Riipinen and Puranen

Today I went downtown expecting to meet a beautiful female artist (and to photograph her) in her shop, but she is in Africa.

Instead I met on the street Kari Riipinen (b. 1952) and 15 minutes later Jorma Puranen (b. 1951) in "Anhava" gallery.

20 years ago Riipinen was the star photographer in Finnish Rock-circles. He was a star himself, too, making exhibitions, record covers, books and movies. He also made a record of his own, and a biography was made of him (he was about 40 then). But the star life was too much for him and for the last 10 years he has walked around the streets of Helsinki, telling to those, who have time to listen, about his glorious past and future projects.

20 years ago Jorma Puranen was doing his own photography in North-Finland and having exhibitions of his work South. Now he is one of the stars of Finnish photographic art with exhibitions and print sales in Berlin, London and Paris.

I tried to Google both Kari and Jorma. Kari´s star time was before Internet (80s), so he has only a couple of later works there. But Jorma´s art is very well presented in many sites.