Born in 1950 in Helsinki, Pentti Sammallahti, one of the greatest Finnish photographers, became interested in photography at a young age and created his first images of daily life when he was eleven. Always in B&W, his photographs are like fables, as a series like The Russian Wayattests, published in 1966 with texts by John Berger. “I always work in the same way; I tra­vel, I don’t make any specific plans. I stop when something inte­rests me.” Nordic landscapes, endless roads, snow-covered forests, hamlets, and vast plains bear witness to his gaze, which is both contemplative and intensely connected to the natural world. 

After teaching in the 1970s at the Lahti Art School fol­lowed by the Helsinki School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Sammallahti became a full-time photographerin the 1990s and since then undertakesseveral photographic voyages around the world. He has published around 40 books and his work is part of the collections of the MoMA in New York, the Stedeljik Museum in Amsterdam, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, among other institutions. He is represented in France by Galerie Camera Obscura and in the US by the galleries Nailya Alexander and Peter Fetterman.