I am over 70 years of age and still photographing.
Why?
Because it is still possible to take photographs.
I was born 1950 in the city of Kuopio and spent my childhood in the city of Pieksämäki in Savonia, Eastern Finland. In Pieksämäki we lived in a little village Kukkaromäki where almost all men were workers in the railway machine workshop nearby. My father was carpenter and enthusiastic photographer. As young I was allowed to lend his Piccolette 5,7 x 8,5 cm film bellows camera. The very first photo of my own is shot in Kuopio 1962.
In 1968 I went to study social sciences to the University of Tampere. Years 1976-77 I was in military service.
After graduation and some coincidental jobs I was 1979 elected as one teacher of social studies in Työväen Akatemia (Workers Academy) which is an adult education college like its model Ruskin College in Oxford. After that in 1984 I continued to the head of Kiljava Institute (former Trade Union Institute of Kiljava) and later 1990 I started with Voionmaa Institute. Both are also adult education colleges like Workers Academy.
The institutes mentioned above were also scenes of many photographic workshops, which were usually organized by The Finnish Camera club Organization (SKsL). Anders Petersen was the leader in Työväen Akatemia 1984. Accordingly Peter Goldfield led the workshop in Kiljava institute 1985 and Arno Rafael Minkkinen 1986. In Voionmaa institute there was Anders Petersen workshop in 1991 and Lucien Clergue workshop in 1992.
In Voionmaa Institute I served 12 years as the principal and one of the teachers. My main subjects were cultural sociology and photography. From those days have come many of the main thoughts, which I represented in my doctoral thesis Transparent Media in 2011. After 23 years practicing in adult education colleges I was in 2002 elected as counsellor of education in The Finnish National Board of Education (later Finnish National Agency for Education). There I was responsible for the subject matter of liberal adult education and also matters of vocational adult education.
Except the main work I have had also another passion in those years. It was darkroom work. I suppose that I have spent in aggregate several months (hundreds of days anyway) in darkroom making black and white prints. As a result I managed to prepare several own exhibitions in order to show my photographic work to public. The first one Instancies and eternities was in the program of The Photographic Museum of Finland in 1983, The second one In Memoriam took place at the Gallery Nykyaika (Modern times), Tampere in 1993 like the third one Nude Workshop in 2002.
In 2014 I retired. Having a lot more time compared to working years I have started to scan my over 50 years lifework as photographer to digital format. Until these days it has been possible to see my pictures only in the form of prints. I have naturally an archive of hundreds of pictures, mainly silver-bromide barium prints. In my negative archive there are 1465 b&w and 150 color negatives (135+120). This means something about 50 000 – 55 000 separate frames. In addition there are innumerable amount of color slides and moderately large archive of my childhood pictures and fathers pictures, among others three boxes of class plates.
The purpose of this web site is to show my pictures to public in digital form after the scanning and image processing work. Besides that this is a convenient forum to show my pictures from more recent digital era. As I told in the beginning there is coming new pictures from me all the time. The meaning is also to make it possible to buy the rights of publication of the photos published on these pages. Welcome to look!
perttipitkanen.wordpress.com 