Customer Reviews

Ratcliffe Power Station

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Collection of black-and-white photographs. Limited Edition of 3000 copies. The first and only edition. An elegant production by Chris Pichler and Hideyuki Taguchi: Oversize-volume format in square shape. A very tall and slim book. Handsome black silk cloth boards with metallic-silver titles embossed on cover and spine, as issued. Photographs by Michael Kenna. Essay, "Michael Kenna and Ratcliffe-on-Soar", by Jeremy Reed, one of the finest living British poets. Brief Biographies appended at the end. In pictorial DJ with black and silver titles on the cover and spine, as issued. "Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station is located in Nottinghamshire, England. Michael Kenna first began photographing the power station in the early 1980's and over the past several years he has visited the site many times, producing a body of work as ominous as it is beautiful. The Ratcliffe photographs take on the tonal quality of a partially lit ecosphere unique to the photographer and his subject. A brilliant manipulator of half-light, Kenna's grainy, spatial topography epitomizes the gray skies of Northern England that were the ubiquitous backdrop to his childhood. Kenna's Ratcliffe photographs create the impression of an atmospherically foggy day, registering the homeostasis of a mood that is a dominant characteristic of his work" (Publisher's blurb). "Michael Kenna has, through his art, opened visual pathways that help redeem eco-damaged or industrially proscriptive landscapes. He is a poet armed with a camera who lyricizes light. He has added the power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar to the continuously expanding geography of imagination" (Jeremy Reed). Some of Kenna's most powerful work. © 2006, ModernRare.com

The photographs in this book are on a level completely different from anything I've seen in recent memory. I own a lot of photo books, and this one is definitely my new favorite. The tones, grain and overall mood that Kenna achieves is incredibly beautiful, and the book is well designed and printed. Highly recommended.