Huangshan Mountains, Study 53, Anhui, China, 2017

Michael Kenna, one of the world’s leading landscape photographers, is known for his emphatically analogue approach to his work and his elegiac tone. All photographs by Michael Kenna. Philosopher’s Tree is at the Blue Lotus gallery, Hong Kong, until 1 July

Huangshan Mountains, Study 31, Anhui, China, 2009

Typically shot on a Hasselblad medium-format camera, Kenna’s images, though always devoid of people, can be seen as a species of portraiture

Poplar Trees and Cumulus Clouds, Kirwee, Canterbury, New Zealand, 2013

‘For me, approaching subject matter to photograph is a bit like meeting a person and beginning a conversation,’ Kenna told Aperture Academy in 2013

Tree in Snowdrift, Yangcao Hill, Wuchang, Heilongjiang, China, 2011

Kenna’s work is characterised by patience and constancy, with trees one of his most enduring motifs. Their patterns and abstraction structures appeal strongly to him

Pine Trees, Study 5, Unyeo Beach, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea, 2018

He has quoted the US photographer Garry Winogrand in describing his process: photographing things simply to see what they look like photographed

Kokdua Tree and Exposed Roots, Mekong River, Luang Prabang, Laos, 2015

Kenna has spoken of his work being something of an oasis in a world that is moving too quickly, providing moments of calm or solitude for the viewer

Mountain Walk, Pyeongchang, South Korea, 2012

In his Aperture Academy interview, Kenna described his childhood in a poor, working-class neighbourhood in Widnes, Cheshire: ‘I was the youngest in our family of Mam, Dad, Grandma, a sister and four brothers. There wasn’t that much room in our home – all five boys slept in the same small room’

Forest Mist, Study 2, Rigopiano, Abruzzo, Italy, 2016

“As a boy I spent a lot of time wondering around the town,” continued Kenna. ‘The park across the road, the local pond, the railway station, the bridge across the River Mersey, factories, the church, the rugby league ground and so on, often alone’

Wanaka Lake Tree, Study 1, Otago, New Zealand, 2013

Kenna works exclusively in black and white, a style he equates with the minimalism of haiku poetry

Graceful Oak, Broughton, Oxfordshire, England, 2005

’I don’t do any elaborate preparation before I go to a location,’ he has said. ‘I walk, explore and photograph. I never know whether I will be there minutes, hours or days’

Kussharo Lake Tree, Study 6, Kotan, Hokkaido, Japan, 2007

‘Having less information,’ he told journalist and photographer Graeme Green earlier this year, ‘allows your imagination to work more to create more options’

Stone Pine Tunnel, Pineto, Abruzzo, Italy, 2016

Many of Kenna’s shots involve long exposures of 10 hours or more, underscoring his relationship to time and waiting. ‘It’s a luxury not to have to do something,’ he told Green. ‘Just to stand, to watch, to experience and not to always have a full agenda and a busy schedule. It allows you to wander off in your mind’