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Andrea Holzherr
from the book The Helsinki School - A Female View

Nelli Palomäki

Since the invention of the camera and its subsequent popularization, portraiture has been one of the main subjects in photography. A number of the most famous photographers in the history of photography have taken portraiture as their main subject, some choosing their subjects, and others commercializing their skills through commissions.

Nelli Palomäki belongs to the first category, she is among those photographers, like Diane Arbus, who carefully look for and choose the people that they then portray. The reference to Diane Arbus is not arbitrary. Even though her results are very different, Palomäki shares Diane Arbus’s peculiar ability to choose her subjects with discerning certainty. It is this clairvoyance in her selection of subjects that makes her work so magical.

“My pictures force me to go close to people,” Nelli Palomäki says in her personal statement. In order to do her photographs, she has to look for people, observe them, and imagine them in the viewfinder of her camera. It is a long and delicate process which involves finding, observing, connecting to, convincing, and finally photographing the chosen person. The process and ensuing relationship can break down at any moment. Perhaps it is the fragility of the connection between the photographer and her subject that confers a certain delicate and mysterious beauty to Palomäki’s photographs.

If it wasn’t for Nelli Palomäki, these people wouldn’t be in those frames, in these postures, and with these expressions. Their beauty, discovered and displayed by the photographer, would remain unnoticed.