Another Visible Order

Pentti Sammallahti (b. 1950, Helsinki)
Katonah, New York (dog and rocket), 2000

 John Berger in The Shape of a Pocket writes about Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti.  He writes about how Sammallahti captures a world of glimpses.

It can happen, suddenly, unexpectedly, and most frequently in the half-light-of-glimpses, that we catch sight of another visible order which intersects with ours and has nothing to do with it.

The speed of a cinema film is 25 frames per second. God knows how many frames per second flicker past in our daily perceptions. But it is as if, at the brief moments I'm talking about, suddenly and disconcertingly we see between two frames. We come upon a part of the visible which wasn't destined for us. Perhaps it was destined for night-birds, reindeer, ferrets, eels, whales...

Our customary visible order is not the only one: it coexists  with other orders. Stories of fairies, sprites, ogres were a human attempt to come to terms with this coexistence. Hunters are continually aware of it and so can read signs we do not see. Children feel it intuitively, because they have the habit of hiding behind things. There they discover the interstices between different sets of the visible.

Dogs, with their running legs, sharp noses and developed memory for sounds, are the natural frontier experts of these interstices. Their eyes, whose message often confuses us for it is urgent and mute, are attuned both to the human order and to other visible orders.  Perhaps this is why, on so many occasions and for different reasons, we train dogs as guides. 

Probably it was a dog who led the great Finnish photographer to the moment and place for the taking of these pictures. In each one the human order, still in sight, is nevertheless no longer central and is slipping away.  The interstices are open.