Jouko Lehtola
Jouko Lehtola was born in Finland, he was a Finnish photography artist, who had various themes within his work. Lehtola’s photography define Finnish urban youth culture of the 1990’s. He also raised awareness and issues of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse and social taboos towards sexual deviations. His work was deep and thoughtful he was photographing not only people however details of crime scenes and overdose, people holding guns and knifes. Not only did he photograph the paraphernalia of drugs, but also domestic abuse, assaults and other violent crimes against both women and men.
In the 1990’s it was a period in life where the youth didn’t really think about their future, they drank to get drunk, sex was sport and a good fight was a measure for the evening spent. The youth had reckless energy and this is what Lehtola wanted to capture he wanted to capture the moment when the youth left the ‘magic circle’ which was home and became independent, making good and bad choices of their own.
He used many cameras to take his photographs with however the Canon EOS was his favourite. He’s known for his depiction of Finnish youth and the grunge period. Lehtola did attend festivals to capture the youth culture, and he was always the first one to arrive and the last one to leave, he was everywhere.
Sally Mann
Sally Mann is an American photographer best known for her black and white portraits of her family also known for her landscape images. Since the 1970’s, she produced a series of photographic portraits, landscapes, and still life’s and is best known for her intimate portraits of her family. One of her most famous series of images is called ‘Immediate Family’ 1984-1994 which depicts her three children, who were all under the age of ten, the series of images explore the time between childhood and adolescence, it also explores many childhood themes such as napping, dressing up, playing games and many more however she also explores some darker themes within her photography such as insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality and death.
The series of photos from ‘Immediate Family’ caused a lot of controversy, many people accused Mann of child pornography this was because in some of Manns images the children often appeared naked and some people found this disturbing. Many people questioned whether Mann had exploited her children. Even though some people may not agree with how Mann photographs her children however she says that it is natural and ordinary for a mother to see her children in the nude, having cared for them and helped them grow.
In the late 1990s, Mann turned her attention to landscape photography.
