"I already had a very busy work schedule and was stressed out and tired. But I always strived to do my best work, whatever the conditions were, because my photography has always meant a lot to me. I realized that what was more important to me was not to get more clients or a bigger and better studio, but to create better pictures that were closer to the heart of my photography."

When he finally made the decision to leave, he left himself a bit of a cushion, knowing that he was sacrificing a large chunk of money to make the switch. "I left with enough assignments to last a year," recalls Kennedy, "and it took about a year until more came my way.

"Most of the work, at that time," he says, "was location work and involved traveling. I was still doing editorial work and shooting album covers, but not really doing anything to keep that part of the business flourishing. I had no agent and I didn't seek out new work. Whatever assignment came my way, I strived to do the best work I could in that particular situation." He clearly didn't want to continue the hectic pace he had set for himself in New York out in New Mexico. Other matters awaited him there, some of which were set in motion in New York.

"In those first few years in New Mexico, I started doing my own work. I had no gallery representing my work. Assignments were slow, but I would take the location work when it came my way." And although there were some hard times financially, Kennedy added on a positive note that his living expenses were certainly much lower in Cerrillos than in Manhattan. Cerrillos is a small, dusty western town about halfway between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. When you first step into Cerrillos, it feels like you're back in the history of the Old West, with its one main street, old adobe saloon and general store. Kennedy has since moved closer to Santa Fe, but while in Cerrillos he became very much a part of that community, even volunteering for the local fire department. After six years he became the deputy chief.

"I had more time, and I started doing my own work. The first thing I got into was the landscape. It took me one or two years to understand what I wanted to do photographically in the landscape." Kennedy's landscapes are powerful, and his cloud images reminiscent of Stieglitz with a western and therefore grander flair.

By 1987, Santa Fe Light Works, a new photography gallery, had opened in Santa Fe. Kennedy brought in a portfolio of work, which led to an exhibition. "Something happened after that first show in Santa Fe," says Kennedy. "I started getting a lot of publicity. The New Mexican -Santa Fe's newspaper -had my face on the front page, which embarrassed me. The story line read something like 'Big Celebrity Photographer from New York Moves to Small New Mexican Town, Gives Up Big Career to Live in 100 Year-Old Adobe.' And next, the Albuquerque Journal published an article on my work, and suddenly my name was all over town." The Andrew Smith Gallery in Santa Fe has been representing Kennedy ever since.

GEAR AND TECHNIQUE

Kennedy's work is done with medium format and large format cameras. His most recent work is with a large format camera and Polaroid 4xS positive/negative film. He uses a handheld 4x5 camera that he says looks like an early Cambo and has mounted a wide-angle, 6Smm lens that yields falloff on the edges. It is very much like a point-and-shoot box camera, he says, or like photographing with a pinhole camera.

Above small image: Ghost Dancer, Lakota Nation, January 1999, palladium print