Artistic Statement

Donna Kennedy – Photographer

Artistic Statement

While often there are exciting images – bold – brutal – telling – brought to our attention on a daily basis – clashes over land, ideologies, material goods, and political struggles, it is areas of remote and sometimes rugged beauty, places of wonder where no beaten paths lead, where the rounded prow of a canoe might come to rest – these are the places that draw my eye, and my lens.  A Costa Rican coffee plantation – a place of hard labor and noble charm… the stark interior of a volcano’s caldera…the distant quiet of Table Mountain and Lion’s Head above the South African plains at moon rise… ice rocks shimmering for brief moments along Lake Superior’s frigid expanse…history in the stones of a Czechoslovakian village…places of beauty, of calm, like the walkway at Washington Island that leads to nowhere, yet, someplace very special…. My talents lay in images captured as visual portals to fleeting moments.

The photographic work I produce is often very personal to me. The significance of people and places, the textures, forms, and colors found in the natural world enliven a connection that draws me in and enriches my vision of the world with each snap of the shutter.

Every time I venture out to a new place, or those old and favored, and reach for may camera to capture a detail or vista, the lines on an old man’s face, or the fresh inexhaustible exuberance of children, I try to focus on that which is beyond the visual. A feeling, something intangible, is meant to be shared with the viewer. In a sense, my photographs are a way of saying, “Look here.” They are not just portrayals of a moment, but windows into something more. The images I’ve captured present a challenge, daring me to capture not only the image, but also to bring to the viewer the feeling and timbre to which I am pulled.