On Ken Reynolds

I haven’t had reason to recall Ken Reynolds of late. That’s a shame. Ken is a great friend and a great photographer. He has a way of winning the confidence and admiration of theater directors almost instantly. It’s partly his photos – anyone can see they’re brilliant – and it’s partly his personality. Ken is among the gentlest, most sensitive people, and most inquiring minds, of all I have encountered in a long life in and out of theater. What follows is a piece I wrote about Ken a very long time ago. You can add newer regalia, anecdotes, names and places to my short tale, but the essence will always be the same. The publisher of this piece – an intro to a gallery of Ken’s photos – was a short-lived journal on Russian theater – I think it only lasted for three issues. But it did give me the opportunity to say some things of importance, for which I’m grateful. 

“The Theatrical Photography of Ken Reynolds”
In Teatr: Russian Theatre Past and Present, Vol. 1 (2000): 105-106.
By John Freedman

Ken Reynolds — hardly less than Kama Ginkas, Lev Dodin, Eimuntas Nekrosius, Robert Sturua, Yury Lyubimov, Valery Fokin, Pyotr Fomenko, Rimas Tuminas, Mikhail Tumanishvili and about fifty other directors this Scottish-based photographer has come into contact with in the last decade — has been instrumental in forming our perceptions of the shape of East-European theater on the cusp of the second millennium. 

Mark my word, our heirs will study the theater we have seen live by the images Ken has created. 

Both Kama Ginkas and Lev Dodin have proudly told me — independently of one another, of course — that Ken wants to publish a book of his photos of their productions. It was obvious to me that each of these great directors was no less eager than Ken to see that happen. 

The reason for that is simple. Ken does not merely photograph actors, sets, action, productions or even performances. He captures essences. He apprehends the motivations behind what we see. He reveals the architecture of movement. Relying on layers of light and shade, he fixes in freeze frames those images that express the reasons why writers write their plays, why directors have endeavored to stage them and why actors perform them. 

To call Ken Reynolds a photographer is to call the sky big. Ken is an artist. He began in 1979 by photographing the color-washed walls of Prague and later moved on to creating pictures of great eloquence by photographing rusting metal. 

Born in Wales in 1938, Ken stumbled upon what I suspect is his true niche in 1992 — that was when he saw a performance of Lev Dodin’s production of *Gaudeamus* in Glasgow. By Ken’s own admission, as he watched the performance he began “seeing image after image as a black-and-white picture.” When Mikhail Tumanishvili brought his production of *Midsummer Night’s Dream* to Edinburgh in 1993, Ken brought along his camera and a love affair was consummated. 

Since 1993, Ken has gone to extraordinary lengths — traveling several times a year to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilnius, Helsinki, Tbilisi and other cities — to photograph theater that appeals to his artistic temperament. This is a crucial point. Ken is not a journalist. He does not record what is “there”; he seeks out “material” that excites him. I have seen him leave performances without taking a single picture because the necessary connection was missing. 

There is no doubt about the directors Ken has found nearest to his heart. They are Dodin, Ginkas, Sturua and Nekrosius. Sturua’s production of *Richard III* became one of the “first great theatrical milestones” of Ken’s life when he saw it in the late 1970s. Nekrosius he calls “profoundly important” for the way the director challenges him “to look at the most ordinary things again, and see new meanings, new significances, new possibilities.” With Ginkas, Ken says he shares “a magical correspondence of minds that transcends language.” 

I believe the true measure of Ken’s art becomes clear when we compare his photos of a given production with the videotape that invariably now also exists. The result? The rapaciously candid video is likely to provide a cramped, distorted and pale approximation of what the spectator saw. Ken’s photos — selective, subjective and enigmatic — provide startling insights into what the director was really after. 

In this, Ken’s photography is, perhaps, closest in nature to a sensitive, illuminating essay. As such, it is my honor to encourage you to read on, enjoy, learn and be moved.