Number 5 – Hannu Hautala

The top 5 nature photographers that have most influenced my work starts with Finnish wildlife photographer, Hannu Hautala. I toyed with placing him further up the list but those that will follow have had a more sustained influence on my work, particularly in the early days.

Hannu Hautala is undoubtedly the most famous Finnish photographer. So much so, that he is, or at least was, regularly shown on TV, advertising products, something which, unless David Bailey ever became a wildlife photographer, I very much doubt you will ever see in Britain!

Born in 1940 in Toysa, Hannu first came to prominence in 1970 when he won a six month arts grant and from then on became a full-time photographer. Always an out-doors person, Hannu became frustrated with life in Helsinki and after much searching, finally settled, in 1979, with his wife, in Kuusamo. Here he found everything he needed for his work. Kuusamo is indeed a very special place where northern, eastern and southern species meet and due to the calcareous soil, rare flowers are found. Speaking personally, I visited this area some years ago and over just a few days I could see why he chose here. Haanu has been widely recognised for his work including, in 1992, becoming a Knight of the Order of the White Rose of Finland. He has produced many books with my own personal favourite being To Everything a Season. A Year in the Finnish Wilds. This book beautifully portrays why he is up there with the very best. He has an artist’s eye and uses the subtleties of nature’s colour as a painter would with a brush.  

Influence

I first became fascinated with Finnish wildlife back in 1986, while studying photography in London. I remember, vividly, travelling on the number 36 bus from Paddington to Victoria, reading a copy of BBC Wildlife magazine (I still have that copy) and looking in admiration at photographs depicting Finnish Lapland in winter. Here was a place, not a million miles away, that still had wilderness with a landscape, flora and fauna that was almost otherworldly with remote bogs, fells, birch and spruce forest, bears, wolves and owls and the photographer whose work struck me more than any other was Hannu Hautala’s.

He was one of the first to place the subject, be it a bird or mammal, small in the frame. To put it in context with it’s environment. This was done with thought and not by mistake. Before him, pictures of birds and animals were almost always big in the frame and if the photographer couldn’t get close enough, then just “clumsily” snapped. From the 1990s onwards this “style” became a trademark of Finnish wildlife photography. I guess you could say they have both the light and landscape to do so since this style is not easy to emulate in less spacious, more populated areas. Hannu put the art into nature photography and many years on you can clearly see the influence he has had on the work of photographers the world over. To read more about Hannu Hautala, click here which will take you to his Nature Photography Centre.

Tags: david bailey, finnish wildlife photographers, hannu hautala, influence, influential photographers, kuusamo, wildlife in finland