Slow changes in art of nature photography
Annual prize given for best Finnish wildlife pictures for past 25 years
By Anu Uimonen
Finland's best nature photographs have been placed in ranking order already 25 times. There will be a festive sense in the air, as the winner of the Nature Photograph of the Year is made public next Monday at the nature photography event in Helsinki's Finlandia Hall, at a ceremony which has established a tradition for itself as an annual gathering of the clan.
For as long as the year's best nature pictures have been awarded prizes, selections of them have been published in book form. The Finlandia Nature Photographs of the Year 2005 book is the 25th such work in succession.
Nature photography is a hobby that is dear to Finns. The Finnish Association of Nature Photographers has more than 1,000 members, and countless other hobbyists move around in the wild with a camera.
But do people observe nature differently now from the way they did 25 years ago?
The nature photograph of the year was chosen for the first time at a winter get-together of wildlife photographers in 1980. The following year a formal competition was held.
The first book of the best nature photographs also appeared in 1981. It was published by the Weilin+Göös publishing house, as have been all of the other books in the series after it.
Veikko Rinne, who edited the first 15 books, remembers well how it all began. "I was a non-fiction editor at Weilin+Göös in the late 1970s, which was a time of a great surge in massive glossy book projects. For instance, the Tapiola series of wilderness books, of which I was an editor, sold more than 60,000 copies."
It was at that time that Rinne himself became interested in nature photography, and he was active in the association of nature photographers, which had been established in 1977. The idea came about for a book of the best nature photographs of the year.
"My personal stock was running pretty high, thanks to the Tapiola books, and everything that I put forward was approved. The nature photograph book of the year would probably not have come off if I had not been working at W+G."
After Veikko Rinne, the editorship of the book was taken over by long-term nature photography activist Martti Torkkomäki, through whose hands seven books passed in 1996 - 2002. He also worked on the international level, and now he serves as President of the International Federation of Wildlife Photography.
These two gentlemen have a wide-angle lens view of Finnish nature photography, so what has happened in the past 25 years?
To summarise their discussions on the 25 years of books before them: not very much, actually.
Birds have always been a favourite subject of nature photographers - perhaps because nature photographers often come from the ranks of bird watchers.
"Earlier, people would come into the hobby through an interest in nature. Now, they are often also inspired by new technology", Martti Torkkomäki says.
Once the complaints focused on the limitations of technology, when pictures did not come out right.
Now nearly anything is possible, including taking pictures with limited available light, and the freezing of even rapid movement with fast shutter-speeds.
"However, the technological improvements cannot always be seen in the pictures", Torkkomäki laments.
"But with the present equipment, it is possible to get satisfactory pictures even with limited skills", Rinne counters. "The next threshold could then be even higher."
The Nature Photograph of the Year competition used to be open only to members of the Finnish Association of Nature Photographers. Now anyone can join in, which has led to a flood of pictures. This year's competition involved 618 photographers entering 4,335 pictures.
In some years there was not enough space in Finlandia Hall for all those wishing to attend.
"That indicates something of the Finns' relationship with nature", Torkkomäki says. "In the middle of the winter people want to get back to the summer, and their experiences of nature."
Torkkomäki felt that it was the communication of the experience of nature that is the most important factor in nature photography.
Linked with the quest for experiences is the strict adherence to the requirement of originality. A nature photograph must not lie. However, there is a grey area between the genuine and the artificial.
"There is no such thing as a 'genuine' picture", Veikko Rinne says. "Simply cropping the photo means that it does not show the entire situation."
Torkkomäki nevertheless believes in the possibility of communicating a genuine experience. He draws a line at combining several pictures, but does not feel that luring an animal to come within camera range is cheating.
"In photographs involving large predators, the use of carcasses as lures is a starting point. Everyone knows that you can't get a picture of a bear without one. The arrangement is not a problem if the subject - that is, the animal - is able to act freely", he stipulates.
A controversy broke out among wildlife photographers, when the respected veteran Hannu Hautala published digitally-manipulated photographs a few years ago.
Now the Finnish Association of Nature Photographers has a rule, according to which altered photographs are not admissible in the competition, and that if someone publishes such photos somewhere else, the caption must reveal that the picture has been digitally modified.
Swans, woodpeckers, and grouse are perennial favourites of Finnish wildlife photographers. All are majestic birds, with plenty of symbolic meaning. The whooper swan is Finland's national bird, while the black woodpecker is familiar from the art of Akseli Gallen-Kallela, and the wood grouse from the work of painter Ferdinand von Wright.
"They are also birds that can be photographed in certain situations: the mating rituals of the grouse, and the migration of swans", Torkkomäki points out. "Here again, the experience is important."
Photography of large predators is a major challenge for wildlife photographers, requiring luck, tenacity, skill, and organisation. There have been plenty of pictures of bears over the years. The first to win the prize with a photograph of a bear was Seppo Saari in 1983. Pictures of wolves and lynx are quite rare, on the other hand.
The impact of humans on nature has always been a topic for photographers, but not as often as the editors of the book would have liked.
Already in the introduction of the first book, published in 1981, Teuvo Suominen called for "stimulating pictures of nature which communicate information".
"Untouched" wilderness and positive experiences of nature have nevertheless always been more popular than conservationist statements, although in 2002 the prize went to a shocking image of a flattened "roadkill" adder.
There has also been a shortage of situational pictures. Many of the photographs have the feel of a still life.
Ageing poses no danger to the practice of nature photography: in this year's competition, there were 43 competitors in the new Young Photographers series, and the youngest are just ten years old. The field is 90% male-dominated.
"An important goal of the competition is to teach people to see the beauty around them. It is not necessary to seek something that is extremely rare", Torkkomäki says.
These two veterans, who have looked at thousands upon thousands of pictures, hesitate to elevate any of their photographer colleagues above others, but a few masters are recognised: Hannu Hautala, Antti Leinonen, Jorma Luhta, Juha Taskinen, and Heikki Villamo.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 12.2.2005
ANU UIMONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
anu.uimonen@hs.fi
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| 15.2.2005 - THIS WEEK |
 Slow changes in art of nature photography |
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