Biographical Note

Ken Scicluna


Ken Scicluna was born in Malta in 1981. He has photographed in most parts of Europe, apart for places off the beaten track most notably in Russia where he lived for several years. In Russia he photographed several regions in the East and documented the Trans-Siberian railway. Whilst in St. Petersburg he also made a detailed reportage of ballet dancers spanning several months. Ken is particularly interested in cultures around the world and has photographed several festivals including Up Helly Aa in the Shetlands, San Antonio in San Bartolome de Pinares, Semana Santa, Feria de Abril and El Rocio in Andalusia, Maslenitsa in Russia, Carnival and Vogalonga in Venice, the Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh and Tisha B’Av in Jerusalem. World religions are a special interest, amongst which he photographed Russian and Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims. The epitome of this documentation is the ongoing photographic project revolving around the Holy Week in particular traditions in several villages of Sicily and the Mediterranean. He has also documented four routes of the Camino di Santiago, namely the Via Tolosana, The Aragones, the Frances and the Portuges.

His images have been published in books, magazines and calendars including those by National Geographic, Geo, Lonely Planet, BBC, Conde Nast, Sunday Times, Wanderlust, Baedeker, Insight Guides, Rough Guides, Merian, Dumont, Arte, Ackermann, Weingarten, Bruckmann and Browntrout, apart for a catalogue by Dolce and Gabbana. In the short time Ken is not travelling he has collaborated on several books as principal photographer including Judge Robert Ganado, A Sweet Taste of Malta and The Monuments of the Maltese Islands. He is frequently commissioned to shoots artists in live performances and also started shooting traditional Mediterranean food. Ken’s work has also been exhibited in Malta at The National Museum of Fine Arts, The Russian Cultural Institute, The Italian Cultural Institute and Valletta Photography Festival and in Russia at the Corinthia Nevsky. Ken has recently been commissioned to photograph famous personalities amongst these Johanna Wokalek and actors for the ZDF TV series Liberame, opera singers Jose’ Cura and Jennifer Larmore, Hollywood composer John Powell and pop singer of Marillion, Fish.

Ken is very much interested in film and cinematography (at one time he toyed with the idea of becoming a film director - he produced, wrote and directed three short films, was production designer for the first opera film ever produced and shot in Malta and is in the pre-production of a new one). Amongst his great influences in his photographic style he considers the great cinematographers alongside the traditional painters and the great photographers in particular those shooting for NG between the 60s-80s on kodakchrome in its heyday. He also believes that photography in the 20th and 21st century has taken over traditional painting, and the best of photographers are actually painting with light as their ancestors did with paints. Ken has been a broadcaster on radio, had once the idea to become a painter which he later bartered for photography, has appeared on TV, still works as an Opera singer in theatre and is fluent in six languages. Ken’s interests include movies, music, cultures, philosophy, books, psychology, history and the arts in general.