The Charles Nègre Photography Museum in Nice, France, is presenting a major retrospective of renowned British photographer Michael Kenna's work through January 25, 2026. The exhibition, titled "Constellation," features 120 prints spanning from 1973 to 2025, showcasing Kenna's distinctive approach to landscape photography that transforms silence into visual poetry through geometric precision and contemplative sensitivity.
For over four decades, Michael Kenna has explored the nuances of silence through his black-and-white imagery. In his photographs, every tree, reflection, and deserted architectural structure becomes a marker of time, captured with geometric accuracy and rare contemplative sensitivity. His images don't simply reproduce reality – they transform landscapes into spaces for meditation where the ephemeral dialogues with the permanent, and light shapes the invisible.
Born in England and trained in graphic arts before transitioning to photography, Kenna moved to San Francisco to develop a freer artistic vision. From his earliest work, he has favored stripped-down landscapes where human presence fades in favor of light, time, and form. Working almost exclusively with analog film, often at dawn or in the dead of night, Kenna doesn't seek the instant moment – he records duration. His iconic series featuring Japan, trees, snow, and industrial sites demonstrate consistent elements: rigorous composition, extreme attention to nuance, and the poetry of restraint.
Solitude, patience, and precision form the foundation of Kenna's practice, giving his prints a singular emotional intensity. His approach resembles a meditative practice. The choice of black and white, analog film, and long exposures – sometimes lasting several hours – isn't an aesthetic posture but a way of approaching reality differently. These extended exposures suspend the moment, reveal what the eye barely perceives, and open a space oscillating between the concrete and the imaginary.
Kenna's style is built on subtle tension where formal rigor meets interior poetry. Each image is constructed with almost musical precision while carrying within it a breath, a secret. Solitary trees, rivers, industrial sites, and Japanese landscapes are never simple motifs – they become signs, fragments of memory, invitations to contemplation. Many of his photographs have the purity of a haiku – brief, silent, but profoundly moving.
In an exclusive interview, Kenna reflects on his artistic philosophy and process. When asked about the timeless quality of his landscapes, he explains: "Human life on Earth is both brief and limited, and for my part, I now have more days behind me than ahead of me. Each photographic experience therefore becomes all the more precious. I conceive of photography simply and don't feel the need to define or explain everything. Today, I consider myself more of a medium than a creator."
Regarding the role of solitude in his work, Kenna references writer Pico Iyer's observation that "being alone is, among all states of grace, the one most often discredited, or at least the one most mistrusted." Kenna emphasizes that solitude has been an essential ingredient in what he calls the "mysterious concoction of creativity" since the beginning of his practice. "Solitude encourages spontaneity and experimentation, without fear of judgment, success, or failure," he explains.
Kenna's preference for working at dawn or night stems from his belief that these moments offer something daylight cannot provide. "Dawn, twilight, and night are times when the world seems veiled, enveloped in shadow, where light is in perpetual movement, where shadows multiply and imagination begins to resonate at its highest frequency," he notes. He cites early influence from the nocturnal studies of Bill Brandt, Eugène Atget, and Joseph Sudek, explaining his tendency to favor suggestion over description.
When discussing the spiritual dimension often attributed to his work, Kenna reveals his complex relationship with the concept. Having spent seven years in a small seminary with the intention of becoming a Catholic priest, he experienced hours of prayer, meditation, silence, and discipline. Later, he became interested in Buddhism, visited Shinto shrines, and married into a Hindu family. "I've always had an instinctive mistrust of any religious dogma, and I've never felt comfortable with the word 'spiritual,'" he admits, while acknowledging that if spirituality means natural respect for our world while recognizing our ignorance of what precedes and follows our lives, he would consider it a compliment.
On his continued use of black and white in an era dominated by digital color, Kenna explains: "Color is omnipresent, which is why black and white becomes an immediate interpretation of what a photographer sees, rather than simple reproduction. It reduces and simplifies, it's quieter, calmer, more peaceful than color, leaving more room for imagination. It also evokes the past and pays homage to photographers of yesteryear."
When asked about balancing formal rigor with poetic emotion, Kenna admits he has no clear method: "I simply seek poetry everywhere; it's my way of seeing the world. I construct my images with formal composition because it's my natural way: keeping horizons straight, counting posts in the water or birds in the sky, paying attention to white spots and highlights during hand printing."
The retrospective at the Charles Nègre Museum, curated by Sabine Troncin-Denis, reveals an artist who doesn't simply show the world but invites viewers to enter its rhythm, listen to light, and perceive what remains when everything seems motionless. The exhibition demonstrates the coherence of a journey that, despite the diversity of places and subjects, remains faithful to a deeply interior vision.
Reflecting on photography's potential to teach values of time, patience, and contemplation in today's world, Kenna remains optimistic: "Yes, probably. But you could say the same about a pencil, pen, or brush. Time, patience, contemplation, and solitude are found or learned in a thousand ways. Photography is a medium, a language, a form of expression offering infinite choices."
After more than fifty years with photography as his companion, Kenna expresses profound gratitude for what the medium has offered him: "Discovery, mystery, wonder, beauty... The list could extend for pages. What does one still seek to discover with a beloved partner? Why not be content with mystery, wonder, and beauty to celebrate this enduring relationship? Acceptance and appreciation seem more appropriate intentions than an endless quest for novelty."
The "Constellation" exhibition runs through January 25, 2026, at the Charles Nègre Photography Museum located at 1 Place Pierre Gautier, Nice, France. Visitors can explore more of Kenna's work at his website www.michaelkenna.com and follow his Instagram @michaelkennaphoto. The museum's Instagram can be found at @museephotonice.
