Observing Eye
Concept of the publication, design / layout, supervision of the printing work and taking care of the production.
Observing Eye is the third monograph by Finnish visual artist Sanna Kannisto. The book focuses on Sanna’s bird series, photographed in Finland, Russia, Italy and Costa Rica.
Sanna’s working method is highly distinctive. She is an artist whose work occupies an intriguing space between art and nature photography. Her works are exhibited in galleries and museums, yet her subjects are familiar from traditional nature photography. For this project, she collaborated with scientists working at bird observatories and research stations. The birds are captured for scientific research and ringing, and after the research procedures have been completed, Sanna photographs them in her small portable field studio.
In the white plexiglass studio, the birds are temporarily isolated from their natural habitats. Sanna pays close attention to the composition of her photographs: she carefully plans and selects all attributes, props, branches and other elements, and sometimes spends considerable time compositing the images later in Photoshop. The final result is partly portrait, partly still life, and partly nature photography.
In some images, she uses black curtains on the left and right sides of the studio, giving the photographs a theatrical stage-like appearance. The bird — sometimes several birds — is unquestionably the protagonist of the scene. What distinguishes these photographs from conventional nature photography is the close proximity. There is always an intimate encounter between the photographer and the bird: the bird observes and reacts to the photographer, and vice versa. It is rare to see a bird from such a close distance in real life. We wanted to take advantage of this and keep the photographs as large as possible, so that the birds in the book appear close to life size.
Most of the birds she photographs are migratory birds travelling north or south during spring and autumn. One detail that is not immediately visible in the images is the rings on the birds’ legs. These are not just any wild birds: they are part of scientific research and have, in a sense, been “named”. They remain free birds, yet they have also become part of a scientific culture. The titles of the works refer to this as well. Usually the works are named after the Latin species names. Sometimes Sanna uses another type of title that may be more poetic or refer to something outside the image itself, such as Silent Spring or Approach of Winter.
For the book, we wanted a classic cloth cover. We selected a pale green Brillianta fabric with a pleasant natural haptic quality. As the paper stock, we used bulky Arctic Volume paper, which offers excellent print quality while remaining soft and pleasant to the eye and hand.
We published and produced the first edition of the book ourselves and arranged international distribution through Hatje Cantz. After the first edition sold out, Hatje Cantz approached us about producing a second edition. For the second edition, the cover material was changed to Geltex.
Observing Eye was shortlisted for the Photobook of the Year 2020 prize in Finland, and it received a silver medal at the Deutscher Fotobuchpreis (German Photo Book Prize) 20/21 in the category Conceptual Artistic Photo Book.
| Artist | Sanna Kannisto |
| Publisher | Sanna Kannisto / Hatje Cantz |
| Size | Portrait 250 × 290 mm |
| Content | 144 pages, including one 8-page gatefold 76 images |
| Language | English |
| Texts | Barbara Hofmann-Johnson |
| Fonts | Minion Pro and ITC Espirit |
| Paper | Arctic Volume white 150 g, front and end papers: Geltex silks 115 g |
| Binding | Sewn binding, hard cover. Brillianta fabric cover with debossed image on the front cover. |
| Printing | UV offset |
| ISBN | 978-3-7757-4791-2 |
