‘The Passionate Photographer’ | Kosti Ruohomaa

Kosti Ruohomaa’s work told the stories of Maine’s people and the rugged lives they led.

When Kosti Ruohomaa looked through the lens of his camera, he saw not only a single photograph but also a story, one filled with emotion, drama, and the complexity of life. Ruohomaa was born to Finnish immigrants in Quincy, Massachusetts, in 1913, but moved to Maine at age 13, and, during an international career that saw his work in leading publications throughout the 1940s and ’50s until his death in 1961, it was Maine that called to him more than anywhere else. 

This photo, Trawler Quincy at the Grand Banks, 1957, a gelatin silver print, is now on display at the Maine State Museum in Augusta until July 2016 as part of an exhibition, The Passionate Photographer: Kosti Ruohomaa’s Maine in Magazine Photojournalism, showcasing his remarkable eye for story and understated emotion. Whether you’re viewing the freezing swells faced by Grand Banks fishermen or the steadfastness of a Maine farmer on his well-worn path to a winter barn, once you spend time seeing the world through Ruohomaa’s eye, something will change for you.

Howard Chapnick, who headed the Black Star photo agency, for which Ruohomaa shot many of his images, once said, “The word[‘artist’] is thrown around with gay abandon in photography: ‘This picture looks like a Rembrandt, this one like a Renoir.’ Kosti’s photographs do not have to be compared to the work of painters. A Ruohomaa picture looks like a Ruohomaa!”mainestatemuseum.org—Mel Allen