PENTTI SAMMALLAHTI: ARCHIPELAGO - SUOMALASIA MAISEMIA / FINSKA LANDSKAP / PAYSAGES FINLANDAISES / FINNISCHE LANDSCHAFTEN / FINNISH LANDSCAPES

Opus, 2004. First Edition, 80 pp., 6" X 7 1/2", Hardcover with photo pastedown

Fine

The lands Sammallahti depicts are austere, foreign, cold, and yet strangely inviting. Born and based in Finland, he has traveled across the northern reaches of Europe and Russia, across the peopled expanses of India and the empty deserts of Mongolia. His images are melodic and balanced, particularly this set from his homeland-stretches of quiet coastline, fallow fields of stone and snow, lone gulls amidst rocks and water, and endless dark waves of seawater. The work in this diminutive, self-published monograph ranges from the late 1960s until the early 1980s, a fruitful period during which his image-making matured. He sums up his thoughts on this work with a few short words. "I understood that you get a photograph, you don't take it."