C Print Portrait Photography

A picture of joy. KhoiSan bushman from Namibia John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natural light and...

I met this stunning Rendille moran (warrior) in the shade of trees near the base of Mount Nyiru. Spring waters, flowing from the huge mountain plateau above, ensure year-round greenery in this area of great aridity. The morans of both the Rendille and the Samburu wear beautifully ornate necklaces. Each design is specific to warriors within a clan and to a time in history (the ‘age-set’ that a young man enters after circumcision). The necklace thus identities his group and places him in the chronology of his tribe. A tribal elder can look at a warrior’s necklace...

In the far north of Namibia as you head towards the border with Angola at Epupa Falls, barely visible tracks radiate off the main dirt road into bush and disappear across sandy, dry ...

I came across the intense stare of this Pokot lady at a Friday market on a mountain summit in northern Kenya; it was the same market where I photographed a Samburu goat herder wrappe...

A young Himba child from Namibia John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natura...

I met Ltiriyan at the water wells in Laisamis, part of the Rendille lands of Northern Kenya. He was with nine or ten Rendille warriors relaxing in the heat of the day, and they happily sat around and talked with me through my guide for an hour or so before preparing their camels to head off into the desert again. Ltiriyan was the most outspoken of the young warriors...

Himba woman from Northern Namibia John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natural light and his subjects i...

Otjitando is a Himba woman from the deserts of Namibia. She lives in a nomadic society and decorates her skin and hair with red mud. Otjitando gazes confidently at the viewer, ex...

A Turkana elder photographed by John Kenny in Kenya. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allo...

A young Turkana girl John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a remarkable l...

A Rendille girl in Kenya A return to Kenya. On this trip John took a different approach to lighting. Building makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets held up by four ...

John Kenny met this Gabbra woman on the road to Kolal in Northern Kenya in 2019. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sh...

A Samburu warrior from Kenya A return to Kenya. On this trip John took a different approach to lighting. Building makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets held up by f...

This young Turkana girl in northern Kenya wears a goatskin known as an ‘egolas’. In traditional Turkana communities the inhabitants are excellent at making garments from animals, and...

Sometimes a more practical hair arrangement is needed for warriors and braids are rolled into a net that is tied to keep the hair firm. Once the hair is long, a warrior will only sha...

I met Emon in a small Turkana village called ‘Sarima’ in the North of Kenya. It’s a wild place that seems to sit in a wind tunnel that takes its power from the enormous water mass of...

This elder from a Rendille community in northern Kenya wears a typical bright coloured fabric wrapped around his body. It is essentially the same as the blanket-like ‘shuka’ worn by ...

John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natural light and his subjects in their day to day attire. The C-t...

The steady gaze of Inchoy and child. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to captur...

A Turkana elder in Northern Kenya John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a...

I came across the intense stare of this Pokot lady at a Friday market on a mountain summit in northern Kenya; it was the same market where I photographed a Samburu goat herder wrappe...

A young man of the Afar culture in the town of Assaita. Many men spend the afternoons in loud debate in mud buildings and courtyards. Often with fistfuls of miraa leaves (ghat) and...

This Himba elder was at a huge funeral gathering in the western Kaokoland between the largest town of the area, Opuwo, and Otjitando. The area was flat, and very dry, with a strong w...

Rendille warrior from Northern Kenya John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His subjects are lit with natural light and wear their day ...

I met Ltiriyan at the water wells in Laisamis, part of the Rendille lands of Northern Kenya. He was with nine or ten Rendille warriors relaxing in the heat of the day, and they happi...

Otjitando is a Himba woman from the deserts of Namibia. She lives in a nomadic society and decorates her skin and hair with red mud. Otjitando gazes confidently at the viewer, ex...

Nambuele illustrates the hair craft of the Mumuhuila of southern Angola, whose women take an obsessive pride in their hairstyle. Although it may change as a girl enters different st...

