Michael Kenna seems to contradict one of the constants of a certain kind of Northern European photography from the 1950's and 1960's. When photographers who are born and grow up in countries where light is arranged in a gamut of greys, from gentle to stormy, are faced with landscapes wet with, say, more dramatic, Mediterranean or tropical kinds of light, they appear to transform their vision, and reveal the desire to explore types of photographic expression other than those already tested in their native lands. Not so Michael Kenna. As a matter of fact, what impresses you most when you look through his very vast series of landscape pictures, is the extraordinary intactness of the luminous atmosphere. Whether they are of Abu Dhabi, California, Egypt or Emilia, all of the images he produces are lit with a constant physical light and sentiment; elements that this photographer seems to always have with him, the way he has his camera bag, and through which all he wants to do is observe the world. I find such an aesthetic to be more that of a painter than a photographer.

Ferdinando Scianna