Respect Authority

Black and white photography has a lot of practical applications — emo band album covers, MySpace profile self-portraits, and every amateur photographer’s portfolio ever. Its inherent artfulness has lead to a great overuse of the style, subsequently wounding its artfulness through the strangling choke of cliché. Nonetheless, English photographer Michael Kenna’s monochrome images of stark, sweeping landscapes remind the viewer of the potential beauty of black and white photography. His shots have all the mood your average emo kid could only dream of.

Kenna’s photos scream silence; the quiet stillness makes it feel as if every shot was captured in the wee hours of Christmas morning. The pictures are also an agoraphobic’s nightmare — the vast emptiness Kenna regularly captures, highlighted by strongly contrasted trees or fences dotting the surrounding abyss, would have Emily Dickensen lighting the oven with just one glimpse. But if you’re anything like me, you’d be too busy falling into the enveloping void to smell the burning hair.

The photographs are lonely, spooky, and serene, simultaneously empty and exploding with miniature details. Some of them are distinct in their traditionally Japanese ambiance due to their composition and value, whereas the winding landscapes and foggy haze in others look more like a grave robber’s wet, decomposing dream. In every case, however, the haunting, severe environments should be a sure bet for any of you looking to get rid of that whiny suicidal type in your life.

Kenna makes absolute magic with his use of light and shadow, often shooting at dawn, twilight, or in the dead of night with immense exposures. The ethereal light he is able to create in his shots adds to the alien nature of his environments, the delicate details illuminated against their mysterious backdrops. The photographer’s surreal images are endlessly enthralling, and go down smoother than a bottle of red wine on the kind of desolate winter nights Kenna freezes his toes off during to make his art.