Yesterday, in my blog post titled ‘Nocturnes‘, I explained that I had recently been inverting some of my images. I explained that I think the catalyst for me doing this may be down to the photo ‘Beach Path, Hastings 1984’ by Michael Kenna:

Beach Path, Hastings 2984. Image © Michael Kenna

I’ve been very lucky over the years to have a very nice correspondence with Michael. Indeed, I consider him a good friend now. I have been very privileged to spend time with Michael here in Scotland showing him around, and I’ve also been out in Tokyo on a Karaoke night with him (another story perhaps for another time). He is a very nice person and I’m really grateful that our paths have crossed over the past decade. It’s been such a nice thing for me to find out that someone who I greatly admire is also an extremely fun and nice person to become friends with.

So I felt that I could ask him about the photograph above, to find out how he made it.

Below is his reply, but also, he was generous to submit three other photos to expand upon my initial question which was:

‘Is your photo of Hastings Beach an inverted photo?, or was it created by artificial light?’.

Here is his reply:

“Hi Bruce,

“A beautiful morning moon set is happening before me as I sit and type this : )

“The image you refer to “Beach Path” (see first image to this post) was photographed at night without any additional lighting on my part. I just used the nearby street lights.

“The image titled “Tilted Poles” above is another example of this lighting.

So that cleared up any illusion that I was under that Michael’s Hastings photo was an inverted print. But he continued to expand on this:

“I suspect that reversing images is almost a rite of passage on many photographers journeys. I did a lot of color reversal experiments when I was studying photography. Later, I played around with black and white. I remember being in Yosemite Valley in the seventies following in the footsteps of Ansel Adams and realizing that to be creative in a place like that needed a radical shift of vision. I came up with a reversal of trees reflecting in a hotel pond. I printed from a color transparency:

Michael’s conversation turned onto another subject. That of playing around with 3D elements in a 2D space. I think this is very much related, as I will explain further below:

“I have long been intrigued by images that play with three dimensional movement on and in the two dimensional print. “Conical Hedges” and “Avonmouth Dock, Study 7”, both below, have this aspect for me.

“In Conical Hedges (above) the dark shapes seem to float forwards out of the paper toward the viewer. In Avonmouth Docks (below) the 3d buildings become a 2d flat form.

Avonmouth Dock, Study 7. Image © Michael Kenna — Avonmouth Dock, Study 7.
Image © Michael Kenna

Michael’s thoughts on turning 3D elements into 2D flat forms wasn’t something I had anticipated that he would discuss. I had not expected my initial question would turn into an explanation that for Michael, everything can be abstracted.

His last two photos illustrate how he plays with real objects to create 2D flat shapes or patterns. In the case of the conical hedgerows, they aren’t conical hedgerows anymore, but instead black serrated shapes that float off the page. In the case of the Avonmouth dock buildings, they are no longer buildings, but pleasing symmetrical graphical shapes. Indeed, the lack of 3D quality to the dock buildings helps reduce them from buildings to effective compositional form.

It is something that I like to play with myself a lot. For me, a picture isn’t about what is there. It’s not about trees, snow, sky, mountains, rivers, etc, etc. Instead, photos are about graphical forms and tone. They are pictures instead of photos. It’s a subtle difference but a difference nonetheless. I like to abstract scenes down to their fundamental framework if I can. To do that, I like to reduce real objects down to the graphical forms they are made from. Perhaps for a few reasons:

graphical forms are easier to compose
graphical forms make for stronger compositions
graphical forms aid in abstracting a scene from ‘reality’ to an interpretation (and hopefully a highly personal one).

I’d like to thank Michael for his generosity and time to reply. I know he is super busy. So I greatly appreciate it.