Arno Rafael Minkkinen - Balanced Equation
Arno Rafael Minkkinen - Balanced Equation
Volume 14 in the Lodima Press Portfolio Book Series
The surprise of the unpredictable guides my photography. The ideas aren’t conceived inside my viewfinder; their appearance happens first inside my mind. What the camera sees only becomes visible weeks, months, or sometimes years later when I process the film.
Mind games help quell the fear part. Not wishing to fall off a cliff, I tell myself I am on a mountaintop under the sea. Now falling just means diving deeper into the abyss. Or, when there is trepidation in the presence of beauty I tell myself not to worry, fingers don’t tremble at a sixtieth of a second.
Touch, bend, reach, suspend, descend, circle, submerge, climb, grab, and hold: these are the verbs of my photographic life. They vary as much as time and place varies. For forty years now, nothing has changed; destiny and desire hang in the balance while I wait for the shutter.
It is all about chance discoveries, handshakes with good fortune, and that unquenchable wish to express the pleasure of being alive in the natural world as it was meant to exist. — Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Softbound Edition of 1000 Copies
Printed by SALTO in 600 Line Screen Quadtone
9 5/8 x 8 5/8-inches - 24 Pages
17 Reproductions
A Finnish American photographer, writer, and educator, ARNO RAFAEL MINKKINEN developed a profound love for photography as an advertising copywriter. "What happens inside your mind can happen inside a camera" (a line he wrote for Minolta cameras) became his artistic credo as a graduate student at Rhode Island School of Design studying with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. Forty years later, his self-portraits continue to be made simply using single-negative exposures with no manipulation in the camera or the darkroom.
Five monographs have been published to date: Frostbite (Morgan & Morgan, 1978); Waterline (Marval, Otava, and Aperture); Body Land (Motta, 1997); SAGA: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen (Chronicle Books, 2005); and Homework: The Finnish Photographs (Like Publishing, 2008). Published and exhibited worldwide, his work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Georges Pompidou Centre, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, among many others. Minkkinen was knighted by the Finnish Government in 1992 and holds the position of Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Docent at Aalto University School of Art & Design Helsinki.
Read more about the series
This is an ongoing series of beautiful, yet affordable photography books of previously unpublished work by leading and emerging contemporary photographers. These books are printed to the high standards for which Lodima Press has become known—600-line screen quadtone on heavy cover stock, insuring that the reproductions are true to the originals.
Each book in the series contains from 10 to 18 photographs and includes a statement by the photographer. The books have 24 pages and are 9 5/8″ x 8 5/8″ in size.
The series was available in both a softbound edition limited to 1000 copies (sold individually and by subscription to the entire series), and a hardbound edition limited to 100 signed and numbered copies, originally available as a complete set and by subscription only. We are now making available the few signed and numbered books from incomplete sets.
PORTFOLIO BOOK BY PHOTOGRAPHER
1. Nicholas Nixon – Home
2. Carl Chiarenza – Solitudes
3. George Tice – Common Mementos
4. Keith Carter – Opera Nuda
5. Linda Connor – Heaven|Earth
6. Larry Fink – Primal Elegance
7. Arthur Tress – Planets
8. Marilyn Bridges – Flights Through Time
9. Paul Caponigro – Stone Churches of Ireland
10. Douglas Mellor – Still
11. Hans Bol – The Studios of Pietrasanta
12. Robert Adams – Close at Hand
13. Eric Lindbloom – Salt Grass
14. Arno Rafael Minkkinen – Balanced Equation
