Near the Wind: Pentti Sammallahti and Kristoffer Albrecht

About

Last year, Print Sales Gallery commissioned Finnish photographers Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki) and Kristoffer Albrecht (b.1961, Helsinki) to choose a location in the British Isles and produce a series of photographs in response to a particular landscape and its inhabitants. Taken in November 2016, Near the Wind is a collaborative body of work that portrays the remote Scottish islands of Orkney and Shetland in the early throes of winter.

Nature, silence, sea and isolation are subject matters that have long preoccupied Pentti Sammallahti. His images reflect the diversity and breadth of his travels and convey the relationship between humans, animals, and the land with warmth and simplicity. His distinctive works have earned him major retrospectives and accolades, including named as one of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s favourite 100 photographers.

Kristoffer Albrecht shares Sammallahti’s impressive travel history and fascination with solitude, quiet landscapes and still lives. His compositions harness a range of subject matter (both within his native Finland and beyond) and similarly reflect a consistent exploration of texture in black and white. Albrecht tends towards the photobook format – having published some thirty to date – where the relationship between the frames is as important as their individuality.

With both artists working exclusively in analogue, these meticulously hand-printed and toned silver gelatins are indicative of the photographers’ unique artistic, narrative sensibilities and masterful printing techniques.