ARTISTIC PHILOSOPHY

I believe a photograph, like a good painting or a well-composed piece of music, has the power to transform a person from a passive viewer to an active participant in the art.  Art is first created for the spirit of the creator, and then if the decision is made, it is put in front of the world to be viewed.  This is where the magic of art happens.  If the artwork strikes the right chord in viewers, they will become entranced with it and treasure the feelings they receive through the experience.  If those feelings compel people to make a difference in the world, whether that difference is protecting wilderness from the encroachment of man or simply smiling to a stranger they pass on the street, to me then, the photograph is a success. 




Excerpted from a letter written by Paul Gruchow to Nathanael Kuenzli

"I have had the opportunity to linger over your beautiful photographs.  I'm not a photographer, of course, but these photographs speak to me deeply.  I'm struck by how much these scenes remind me of the countryside I now live in.  Maybe this says that the photographs themselves have a universal quality.  In any case, you have given me great pleasure."

Paul Gruchow, May 1999




BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1981, Nathanael Kuenzli started carrying a camera with him at the age of four.  Although the camera did not have any film in it, he would walk around his backyard composing photographs of the plants and trees.  "I can still remember some of the subjects that I was composing images of with the camera at that age, they were the subtle details in the landscape.  It is still those subtle, quiet details that capture my imagination and are the most compelling to me."

At the age of ten Kuenzli was taken out of standard schooling to focus his studies primarily on photography. His new education centered on understanding the landscape, artistic composition and music.  Traveling also became an important part of his life.  "As soon as I had my drivers license I was driving around the country photographing.  Traveling alone allowed me to immerse myself in the landscape, often spending a whole day by a waterfall or an outcrop of rock."

It was this slow, methodical way of working that made photographing with a large format view camera come naturally.  "I find it very gratifying to spend the time setting up the view camera.  The rhythm and weight of working with the different pieces of the camera, and the separation that the dark cloth gives helps to purify my vision of the subject I'm working with."

Kuenzli is drawn to the quiet corners of the natural world and enjoys traveling and living simply out of the back of his truck.  "Working seasonal jobs allows me the time to travel. But also, just as important, it allows long periods of time when I can work in the studio printing.  I find the creative work of printing to be as enjoyable as the time in the wildness making the photographs."

When not traveling, Kuenzli makes his home on the North Shore of Lake Superior among the lakes and rivers of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and the rocky shoreline of Lake Superior.