Ismo Hölttö

Ismo Olavi Hölttö (born 12 February 1940 in Espoo) is a Finnish documentary photographer[1] known for his monochrome portraits of Romani people and others living in the cities and countryside of Finland in the 1960s, a time of rapid societal change.

[2]: ii Soon after becoming seriously interested in photography, Hölttö bought a Rolleiflex medium format twin lens reflex camera, whose design encouraged or even enforced a certain deliberation.

[2]: iii Such an extensive series of portraits was unprecedented for Finland, and Hölttö's work has sometimes been compared with August Sander's Menschen des 20.

[2]: iii Hölttö's photography in Northern Karelia concentrated on smallholders and others on the lower rungs of society, but his coverage in Helsinki was broader, showing middle-class people and even hippies.

[2]: ii Together with Savolainen and Matti Saanio [Wikidata], Hölttö led social documentary, then the dominant trend of Finnish photography, in the 1970s.

His large 1989 book Ihminen pääosassa (English edition in 1991 as People in the Lead Role) used tritone printing for reduced and subtler contrast, with more relaxed cropping.