This was from Muse X publishers. It came in a plastic bag signed Emily Cheng. (the plastic bag is not included) It is on Fuji crystal photo paper. It depicts two Asian faces in a cubist, fractured way, with a woman (or man) holding a photograph over his/her face. It is a proof print and is not signed or numbered. Emily Cheng (born in New York City, in 1953) is an American artist of Chinese ancestry. She is best known for large scale painting with a center focus often employing expansive circular images radiantly colored, radially composed. Cheng received her BFA in 1975 from the Rhode Island School of Design and attended the New York Studio School. Cheng has exhibited widely in the US and in Asia. In 2011, Cheng created Charting Sacred Territories, an exhibition exploring world religions which opened in the Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei (MOCA) , Taiwan (2011) and traveled to Hanart TZ Gallery in (2015), Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China, (2015) and in Europe at the Palais Liechtenstein Feldkirch, Austria (2019). Cheng has had numerous solo shows in the US and in Asia and is represented by Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong. In 2007, Timezone 8 published a monograph of Emily Cheng titled, Chasing Clouds, a decade of studies, with essays by Kevin Powers and Johnson Chang. Emily Cheng has lived and worked in New York City since 1977 and teaches Asian Art History at the School of Visual Arts. Influenced by a wide array of eastern and western artists including Van Gogh, Gauguin, Manet and Giacometti as well as de Kooning, early Philip Guston and Jackson Pollock. Nicolas Carone and Leland Bell were both among her teachers as well as Elaine de Kooning. Selected solo exhibitions Ille Arts, Amagansett, New York, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China, (2015) Hanart T.Z. Gallery, Hong Kong, Zane Bennett Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico, (2013) Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Taipei , Taiwan (2011) Louis Vuitton Maison, Kowloon, Hong Kong, (2010) Ayala Museum Makati, Philippines, (2006) Plum Blossom Gallery, New York, NY, (2004) Schmidt/Dean Gallery, Philadelphia, PA Byron Cohen Gallery, Kansas City, MO (2001) Metropolitan Museum of Manila , Philippines (1997) John Post Lee Gallery, New York, NY, Projects Room (1997) Contemporary Arts Center , Cincinnati, Ohio, 1994 David Beitzel Gallery, New York, NY, (1992) Lang & O'Hara Gallery, New York, NY, The Bronx Museum of the Arts , Bronx, NY, (1989) White Columns , New York, NY, (1985) Selected group exhibitions Art Basel Hong Kong , (Hanart Gallery) , Hong Kong, 2017 China Institute, New York, NY, 2014 Beijing Art Fair, Beijing, China, 2013 Museum of Chinese in America New York, NY, 2010 Kidspace, MASS MoCA , Williamstown, MA, 2010, 2005 Museum of Contemporary Art , Shanghai, China, 2009 Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong, China, 2009 Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China, 2008 Contrast Gallery, Shanghai and Beijing, China, 2008 University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum , Tampa, Florida, 2006 Hong Kong Arts Centre , Hong Kong, 2004 American Academy of Art , New York, New York, 2004 Longmarch Project, Beijing, China, 2002 Sotheby’s , New York, NY, 2001 Newhouse Center, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY, 2000 Katonah Museum of Art , Katonah, NY, 2000 National Academy and Museum, NY, 2000 Municipal Museum of Gyor, Hungary, 1999 New Museum of Contemporary Art , New York, NY, 1998 De Cordova Museum and the Computer Museum , Boston, MA, 1994 International Graphic Biennial, Muveszeti Museum, Hungary, 1995 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts , San Francisco, CA, 1994 Drawing Center, NY; traveled to Corcoran, Washington D.C., Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica CA; The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis MO; American Center, Paris, France, Cone Editions Gallery, New York 1990 Anina Nosei Gallery, New York, 1988 Greenville County Museum of Art , South Carolina, 1988 North Carolina Museum of Art , Hallwalls , Buffalo, NY, 1988 Grace Borgenicht Gallery , New York, 1986 Tibor de Nagy, New York, 1985 Asian American...

Young Mumuhuile woman from the Huile region of southern Angola. John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with na...

