Whoever is interested in Photography in general, and in landscape photography in particular, is familiar with Michael Kenna's work, and, in fact, it's impossible not to. The ethernal dawn and sunset, long exposed shots, are what made him so famous and distinguished beyond the contemporary photography realm.
It was more recently, whan I was researching about the english photographer's work, that I stumbled upon another very unique portfolio: Kevin Saint Grey's.
Kevin Saint Grey is a (mostly) fine art film photographer with an unique minimalist style. He shoots mostly landscape and architecture, and his work distinguishes itself for the serendipity of black and white, "humanless" and silent scenarios. He shoots with a Hasselblad 50mm lens, and has already won several prizes - much as Michael Kenna.
He's not your common architecture photographer: one of his most characteristic composition techniques is symmetry and long exposures, although, he manages to get extremly creative images, by using camera movements while exposing, and by exploring unique angles while shooting architecture. Another of his particular techniques is digital image manipulation after film develpment, creating his most unique and personal style.
In an interview for Nathan Wirth he says:
All of these [compositive] components are a big part of what I refer to as “vision.” The other part of vision, for me, is seeing the final image in your head before clicking the shutter and the entire process from beginning to end, all to create that image. The RAW file (or film negative) is a major ingredient into the final product but it is still just an ingredient (as are curves adjustments, black and white conversions, film development, etc). Being able to bring to life an idea of what the image should be and having a final physical product that mirrors exactly that idea is … what I refer to as vision.
Indeed another interesting trait of his work is the way he explores the gradient, being it so in grey tone photos, or more deep contrasted black and white ones. The result, he says, is part of a process of picturing the image in your mind before shooting, and keeping that "vision" through the post-processing stage.
Saint Grey publishes his work in series, so if you're more interested in architecture photography, check out Stealth Bomber 2008-2011, Mono 2005-2010, Dystopia 2011-2013 and Abstraction of Urban Geometry 2010-.
Comments
Post a Comment