Pentti Sammallahti, Pentti Sammallahti, Des oiseaux, 2020

Traveling photographer, Pentti Sammallahti captures the mysteries of nature and, among them, the world of birds. Sea, ponds, parks, boundless plains, forest foliage, snow-covered landscapes … In these isolated spaces around the world, birds reveal their presence with malice and poetry. Like the visual stories, his black and white photographs testify to the particular attention paid to details, to the light that shapes the spaces, to the silent expanses in which a human or animal presence suddenly emerges. The experience of the image is twofold: beyond its narrative virtuosity, its use of duotone, with immaculate whites, like the plumage of its swans or pink flamingos, in front of deep blacks, creates a play on the textures and forcefully restore a world where birds occupy a unique place. This book is one of the first two titles in the Birds collection that celebrates, through the eyes of various artists, their immense presence in a world in which they are now weakened. Accompanying this series of photographs, the ornithologist Guilhem Lesaffre highlights the relationship with the seasons which is a fundamental aspect of avifauna. Where it exists, winter is an important constraint that birds have to deal with and which induces in particular foraging and energy saving strategies, or even gregariousness. The author here associates bird life in winter with Pentti Sammallahti’s images.