VIDEOS
I was in Wroclaw with Ken at a theatre festival in 2009 and, while we were busy sometimes seeing three shows a day, we also had plenty of spare time on our hands. We tried out most of the cafes and restaurants and wore down some park benches, to say nothing of our shoe soles as we walked around town. I had been thinking for some time about getting Ken to talk about his work and the artists he loved, and it all came together here in Wroclaw. We would walk and talk a bit, and then stop to make a video. We did seven of them, all of which you can access below. Honking, engine-revving cars didn't always cooperate with us, but even the very present urban ambience could not drown out the soft-spoken Ken. For anyone interested in his work, there are some wonderful revelations in these videos.
Here Ken talks about meeting and falling in love with the theatre of Kama Ginkas.
In this one, Ken shares some astute observations about Anton Chekhov from a photographer's point of view.
Ken here discusses falling in love with the style of theatre created at Konstantin Raikin's Satirikon Theatre in Moscow.
Some of Ken's greatest photos, and one of his favorite productions, was The Polyphony of the World by composer Alexander Bakshi and directed by Kama Ginkas.
The Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrosius was one of Ken's favorite directors - his eye suited Nekrosius' art to a T.
One of Ken's first and longest loves was the great Georgian director Robert Sturua, whom Ken followed and photographed in many countries, from the UK to Russia to Georgia.
It was Lev Dodin's Gaudeamus that changed Ken's life. He had never before photographed theatre before encountering this production in Glasgow, and afterwards, he rarely photographed anything else...