First edition, first printing. Signed in black ink on the half-title page by Männikkö. Hardcover. Red leatherette cloth-covered boards with a tipped-in four-color plate on the cover and title stamped in black on cover and spine, no dust jacket as issued. Photographs and text (in Finnish and English) by Esko Männikkö. 144 pp., with approximately 200 four-color plates. 9-5/8 x 10-1/4 inches. Out of print. Scarce. CONDITION: Fine. A Mint signed copy. [Cited in Andrew Roth, ed., The Open Book. (Göteborg, Sweden: Hasselblad Center in association with Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, Germany, 2004), and in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: A History, Volume II. (London and New York: Phaidon, 2006).] Revolving around the experience of fishing for pike in midwinter, Female Pike is a native son's "directed" study of rural Finnish people and their culture... then again, not really! Carefully posed and constructed by Männikkö, these portraits also challenge the notions of the "photograph as document" using subject matter that is easy bait for the viewer.
