Michael Kenna: Trees / Arbres

Published on the occasion of the exhibition “Arbres” organized at Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, this catalogue gathers the most beautiful photographs of trees by Michael Kenna.

The famous photographer travels the world, from France to New Zealand, through the United States and South Korea, to immortalize trees and forests. In this book, the dense forests and their gaps of light as well as the tiny trees isolated within idyllic landscapes highlight the diversity of the photographed specimens as much as the plurality of the compositions.

Exclusively in black and white, these photographs allow us to cross the seasons while reinventing the colours that are traditionally associated with them to focus on the interaction between the opaque and delicate black of the tree and a fleecy light that generates wonderful atmospheric effects. On rare occasions, the existence of human civilizations can be seen: some road sections, buildings, fences and stakes or, more surprisingly, slippers, constitute the only traces of human presence. Elsewhere, the perfect and regular alignment of trees along a road shows human intervention.