This Tamberma man is from a small village called Nadoba in Togo, about ten kilometres from the Benin border. The village is renowned for its facial scarification. A fiery wind b...

The man was sat in the shade during a huge village market in a place called Golondi in Niger. We drank the salty, sweet tea that the nomads of the Sahel and...

A portrait of Merayun, a Rendille woman from northern Kenya in 2019. John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken wi...

Sheila Metzner’s unique photographic style has positioned her as a contemporary master in the worlds of fine art, fashion, portraiture, still life and landscape photography. Looking at Metzner’s photographs is a captivating experience. Innocent, sensual, and sexual, each photo, regardless of subject, exhibits and elicits deep emotion. It is nearly impossible to just glance at Metzner’s photos; they beg to be studied. She says, “Photography in its most basic form is magic…This image, caught in my trap, my box of darkness, can live. It is eternal, immortal. The child in the image will not age as the living child will.” Sheila Schwartz was born in 1939 to an orthodox Jewish family in a poor section of Brooklyn. While attending the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan (now the High School of Art and Design), she was awarded the Mayor Robert F. Wagner scholarship to the college of her choice. She chose Pratt Institute, where she majored in visual communication. Her fondness for painting and sculpture also led her to study with abstract artists Jack Tworkov and James Brooks. After graduating in 1961, Sheila worked as an assistant to Lou Dorfsman at CBS Network Advertising. Five years later, she was hired by the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency as its first female art director, and in 1968 she met and married director, creative director, and painter Jeffrey Metzner. While pregnant with their first child, she was riding in a cab with her mentor and friend, photographer Aaron Rose, discussing whether or not to give up her career in advertising. “He said, ‘You should be a photographer. You live like an artist. You have a good eye, you’d be good at it.’ ” Metzner started taking pictures, amassing them slowly over the next 13 years, while raising her and Jeffrey’s five children—Raven, Bega, Ruby, Stella and Louie. Jeffrey’s two daughters from a previous marriage, Evyan and Alison, were also a regular part of the family. “When they were really small, I’d be with them during the day, photographing and printing at night. At eight or nine in the evening, when they were all asleep, I’d take a shower to wake up and put on high heels and lipstick, which I wore then, to give me the feeling of being ready to work.” She continues, “My children never interfered. When I couldn’t travel because of them, I would find a place in upstate New York and call it Antarctica or Egypt. I found microcosms.” Nine years later, Metzner had accumulated a box of 22 pictures. One of them, a black-and-white photograph titled “Evyan, Kinderhook Creek,” caught the eye of John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art, which he included in his famous and controversial exhibition “Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960.” The New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer loved the picture and soon it became the dark-horse hit of the exhibition. Later that year, Metzner’s first solo show at the Daniel Wolf Gallery in New York drew record crowds. Metzner was now ready to work in color, but not just conventional color. Of her subjects, she once said, “If I use a rose, I want it to be the essential rose—the rose Beauty brought to her father from the Beast’s garden.” Now she aspired to an essential kind of color. “I wanted something that would last. I was looking for Fresson even though I didn’t know they existed.” The Fresson family works outside of Paris and specializes in a labor-intensive four-color “process de charbon” method, which they invented in 1895. Some prints can go up to seven colors, and are pigment prints, the only true archival color print. Metzner is one of just ten American photographers with whom they are willing to work. Fresson prints are the perfect complement to Metzner’s style—soft, sensuous, and grainy, the prints resemble paintings, with a finish which Metzner describes as “a glaze on fine porcelain. The moment I saw the neutral gray,” she adds, “I knew it was perfect.” In 1980 Metzner showed her Fresson color prints at her second solo exhibition at the Daniel Wolf Gallery. This show led to commissioned editorial work for such magazines as Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Rolling Stone. She secured an exclusive contract with Vogue for the next eight years. Metzner considers her portrait of actress Jeanne Moreau for Vanity Fair a turning point in her career. “It gave me a chance to show my work to a broader audience. I wasn’t just producing photographs for the art world.” Of Sheila’s foray into fashion, critic Carol Squiers says, “At a time when fashion photography was caught between sterility and the snapshot, Metzner created a sumptuous vision that stimulated the entire field.” Metzner also started doing commercial photography around this time. Her first client was Valentino, soon to be followed by Bloomingdale’s, Perry Ellis, Revlon, Shiseido, Saks Fifth Avenue, Paloma Picasso, Victoria’s Secret, Levi’s, Ralph Lauren, and fragrances for Chloe and Fendi (the Fendi campaign won a Fragrance Foundation Recognition Award). Her work also appeared on John Mellencamp...

