Malev Toom’s new portrait book

Malev Toom, a long-time lecturer at Pallas University of Applied Sciences and an Estonian photography legend, known for his portrait and documentary photography, celebrates his 70th birthday this year. In connection with this, he released an album of his photographic portraits.

Toom can be considered as one of the best portrait photographers in Estonia and therefore the publication of the book is a great event. Whether it’s Juri Lotman, Lembit Saarts, Hando Runnel or someone else – you can always recognize Toom’s portrait language. In his black-and-white works, he demonstrates a unique respect for his subjects, minimizing his own authorship to create a harmonious dialogue with those portrayed. Here, light and surfaces enter into polyphonic harmony with the microworld of mimics, gaze and gestures – the result is always something that is attainable only to a few. Among those few is certainly Malev Toom.