Deutsche Börse Photography Prize - Esko Männikkö

Well, Esko Männikkö was the winner of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize last week.




There's an interesting little piece in the Guardian on Männikkö and the prize:

Who said never work with animals or children? Last night the most sought-after prize in fine art photography was handed out, and the £30,000 cheque went to a man whose winning exhibition included close-up portraits of horses...

First, excuse the bad pun but I think the judges backed a good runner. The winner, Finnish Esko Männikkö, has called himself a "photographer of fish, dogs, and old men". The horsey shots in his winning exhibition - which are a million miles from pet portraiture or equine machismo - are a refreshing break from the usual array of human portraiture, reportage and landscape subjects. Instead, his guiding principle is a simple sense of capturing unusual natural beauty - whether animal, vegetable, mineral or human - wherever it arises...

What's so fascinating is the way Männikkö immerses himself with his subjects - human or otherwise - in remote parts of Finland. I was lucky enough to go there recently, and I too discovered a nationality still in thrall to nature, folk customs, and in some cases a tendency towards melancholy, yet often this is concealed beneath Nordic propriety. What Männikkö's pictures do is completely rub off that modern, social patina and uncover the deeper character that lurks beneath. His portraits of people are just as magnificent as those of wild, untamed beasts...