I did a photo session of a neighbour in my bombed-out office in a studio in Kharkiv. A Russian fighter jet dropped a bomb on March 2 on the roof of this 5-storey building and a neigh...

I met this stunning Rendille moran (warrior) in the shade of trees near the base of Mount Nyiru. Spring waters, flowing from the huge mountain plateau above, ensure year-round greenery in this area of great aridity. The morans of both the Rendille and the Samburu wear beautifully ornate necklaces. Each design is specific to warriors within a clan and to a time in history (the ‘age-set’ that a young man enters after circumcision). The necklace thus identities his group and places him in the chronology of his tribe. A tribal elder can look at a warrior’s necklace...

The town of Baragoi is half a day’s drive from Lake Turkana. It is a green oasis amidst a parched landscape. The majority of the town’s inhabitants, including this striking woman, ar...

Every Friday the highest mountain pass in northern Kenya comes alive as its normally wind-battered and deserted shacks become the focus of a market. It is the only place in West Samburu where Pokot and Samburu tribal groups are able to meet in a tense and uneasy truce. From a cliff top, looking out over northern Kenya’s rugged scenery, a nervous Samburu trader pointed at small moving objects...

The town of Baragoi is half a day’s drive from Lake Turkana. It is a green oasis amidst a parched landscape. The majority of the town’s inhabitants, including this striking woman, ar...

Every Friday the highest mountain pass in northern Kenya comes alive as its normally wind-battered and deserted shacks become the focus of a market. It is the only place in West Samburu where Pokot and Samburu tribal groups are able to meet in a tense and uneasy truce. From a cliff top, looking out over northern Kenya’s rugged scenery, a nervous Samburu trader pointed at small moving objects...

This enchanting Rendille lady is from a large village in the Kaisut Desert in northern Kenya. She was living in one of the ‘purest’ parts of the Rendille homeland, where their langua...

I met this girl from the Turkana community of Loiyangalani very near to the shores of Lake Turkana. She was walking with her head covered to provide some...

A portrait of Acuan, a Turkana man from northern Kenya in 2019. John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with na...

A portrait of Lemarleni, a Samburu man from northern Kenya in 2019. John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken wit...

A portrait of Lemarleni, a Samburu man from northern Kenya in 2019. John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken wit...

A portrait of Lemarleni, a Samburu man from northern Kenya in 2019. John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken wit...

A portrait of Madina, a Gabbra woman from northern Kenya in 2019. John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with ...

I did a photo session of a neighbour in my bombed-out office in a studio in Kharkiv. A Russian fighter jet dropped a bomb on March 2 on the roof of this 5-storey building and a neigh...

This portrait of Loha, a ‘Naga’ sadhu, was taken in Pashupatinath, one of Hinduism’s holiest sites. Lord Pashupatinath is a manifestation of Lord Shiva and the name translates to ‘protector of the animals’. Naga sadhus cover themselves in ash and typically wander naked from head to toe. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a remarkable level of detail. His subjects calm demeanor belies the reality of harsh arid winds, extreme temperatures and dust. John Kenny’s black and white photographic portraits are taken on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa and India. All shot with natural light and with the subjects in their day to day attire they reveal the pride and strength inherent in tradional ways of life. The C-type prints are mounted with an acrylic face mount...

