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The Last Resort You Would Visit

Martin Parr, New Brighton, Great Britain, from series The Last Resort, 1983–1986 chromogenic colour print. From the Union Bank of Finland collection, donated to the Museum in 1995.

The photos in The Last Resort series were taken in England’s traditional New Brighton beach resort. The place, which enjoyed its days of greatest splendor at the start of the 20th century, has declined over the years.

“I'm glad that I'm showing this run-down area, because I'm also interested in making the photographs work on another level, and showing how British society is decaying; how this once great society is falling apart.” - Martin Parr (b. 1952), 1992

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More on the subject

A holiday in Mongolia

Collection pick
The linguist G.J. Ramstedt and the archaeologist Sakari Pälsi (1882–1965) made an expedition to Mongolia in 1909. A gifted amateur photographer, Pälsi was there not only as an archaeologist, but also in the capacity of photographer.

Peeping Tom

Collection pick
In June 1970, Apu magazine published an article illustrated by Kalle Kultala (1924–1991). Kultala captured a Peeping Tom a hundred metres away, sneaking around behind the fence at the Seurasaari nudist beach. At the same time, he unashamedly took snapshots of the naked women on the beach.

Photoshopping before it was cool

Collection pick
Petteri Bülow (b.1961), Juha Saari (b. 1964) and Touko Yrttimaa’s (b. 1947) digitally manipulated photographic works have been made using the ‘Quantel Paintbox’ in YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s, newsroom in 1990. They were slightly ahead of their times, since later in the same year the first version of Photoshop hit the markets.

The Museum's collections

Collections
The collections of the Finnish Museum of Photography include more than two million photographs. The collections focus on 20th-century Finnish photography, and are made up of both selected works by photographers and images from extensive photographic archives. The museum's collection of objects includes thousands of photography-related artefacts. The museum also has a paper archive and a photographic library.