Ray Kinnane
Born Melbourne 1943.
Practice
Has practised as a photographer in Australia since 1978 for industrial clients, advertising agencies and graphic design studios.
Published photography
Has produced photography for a wide range of commercial applications, including annual reports, corporate brochures and technical manuals. Recently produced photography in Japan and Australia for the OPAL Project, a distance education CD-ROM and computer based Japanese language teaching program constructed specifically for Australian teachers of Japanese language. Produced photography for a number of published books.
Teaching
Taught photography 1987-1998 to graphic design students at Monash University Dept. of Design, Swinburne University School of Design and to photography students at Photography Studies College, Melbourne.
Education
Obtained BA Degree Melbourne University 1997, majoring in philosophy and English. Currently undertaking Master of Arts by Research at Deakin University, Geelong.
These photographs were taken when I was travelling in Japan between August 1998 and June 1999. Japan is an archipelago of over a thousand islands. My travels were confined to assorted cities and tourist destinations on the four main islands, Hokkaido in the North, the main island of Honshu, Kyushu in the South and Shikoku that nestles into the South-Western part of the main island.
This exhibition reflects my fascination with two very Japanese things; the democratisation of photography by the Japanese camera manufacturing industry, and the discovery that the huge Japanese tourist industry is largely domestic. On weekends and public holidays, large numbers of Japanese people travel to all parts of the archipelago sightseeing, and during the week any place of significant cultural relevance will be heavily attended by busloads of retired senior citizens, or schoolchildren and their teachers seeking history and sociology lessons.
These two things seem to go together in Japan more than in any other culture. Japanese domestic tourists take vast numbers of snapshot pictures and video images of their travels, using the latest in very sophisticated, very portable automatic cameras. These snapshots on exhibition are an attempt to capture the detail surrounding some of Japan's tourist destinations from my Western perspective. All of the still photographs were taken on a Pentax Espio 928 portable automatic pocket camera, exactly the camera type favoured by Japanese tourists, using Fuji 100ASA colour negative film, which was processed and printed at a one hour Fuji Palette Plaza (Image Plaza) instant photo lab in Osaka, Japan.
These images can reflect only a tiny part of Japan, which as any person who has lived there or travelled there will know, offers a huge visual feast. I hope these pictures will rekindle fond memories and the desire to revisit for those people, and also whet the appetite of travellers who have not yet been to Japan, and who are looking to visit a truly amazing place.
Ray Kinnane
1998 (October).
Selection of three sets of three images, "Travel Diaries of Japan", at Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku (St. Andrew's University), Osaka, Japan in Momoyama Photography Association open exhibition. (First images for this exhibition)
1992 (November)
Exhibition of six photographs as joint exhibition with drawings of Julia Ward and others to accompany the launch of 'I Refuse to Learn My Number', a published collection of selected artworks and writings of a group of Fairlea women prisoners studying through the Hawthorn Community Education Centre. The six images were portraits taken of the women at Fairlea, Fairfield, Melbourne, 1992. Exhibition at Linden Gallery, St. Kilda.
This is Ray's first solo exhibition.