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Peeping Tom

Kalle Kultala, Helsinki, 1970/2011, Ink-jet prints, digitalised negatives. The negatives belong to a collection acquired by the Finnish State and donated in 1995.

In June 1970, Apu magazine published an article illustrated by Kalle Kultala (1924–1991) and written by Eero Kyllijoki: “Mitä kaikkea voi nähdä näin kesällä Helsingissä mereltä käsin” (Everything You Can See from the Sea in Summer Time Helsinki). The writer tells the tale of a boat trip made by three pals on the shore waters around Helsinki: “Kalle had a camera with him and some fiendish-looking long tubes. They were what you call telephoto lenses, and you can get shots from a long distance with them. I had with me some salami, beer sausage, half a kilo of tomatoes, two bottles of mineral water and six bottles of cider.” 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.

 

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More on the subject

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.

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.

Street choreography

Collection pick
For Jouko Leskelä (b. 1956), street photography means snapping pictures freely and staying alert while he is in the street. This picture was taken while the photographer was walking down the Esplanade in downtown Helsinki.

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.