Ismo Hölttö (1940) is a Finnish documentary photographer known for his monochrome portraits of Romani people and others living in the cities and countryside of Finland in the 1960s, a time of rapid societal change.
In 1955, Ismo Hölttö started as an apprentice goldsmith with the Helsinki firm of G. Buchert. He studied at the School of Applied Arts, whose vocational evening courses were held in the Ateneum museum building. From then until 1970 he worked at the firm of Westerback; he left after winning the State Photography Prize and set up an advertising company, Rykämä. The photography for which he is known was almost complete by this point: thereafter, his professional photography left little time for him to pursue his own photographic interests.[1]:i
Hölttö became interested in photography via two colleagues in the jewelry shop where he worked. He joined the Helsinki Camera Club and became friends with Mikko Savolainen [Wikidata], who had joined at about the same time and was able to give him technical advice. After initial attempts at landscape, Hölttö found his métier: portraiture. He pursued this vigorously, seldom photographing anything else.
In summer 1966 Hölttö and Savolainen visited Northern Karelia. They had had light-hearted intentions but found the trip unexpectedly worthwhile, and pursued the work during the coming years. In 1970 Savolainen arranged their work into the photobook Suomea tämäkin, published in time for Christmas. The two continued their partnership, bringing out the books Raportti Suomen mustalaisista (1972) and Vanhuksia (1981), on the Romani people and the elderly respectively. Hölttö's portraiture was complemented by Savolainen's concentration on communities.
Soon after becoming seriously interested in photography, Hölttö bought a Rolleiflex medium format twin lens reflex camera, whose design encouraged or even enforced a certain deliberation. From 1968, he added a 35 mm camera; but for the majority of his better-known portraits, his technique was somewhat similar to that of a studio photographer.
Such an extensive series of portraits was unprecedented for Finland, and Hölttö's work has sometimes been compared with August Sander's Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts. But whereas Sander had followed a self-imposed assignment of photographing people having a list of occupations, Hölttö photographed as he wished.
Hölttö's photography in Northern Karelia concentrated on smallholders and others on the lower rungs of society, but his coverage in Helsinki was broader, showing middle-class people and even hippies.
Together with Savolainen and Matti Saanio, Hölttö led social documentary, then the dominant trend of Finnish photography, in the 1970s. Using a Rolleiflex, he photographed both Helsinki and the Finnish countryside: North Karelia, Savonia and Oulu. He shot the main body of his work during the ten years between 1962 and 1971 while working as a goldsmith. When he started documenting the Finnish people, he was only 22; when he ended this series he had turned 31.
The reproductions of Hölttö's negatives have changed considerably over time. In the 1960s he favoured high contrast, close cropping, and glossy paper. The early books used duotone offset printing, with little or no space separating the images. His large 1989 book Ihminen pääosassa (Englished in 1991 as People in the Lead Role) used tritone printing for reduced and subtler contrast, with more relaxed cropping.
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Ismo Hölttö or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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Self-portrait, Helsinki,Finland. 1965
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1960, Man selling nalloons
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1960, Portrait
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1960, Two Boys and The Suomenlinna Ferry
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1964, Oh, Boy
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1965, Helsinki, Finland
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1965, ÖH HÖM
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1965, Poika ja veli. Helsinki
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1966, Helsinki, Finland
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1966, Kadunlakaisijat. Katajanokka, Helsinki
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1966, Laestadian summer service, Oulu, Finland
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1966, Nuoripari" (Ungt par). Salomonsgatan, Helsingfors
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1966, Poika ja liina (Pojken med duk). Savolax
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1966, Pudasjärvi, Finland
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1967 Woman and a teenage girl in Hakaniemi
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1967, Helsinki,
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1967, Batman, Myllypuro, Helsinki
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1967, Boy wearing joke mask, May Day, Myllypuro, Helsinki
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1967, Finnish tango
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1967, Girl with pigtails, Kontula, Helsinki
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1967, Iloinen perhe (A happy family), Lieksa
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1967, Pojken vid väggrenen, Kesälax
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1967, Railway Station, Helsinki
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1967, Skibotn, Norway
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Paris, April 1968
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1968 Senate Square, Helsinki
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1968, Elderly couple with a cat, Kiihtelysvaara
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1968, Perunatorilla
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1968, Young couple
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1968, Young people’s student house
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1969, Eno, Finland
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2008, Boy on the roadside
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Fiskard ad, Vogue, n.d.
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