This portrait of Loha, a ‘Naga’ sadhu, was taken in Pashupatinath, one of Hinduism’s holiest sites. Lord Pashupatinath is a manifestation of Lord Shiva and the name translates to ‘protector of the animals’. Naga sadhus cover themselves in ash and typically wander naked from head to toe. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a remarkable level of detail. His subjects calm demeanor belies the reality of harsh arid winds, extreme temperatures and dust. John Kenny’s black and white photographic portraits are taken on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa and India. All shot with natural light and with the subjects in their day to day attire they reveal the pride and strength inherent in tradional ways of life. The C-type prints are mounted with an acrylic face mount...

This portrait of Loha, a ‘Naga’ sadhu, was taken in Pashupatinath, one of Hinduism’s holiest sites. Lord Pashupatinath is a manifestation of Lord Shiva and the name translates to ‘protector of the animals’. Naga sadhus cover themselves in ash and typically wander naked from head to toe. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a remarkable level of detail. His subjects calm demeanor belies the reality of harsh arid winds, extreme temperatures and dust. John Kenny’s black and white photographic portraits are taken on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa and India. All shot with natural light and with the subjects in their day to day attire they reveal the pride and strength inherent in tradional ways of life. The C-type prints are mounted with an acrylic face mount...

A beautiful Meghwal girl from the edges of the white desert, the Rann of Kutch, an arid area bordering Pakistan in the far West of India. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a remarkable level of detail. His subjects calm demeanor belies the reality of harsh arid winds, extreme temperatures and dust. John Kenny’s black and white photographic portraits are taken on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa and India. All shot with natural light and with the subjects in their day to day attire they reveal the pride and strength inherent in tradional ways of life. The C-type prints are mounted with an acrylic face mount...

A beautiful Meghwal girl from the edges of the white desert, the Rann of Kutch, an arid area bordering Pakistan in the far West of India. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a remarkable level of detail. His subjects calm demeanor belies the reality of harsh arid winds, extreme temperatures and dust. John Kenny’s black and white photographic portraits are taken on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa and India. All shot with natural light and with the subjects in their day to day attire they reveal the pride and strength inherent in tradional ways of life. The C-type prints are mounted with an acrylic face mount...

I met this Sadhu with such kind eyes in Kashi (another name for Varanasi) on one of the chaotic ghats. We tried and failed to take the portrait as crowds and sacred cows constantly streamed between us. Fortunately a group of young boat-hands gave up their relatively sheltered corner of the ghat, where they had been gambling over cards, to give us five minutes of calm space. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allows him to capture a remarkable level of detail. His subjects calm demeanor belies the reality of harsh arid winds, extreme temperatures and dust. John Kenny’s black and white photographic portraits are taken on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa and India. All shot with natural light and with the subjects in their day to day attire they reveal the pride and strength inherent in tradional ways of life. The C-type prints are mounted with an acrylic face mount...

I met this Sadhu with such kind eyes in Kashi (another name for Varanasi) on one of the chaotic ghats. We tried and failed to take the portrait as crowds and sacred cows constantly...

I met this Sadhu with such kind eyes in Kashi (another name for Varanasi) on one of the chaotic ghats. We tried and failed to take the portrait as crowds and sacred cows constantly...

A young woman of the Afar culture John Kenny’s work is all shot on location in some of the remotest corners of Africa. His images are all taken with natural light and in their day to...

A young man of the Nuer culture with distinctive scarification on his forehead. The photograph was taken in Ethiopia but like many of the Nuer he had been displaced from his home in...

A young Fulani girl in Ethiopia. The Fulani have a nomadic lifestyle that sees them moving across the Sahel from Mali in the West to Ethiopia in the East. John Kenny’s work is all...

Assile was photographed at a weekly market in Key Afar in the Omo valley. Key Afar is on a hillside near the mountains, and attracts hundreds of Hamer, Banna and Tsemai in an immensely colourful gathering of people. The market is divided between livestock with men trading goats and cattle and a separate section with women selling grain, nuts, containers, head stools...

Assile was photographed at a weekly market in Key Afar in the Omo valley. Key Afar is on a hillside near the mountains, and attracts hundreds of Hamer, Banna and Tsemai in an immense...