Photographer Kalervo Ojutkangas (born 1943) began in early 1970s to photograph
farmers and their families in small farms of North Finland. He noticed dead-end roads in maps, drove to the yards and told about his idea and asked for a permission to take pictures. Very few said no.
Ojutkangas visited the same families every now and then, bringing pictures of previous visits as presents and taking more. Not very often: one or three years between visits was not uncommon.
The growing amount of pictures of several families raised an idea of naking a book but it did not come true.
Coming to the 1980s meant to Kalervo concentating much to landscape photography. In 90s the documentation of farmer families rose again to his activity. Journalist Tuomo Pirttimaa began in mid 90s to travel with Kalervo when he went on visiting the familiar families again. Tuomo and Kalervo have looked through the numerous photos which cover decades, looking at a world that no longer exists and visited families to photograph the life that still is there. Tuomo has interviewed people and documented their life in his written stories.
People who have been in Kalervo´s pictures many times know him and are familiar with his fumbling with cameras, sometimes a big and slow one on a tripod. The generations have changed during years. Many people of the early photos have died, a braid-haired teenager schoolgirl is later in a family portrait with her almost full-grown children.
Environments change, people grow old – still the same clock on the wall as 35 years ago.
This work does not come to an end but advances.
(translation by Kalervo from Tuomo´s text)
