“A photograph stops time. It stops death. As long as these files exist, we exist.”
Kenneth Harris
The Archive • 1955 – Present
“A photograph stops time. It stops death. As long as these files exist, we exist.”
Kenneth Harris
About the Photographer
KENTHEPHOTOGRAPHER (KTP)
For more than 55 years, Kenneth “Kenny” Harris—professionally known as KENTHEPHOTOGRAPHER (KTP)—has used photography as a record of memory, culture, movement, and survival.
His archive stretches across Black music, sports, politics, community life, celebrity, and protest. From Carnegie Hall to Madison Square Garden, from neighborhood streets in South Jamaica, Queens to the Million Man March, Harris has photographed both the people who shaped history and the people who lived through it.
Born in 1955 at Queens General Hospital and raised in the 40 Projects of South Jamaica, his relationship with photography began early. At five years old, he helped his father, Jack Harris, in the darkroom, spreading chemical fixer. After his father’s death, his eldest brother, Ptah Hotep, placed a Canon rangefinder in his hands.
By 15, Harris was photographing artists including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone. At 16, he found his way onto the floor and bench area at Madison Square Garden to photograph professional basketball. By 17, he was documenting the 1973 funeral of Clifford Glover, placing his camera inside one of the defining civil-rights stories of New York City.
Photography is only one part of Kenny Harris’s story. He describes himself through several lives lived at once: photographer, athlete, community organizer, distance runner, and public servant.
As KTP, he documented cultural icons, political movements, sporting events, and everyday life. As a basketball player and youth organizer, he helped create community through tournaments at IS 8 and Montebello Park. As a distance runner, he became known for an unconventional training style—logging miles through New York while carrying 10-pound hand weights overhead. He also spent years working for the New York City Parks Department as a pool filter plant operator.
These identities were never separate from the photographer. They shaped the way he moved through the city, the people he could reach, and the moments he recognized as worth preserving.
In 1974, Harris stepped away from photography. The pause lasted roughly two decades.
Then, in 1995, his brother Ptah urged him to photograph the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. Harris returned to the camera with full force. He remained on the National Mall for approximately 20 hours, photographing continuously and exposing 20 rolls of film.
That day became the beginning of the second chapter of his photographic life.
Over the decades that followed, Harris expanded his archive alongside his wife and creative partner, Cynthia Horner, longtime publisher and CEO associated with Right On! and Word Up! magazines. Together, they co-founded Cinnamon Flix and Right On Media LLC and continued documenting music, entertainment, politics, and Black cultural life.
His archive includes figures and moments connected to James Brown, Aaliyah, Jay-Z, Venus and Serena Williams, Michael Jackson’s memorial, Barack and Michelle Obama, and generations of artists, athletes, activists, and public figures.
His photography has appeared across outlets including The Amsterdam News, CNN, Hip Hop Weekly, and the Showtime series The Supreme Team.
Today, the most important work may be preservation. Thousands of negatives, contact sheets, prints, and uncut rolls of film remain within the Kenneth Harris archive—many of them documenting moments that have never been publicly seen.
The goal is no longer simply to show photographs. It is to preserve a visual history.
Through ongoing archival work and collaboration with initiatives including the Queens Public Library Memory Project, Harris is working to ensure that the people, places, movements, and memories contained in his photographs remain accessible beyond his lifetime.
His archive is not only the story of one photographer. It is a record of a city, a culture, and more than half a century of American life.
From the streets of South Jamaica to the hardwood of Madison Square Garden. A fifteen-year-old equipped with a Canonet and Tri-X film.
Twenty hours on his feet. Twenty rolls of film. The rebirth of the lens on the National Mall.
The Cynthia Horner Era. Backstage access, music icons, and the celebrity portfolio preserved by the archive.
Witnessing history. The funeral of Clifford Glover, Harlem Day, and the ongoing fight for justice.
Directed by Gerdy Abelard. The definitive documentary exploring the 55-year archive of a teenage prodigy who captured history, told through the lens of his partner and archive director, Cynthia Horner.
A fine art photography book featuring never-before-seen negatives from 1955–1974. Includes contact sheets, handwritten annotations, and essays on the Harlem Day and Clifford Glover archives.
A dedicated gallery exhibition honoring the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Million Man March, featuring Kenny's 20-hour continuous shoot on the National Mall.
The Kenneth Harris Archive is available for editorial licensing, fine art print acquisition, and commercial usage. For commissions and assignment inquiries, please contact the studio directly. All images are protected by copyright. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.
Inquire via EmailOr contact Cynthia Horner, Archive Director