From the mundane to the dramatic, Western Australian photographer, Leah Kennedy captures landscapes that evoke either a feeling of deep connection or wonder about our world. Kennedy first picked up a DSLR in 2012, and a year later she attended a workshop with leading Australian landscape photographers, Christian Fletcher and Nick Rains. After that, everything changed. “It was the turning point for me,” she says. “It renewed my passion for creativity and visual imagery. I knew that this was going to be something I would pursue – more than a hobby, but an uncontrollable drive!”
Since that turning point, Kennedy has been driven by her passion for travel and new experiences with her work becoming a way of conveying her experience of a place. “For my photography I’ve felt the need to have that direct connection with what I’m shooting,” she says. This need has paved the way for projects she has pursued, including a series of aerial photographs, titled Change, which she is currently working on. “I was inspired by a trip to Namibia, the landscape, and the effects of humans on it,” she says. “The contrast of barren desert and wide open expanses dotted with new developments and signs of life was graphically stimulating, and an interesting commentary on the act of human progress.”
In addition to her landscape photography, Kennedy also creates surreal images where her creativity know no bounds. “My creative pieces adopt a ‘no-holds-barred’ approach, in both technical and imaginative process,” she says. For Kennedy, it has become something where she can create her own unique and identifiable work. “While I love the art of taking photographs in camera, it becomes more than this for me. The editing process is a large part of my photography. It is where I can become my most creative and inject some of myself into the pixels.” Kennedy is currently working on a personal photographic series, “There Is A Light”, for an exhibition in November.
During her career to date, Kennedy has received an impressive array of accolades from being named 2015 AIPP WA Creative Professional Photographer of the Year to taking the title of AIPP WA Illustrative Professional Photographer of the Year in both 2016 and 2017. In 2017, she was named AIPP Creative Photographer of the Year, was a finalist for AIPP WA Landscape Professional Photographer of the Year and placed third in the Landscape category of Australasia’s Top Emerging Photographers.
www.leahkennedyphotography.com.au
