Pentti Sammallahti
Pentti Sammallahti is a benchmark figure in contemporary Finnish photography. His work has been exhibited widely both in Finland and abroad and is represented in numerous collections throughout the world. As a teacher he has had an enormous influence on a whole generation of documentary photographers in Finland. He has travelled widely as a photographer, producing major bodies of work from Hungary, Russia, Turkey, Nepal, Japan, Ireland and the UK as well as from his home country.
He is also known as a passionate seeker of the perfect (mechanical) printing method. His own innovative printing techniques and the reintroduction of the portfolio form have re-awakened broader interest in published photographic art in Finland. Influenced by the idea of ‘artist books’ - individual works in which the artist is responsible for the whole: photography, the making of prints, layout, design and typography, reproduction and often the actual printing process either with the offset or the gravure method, Sammallahti launched the ‘Opus Series’, which is now an integral feature of Finnish book art, consisting of some thirty publications by ten or so photographers.
Honnos My Fiddler
from: Photography
Gypsy communities in Transylvania, early 1980s, documented by the Finnish photographer who has also pioneered the use of litho print processes in his work.