Today while surfing through Flickrs Commons Collection I came across a series of portraits by Swedish photographer Einar Erici. I hadn’t seen his work in the past but found his portraits quite striking.

The portraits were all shot around 1930 and all feature older gentlemen with beards of varying occupations (farmers, carpenters, miners etc). While shot 83 years ago this series reminds me a little of the 100 Strangers project that many photographers do today.

Wikipedia reveals a little more about Einar. He was a physician, organ scholar and amateur photographer.

He photographed numerous subjects but many of his shots feature church building or are portraits. These tightly framed shots of bearded men are just one style of image. He also photographs more environmental portraits of people at work and has a series of portraits of couples.

See the Einar Erici set of images on Flickr here.