Nelli Palomäki is a Finnish photographer living and working in Helsinki. Her works have been exhibited internationally in solo and group shows, featured in publications including TIME and New York Magazine, and collected in her 2013 book, "Breathing the Same Air." She has won several awards and in 2010 was awarded the Hasselblad Foundation's Victor Fellowship Grant for her studies in London.
As you can see from the examples above, Palomäki is a portrait photographer, particularly well known for making portraits against plain back backgrounds. According to her website, her portraits of children "deal with growth, memory and our problematic way of seeing ourselves." She is also interested in the issue of mortality, writing, "We fight against our mortality, denying it, yet photographs are there to prove our inescapable destiny. The idea of getting older is heart-rending."
As you can see from the examples above, Palomäki is a portrait photographer, particularly well known for making portraits against plain back backgrounds. According to her website, her portraits of children "deal with growth, memory and our problematic way of seeing ourselves." She is also interested in the issue of mortality, writing, "We fight against our mortality, denying it, yet photographs are there to prove our inescapable destiny. The idea of getting older is heart-rending."
I find the portraits against the black backgrounds particularly compelling, as it appears that the figures are emerging from the background, and could disappear back into it at any moment. The lighting is exquisite, revealing enough of the face to see and identify, but leaving enough hidden to remain mysterious. The neutral expressions on these faces helps in maintaining that aura of mystery, as we can't know what the sitters are thinking.
In "Looking at Nelli Palomäki's Portraits," the essayist writes that, because all we have is the image of a person emerging from the black, unless we know the person, we have no information about them. "Instead, we'll start rummaging through our brains, applying all the various filters and preferences and prejudices . . . We interpret and like or dislike and judge a little, in all kinds of ways, approaching the likeness . . . in many ways as if we were in fact standing in front of (it)." This, he suggests, is what makes portraits so interesting to us even when we don't know the subject. I find this to be exceptionally true of these portraits.
This is a perfect example of how "basic" portraits can still be beautiful. These show so much emotion in the subjects.
ReplyDeleteI'm always fascinated by black and white portraits. They are simple elegant. The exert you added at the end of your blog posts really should speak to the reader. Its is very true the subjects coming out of the blackness of the background make them on ominous we really do know nothing about them. Yet their postures and gestures tell us something about them and we let our minds wander through the unknown. We then fabric almost something we want to pretend we know about the individuals. Our minds are always filling in the blanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm always fascinated by black and white portraits. They are simple elegant. The exert you added at the end of your blog posts really should speak to the reader. Its is very true the subjects coming out of the blackness of the background make them on ominous we really do know nothing about them. Yet their postures and gestures tell us something about them and we let our minds wander through the unknown. We then fabric almost something we want to pretend we know about the individuals. Our minds are always filling in the blanks.
ReplyDeleteThese images have a great narrative because they are lacking so much context. One of my favorite paintings, The Girl with a Pearl Earring, spawned a book that put to paper what the viewer does when left with so little information. We make up our own stories, interpreting the life from what little we have in the image. These are portraits that represent both the subject and our own imagination.
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