Signe Brander

Signe Brander

Signe Viola Brander (15 April 1869 Parkano – 17 May 1942 Sipoo) was a Finnish photographer. She is best known for documenting the changing cityscapes of Helsinki and the everyday lives of the city's inhabitants in the early 20th century.

Early life

Brander spent her childhood and youth in Kokkola. After her customs official father died in 1891 the family moved to Helsinki. There Brander took a course in the University of Art and Design to become a drawing teacher but later focused on photography and worked for instance in the studio of Daniel Nyblin.[1]

City photography

In 1906 the city of Helsinki founded an antiquities board. One of its duties was to document the changing city in photos. The board hired Brander.[1] Even though a woman as a photographer was not a rarity in the beginning of the 20th century, there weren't many of them working as city photographers.[2]

The photographic documentary work started in 1907 and ended in 1913. The result was 907 photos of the changing cityscapes.[1] The project was carefully planned and the city's planning and building authorities provided information to the antiquities board and Brander. In the end she had a lot of freedom to independently express her artistic vision.

In the difficult and cramped urban environment the photographer had to have technical know-how, compositional skills and capacity for creative problem-solving. The weight of the photographic equipment also made the task physically challenging. Brander would often transport her equipment with a hired horse-drawn carriage.[2] On the most challenging shoots she apparently also had an assistant.

People, war memories and estates

In addition to her photography skills Brander also had artistic vision thanks to her drawing studies and at their best her photos were nearly visual art in their expression, composition and use of light.[3] The central ideal of the photos of that time however was the sharpness and the detail of the photo which made it possible to reproduce them correctly. In the central role were the people, everyday residents of Helsinki. Brander's photos are continuously among the most popular in the Helsinki City Museum order catalog.

Brander also had other photography projects. In 1907 she toured Finland taking photos of old battle fields for the centenary memorial book of the Finnish War.[1] In 1910 Brander started a project that would take 20 years, taking photos of Finnish estates; the project ended up generating over 2,000 photos.[1] Some of these photos were published in the book Herrgårdar i Finland (1928–1929).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Jan Alanco; Riitta Pakarinen (2004). Signe Brander 1869–1942, Helsingin valokuvaaja – Helsingfors fotograf (in Finnish). Helsinki City Museum. pp. 9–10. ISBN 952-473-335-8.
  2. 1 2 Jan Alanco; Riitta Pakarinen (2004). Signe Brander 1869–1942, Helsingin valokuvaaja – Helsingfors fotograf (in Finnish). Helsinki City Museum. pp. 19–22. ISBN 952-473-335-8.
  3. ↑ Pakarinen, Riitta (2005). "Signe Brander – Helsingin kuvaaja" (PDF). Sofia – Helsingin kaupunginmuseon asiakaslehti (in Finnish) (1–2): 16.

External links

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