Publications by the Museum of Photography

Publications and memorabilia can be bought from the Museum of Photography.

Estonia in Picture. Photographer Carl Sarap 1893-1942

2022. By Merilis Roosalu – 45€

The Museum of Photography’s extensive album presents the photographic legacy of Carl Sarap, Estonia’s top photographer of the 1930s.

The album includes the best of Carl Sarap’s work and a selection of images of the Estonian countryside and people before 1940, covering all Estonian counties. In addition to more than 300 photographs, the album includes a comprehensive study of the photographer Carl Sarap and his partner Johanna Triefeldt, compiled by Merilis Roosalu, the manager of the photo collection. The lyrical photographs of Carl Sarap, who captured Estonian nature and settlements, are explained by art historian Tiina Abel and short articles by Kati Sarapik, a researcher of the Sarapi-Triefeldt series of photographic postcards “Beautiful Homeland” (1936-1940). The album also includes a list of previously published studies, articles and archival sources on the photographer Carl Sarap.

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Peeter Langovits. ½ Century

2021. By Tanel Verk – 45€

The work of the grand old man of Estonian press photography and documentary photography Peeter Langovits Peeter Langovits. ½  century brings together the creative work of an important photographer in Estonian photography, which has also been thoroughly documented.

The book Peeter Langovits. ½ Century was written by Tanel Verk. The rest of the texts are by the protagonist himself. They are reflections, narratives and reminiscences in mini form.

Langovits’s texts are written specifically from a photographic perspective, focusing on the photographer’s most important projects, and changes in his career and history. The book was designed by Sandra Verk. 

Importantly, the texts are in Estonian and English, which makes the book more accessible and opens up Estonian photographic history to an international audience. 

The book has 340 pages and over 500 photographs, many of which are now part of the Museum of Photography’s main collection.

A collaboration between 130 photographers:  Isolation Dialogues

2021. By Annika Haas – 35€

The book was the result of an exhibition that aimed to capture the unique experience of isolation and to describe the feelings and thoughts that emerged during the state of emergency.

Authenticity was required to convey the novel situation as authentically as possible. Photographers had to create images in the now and in the present, documenting or staging reality without using their previous work.

The unspoken dialogues forced the photographers to look beyond themselves, to learn to identify and analyse their partner’s thoughts and visions in order to respond with an emotional visual of their own.

STODOM. A Combination of Letters That Changed Estonian Photography

2020. By Tanel Verk – 20€ (autographed version – 50€ )

The collection, published by the Museum of Photography, is the first concise and illustrated treatment of the photographic art group founded in Estonia in 1964, including a historical and artistic overview and the authors of the STODOM photo group: Kalju Suur, Peeter Tooming, Tatyana Dobrovolskaya, Andrei Dobrovolsky, Rein Maran, Boris Mäemets, Peep Puks and Tõnu Tormis.

The book looks closely at the group’s activities and work, including unpublished works and true masterpieces. Tanel Verk, the senior curator of the photographic collection, has written a factual history of STODOM, while art historian Elnara Taidre dissects the Soviet art world from STODOM’s perspective. The bilingual book contains numerous additional materials, explanations and photographs.

Caught In Picture. Event photographs from 1856-1990 from the collection of the Tallinn City Museum’s Museum of Photography.

2019. By Merilis Roosalu – 32 €

The book in the Tallinn City Museum’s Treasure series contains a selection of 274 historical photographs that reflect the events that influenced the lives of Tallinners and the streetscape.

The album includes photographs from the early days of the railway connection between Reval and St. Petersburg, the opening of the Peter I monument in 1910 and its dismantling in 1922 on Heinaturu or Freedom Square. There are flashbacks to the explosion of construction activity in the Republic of Estonia in the 1930s, the Second World War and its destruction, the Olympic fever of 1980 and the reappearance of the blue and black tricolour in Tallinn. The event photos are accompanied by short introductory texts in Estonian and English.

A Day in Tallinn, The Museum of Photography’s Photo Hunt

2020. Editorial by Annika Haas & Anneli Jalava – 20 €

11 photographers – Peeter Langovits, Eve Kiiler, Arno Mikkor, Raul Mee, Daisy Lappard, Meeli Küttim, Andres Teiss, Heiko Kruusi, Egert Kamenik, Raigo Pajula ja Airi Leon – captured the look and feel of our capital for the future generations.

The results were stored in the “A Day in Tallinn” photo book and in a virtual exhibition on the Delfi news site.

The idea originated from a similar photo action “Day in Tallinn” by photographer Jüri Vendelin (last in 2004), the name of which was borrowed with the maestro’s approval.