Pentti Sammallati is one of those photographers who come quietly to mind when thinking of work whose straightforward approach opens the door to otherness. With few exceptions, these are landscapes out of northern myth, complete with talking animals and eternal winters. Yet to say that he is a ‘nature photographer’ is to gloss over his specialness, and miss the unique oddness of his chosen moments.

A moody romantic, Sammallati ‘s northern sensitivity to land and sky has affinities with such photographers as Joseph Sudek and even Paul Capinegro, although there is something of Kertesz’ humor and Kudelka’s starkness mixed in as well.

But he possesses a feeling for animals all his own.

Printed in lush, grey-toned black and white, his meditations on small lives in vast landscapes are a pleasure for the mind and the eye. Often isolated against a virtually empty landscape, his creatures live private, utterly self-contained lives whose raison d’être has nothing to do with us– even when they watch us carefully, as does his magical frog in its moonlit pond.

This excellent show at the Nailya Alexander Gallery offers a much needed opportunity to become more familiar with this fine photographer’s work.