldn't. Seeing the world through a lens took on new meaning. Then I ran across daytime long-exposure photographs online. With a neutral density filter, I could do during the day something like what I had been doing at night. In the next couple of years, using long exposures, I must have photographed every bridge, pier, and piling in San Francisco Bay.
Since then, I've moved on to new challenges, more complex, color images of landscapes, seascapes, trees, and woodland. But nothing fundamental has changed. I'm still excited about what a camera can see. And going out to photograph is always something of an adventure. Even if I have a plan, I never know what I'm going to find. Shooting is a challenge, sometimes a puzzle. The light changes, the clouds come and go. There's a lot to figure out: composition, camera settings, and so forth. When I really get into it, when I'm focused on the task at hand, I experience the "flow state." The experience of the shoot is as important to me as the result. And the goal is still to create evocative images pleasing to the eye, images that speak to me, and hopefully to others as well.
The journey continues.
Exhibits and Publications
My work has been exhibited at the Frank Bette Center in Alameda, Abrams Claghorn Gallery and Nielson Arts in Albany, the LightRoom, Photolab, UC Theatre, Center Street Lobby, and Thousand Oaks Gallery in Berkeley, Berkeley City College, Blake Garden in Kensington, Art Works Downtown in San Rafael, the Art Gallery at the Orinda Library, the Darkroom Gallery in Vermont, and various other locations. Prints are held in permanent collections at Musée des religions du monde, Québec and City Hall, Citrus Heights, California. Publications include Photography Week, Foto Fanfare, Sierra Club Yodeler, Planning Magazine, Saints and Sinners Magazine, Chicagoist, The People's Calendar, Save the Bay Calendar, Berkeleyside, California Alpine Club newsletter, Point Reyes Association catalog, and my book, New Zealand: Three Weeks on South Island.
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Photography, for me, is not the end product, it’s the experience, and it’s being there, doing it. - Michael Kenna