“In my photographic work I'm generally attracted to places that contain memories, history, atmospheres and stories. I'm interested in the places where people have lived, worked and played. I look for traces of the past, visual fingerprints, evidence of activities - they fire my imagination and connect into my own personal experiences. Using the analogy of the theater, I would say that I like to photograph the empty stage, before or after the performance, even in between acts. I love the atmosphere of anticipation, the feeling in the air that events have happened, or will happen soon.” PeopleLooksStoriesFeelingsHappensPastImaginationMemoriesMy OwnFireHappenedAirStageEventsActivityEvidenceEmptyPerformancesTheaterPhotographerPhotographAtmosphereVisualsAnticipationMy ImaginationAnalogiesPersonal ExperiencesFingerprintsEmpty Stage Author:Michael Kenna
“A photograph is a universe of dots. The grain, the halide, the little silver things clumped in the emulsion. Once you get inside a dot, you gain access to hidden information, you slide into the smallest event. This is what technology does. It peels back the shadows and redeems the dazed and rumbling past. It makes reality come true.” LittlesDoeRealityPastUniverseTechnologyEventsInformationPhotographyShadowGainsPhotographAccessSilverGrainSmallestSlidesDotsDazed Book:Underworld: A Novel Source: Underworld: A Novel
“Sitting for a picture is morbid business. A portrait doesn't begin to mean anything until the subject is dead. This is the whole point. We're doing this to create a kind of sentimental past for people in decades to come. It's their past, their history we're inventing here. And it's not how I look now that matters. It's how I'll look in twenty-five years as clothing and faces change, as photographs change. The deeper I pass into death, the more powerful my picture becomes. Isn't this why picture-taking is so ceremonial? It's like a wake. And I'm the actor made up for the laying-out.” PeopleYearsLooksKindMeanMadeMatterWholePastFacesActorsPowerfulFiveSubjectsSittingTwentiesPhotographDeeperDecadesFive YearsClothingsPortraitsSentimentalInventingTwenty FiveMorbidPicture Taking Book:Mao II Source: Mao II
“A photograph is both a pseudo-presence and a token of absence. Like a wood fire in a room, photographs-especially those of people, of distant landscapes and faraway cities, of the vanished past-are incitements to reverie. The sense of the unattainable that can be evoked by photographs feeds directly into the erotic feelings of those for whom desirability is enhanced by distance.” PeopleFeelingsPastRoomsCitiesFireDistancePhotographWoodsAbsenceLandscapeEroticTokensUnattainablePseudoReverieDesirabilityIncitement Book:On photography Source: On photography
“The particular qualities and intentions of photographs tend to be swallowed up in the generalized pathos of time past.” PastQualityParticularIntentionPhotographPathosTimes Past Book:On photography Source: On photography