Hoffers was born in Livonia was worked as a professional photographer in Helsinki between 1862 and 1873. He took photographs for sale of street scenes and public buildings. He also took the first report photographs in Finland. The museum's collections contain 70 negatives and some 150 original photographs.
Signe Brander was educated as a teacher of drawing, although earned her living by photography. Commissioned by the Helsinki Board of Ancient Monuments and Helsinki City Museum, founded in 1911, she took photographs of those parts of Helsinki which were disappearing or undergoing change. In addition to buildings and street scenes, she also photographed important events and Helsinki's festive decorations. Her photographs always included fragments of the lives of Helsinki citizens. Signe Brander's 907 negatives and original proofs form the basis of the museum's photograph collection.
Swedish-born Sundström began taking photographs in Helsinki in 1890. He worked extensively in the sectors of architecture and milieu photography, advertising and industrial photography and press photography. Between 1913 and 1915 he took photographs for the City Museum. The museum's collections contain around 15,000 negatives.
Kannisto was self-taught and founded a photographers business called Itseni (Myself) in the 1940s. He recorded the atmosphere of wartime and the ensuing crisis on film. The museum has a valuable collection of some 10,000 negatives dating from the 1940s and 1950s.
Educated in Munich, von Bonin came to the Helsinki Olympics as a press photographer in 1952 and moved permanently to Finland in the mid-1950s. He has published several books of photographs covering Finland and various towns. The museum's collections contain around 5 200 negatives of Helsinki dating from the 1950s to 1980s.
Helsinki-born Alanco has been the City Museum's permanent professional photographer since 1981. He graduated from the University of Industrial Arts in 1981, and took a Master of Arts degree in 1992. He received the Finnfoto Award in 1992 for his work in the field of museum photography. The museum collections already feature around 60,000 photographs.