I will be analyzing the photo style of Ola Kolehmainen. These are my chosen eight photos by him.

1) 2) 3) 4)Ola Kolehmainen, ‘Diamond’, 2008, Photography, Analogue C-Print, with diasec, CHRISTOPHE GUYE GALERIE

5) Lot - OLA KOLEHMAINEN (FINNISH, BORN 1964) See What You See, 2006 6)Oblivion, 2009 7) 8) 

 

Ola Kolehmainen’s photography style is capturing light against architecture in an abstract manner. He highlights the metallic and/or bright colors in different settings with careful specific lighting, weather the object material is metal or not. This is demonstrated in all of his photos I’ve picked out, but it especially caught my eye in photo 2 “Big Time” because the way the lighting was used made multiple different focus points. The focus of his photos fluctuate between the objects reflection in another space, like in “See What You See”, “Oblivion” and “Bauhaus I” (photos 5,6, and 8), to the emphasis on geometric shapes like in “Sketches of Spain”, “Composition With Collected Reflections”, “Diamond”, and “Untitled”, as well as “See What You See” (1, 3, 4, 7, and 5). Another attribute that Kolehmainen frequently considers in his photos is composition, as mentioned in the title for photo 3, “Composition With Collected Reflections”, but also demonstrated in photos 1, 5 and 7 with levels (background, middle ground, foreground) in 1 and with the evenness between the shapes being parallel with the photo in 5 and 7. Another repeating attribute within his photos is the use of patterns or repetition. The repeated shapes within a photo contributes to making a photo interesting, especially in “Sketches of Spain”, “Composition With Collected Reflections”, “Diamond”, “See What You See”, and “Untitled” (photos 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7). His photographs demonstrate abstraction in that in each of his photos there is no one big interesting thing, there are multiple interesting points throughout the photo. I’ve already emphasized this about his photos, but I really like the way he creates photos with light. I think utilizing light and how it reflects off of or bring things into focus makes a photo really neat. I chose Ola Kolehmainen because his ethereal photography really inspired me in seeing light and architecture in a new way and not just boring everyday things. His photos contributed to my vision in that I look for light and its relationship with different architectural pieces to make a really cool photograph.

 

Lot - OLA KOLEHMAINEN (FINNISH, BORN 1964) See What You See, 2006

Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2006. “See What You See”. Photograph. Gibsons, accessed 2024.

 

The photo I will be fully evaluating is “See What You See” by Ola Kolehmainen, taken in 2006. Along with an abstract theme, he demonstrates multiple formal elements of photography in this piece, but I think the main elements he focuses on in this piece are focus and repetition. He demonstrated repetition through the horizontal strips of lines and shapes, and highlighted the texture of the reflective and clear metal surface. He shows value through the strong light in the bottom left corner and darker themes in the middle column looking section. He also showed focus through lighting, using the light to show a silhouette of a tree beyond the photo. Despite that, it also offers another focus, being the horizontal metal layers pattern as the building progresses upward. I thought these specific elements in this photo were important because it helped describe how many interesting points there were all across the piece, as well as highlight the abstraction through that. Something I found unusual about this photo is the contrast in potential focuses, but I think that is what makes it more interesting and it is why I chose this photograph. This is my analysis of “See What You See” by Ola Kolehmainen.

 

 

Works Cited

  1. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2017. “Sketches of Spain”. Photograph. archdaily, accessed 2024.
  2. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2011. “Big Time”. Photograph. 1stdibs, accessed 2024.
  3. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2007. “Composition With Collected Reflections”. Photograph. Artnet, accessed 2024.
  4. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2008. “Diamond”. Photograph. Artsy, accessed 2024.
  5. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2006. “See What You See”. Photograph. Gibsons, accessed 2024.
  6. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2009. “Oblivion”. Photograph. Artnet, accessed 2024.
  7. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2005. “Untitled”. Photograph. AEX, accessed 2024.
  8. Ola Kolehmainen. Published 2011. “Bauhaus I”. Photograph. photography-now, accessed 2024.