Marcus Nilsson Food Photographer By: Sierra Mo Hurt

Biography of Marcus Nilsson Born in Sweden and worked as a sous chef to Marcus Samuelson before he went back to school for fine arts. Went to both culinary school and then went back to study fine arts to study drawing and painting. Took a black and white photography 101 class and fell in love with photography. He took on a different approach when he started taking pictures of food, he went for a ‘messier’ look, the pictures look real, less posed and positioned. This changed the whole industry of food photography. He shifted the focus back on food. “It doesn’t have to look like Martha Stewart did back in the day, where everything was neat, backlit, with a soft focus. I shot sharp pictures, and I wanted my food to look touched, like a sophisticated snap shot...” Marcus Nilsson, interview with Fstoppers.

Photo One: The lighting in this picture is artificial, it’s taken inside, and it’s mostly on the right side of the picture. Everything is well lit, generally even lighting. There isn’t one specific main focus, the ingredients are all equal. Although, your eyes tend to look at the dark food before you make your way down to the small diced onion or up to the milk and butter. The composition elements that are shown are: Grouping with all the different food piles, many contrasting textures and colors, bright lighting to star all the food, and imaginary leading lines you make with your eyes connecting them all together. The photographer is making you think of how you can incorporate all these ingredients OR is showing great mise en place. I choose this picture because I love the way the ingredients are presented, almost like a visual recipe.

Photo Two: Geist. Copenhagen, Denmark The artificial lighting in this picture is coming from the left and almost from the left bottom corner as well. The lighting adds to the statement this picture is presenting, it helps to show the flour on her apron and the rolling pin in hand, as well as emphasize her facial expression. The woman is the main subject of this picture, but also the flour and rolling pin are main subjects as well. If you took out one of those three key elements, the message of the picture would be totally different; they add to each other. The communication in this picture is showing the chef has been working hard in the kitchen probably rolling out some sort of dough. I picked this picture because I liked that this picture is staged, but you can still tell she’s been working. If that’s her station, then she probably looks like how she does now on a normal basis.

This lighting looks natural, maybe coming from the right side This lighting looks natural, maybe coming from the right side. It’s not as bright as I’d like it to be, but the message still comes across. The main subject of this picture is the pizza dough ball, then the supporting subjects are the ingredients that go on top of the pizza. The main subject isn’t directly obvious, but the dough is the most important part, with out it there wouldn’t be a pizza. The elements of composition shown in this photo are; rule of thirds, everything is on the grid, there’s a leading line with the knife and spoon handle, but there isn’t much contrast in color, texture, or shapes. The photographer is trying to show the main ingredients needed to make a pizza; fresh dough, flour, different cheeses, oil, basil, and tomato sauce; an example of great mise en place. I didn’t pick this picture because of the photo quality itself, but because it brings back memories from this past summer working at Minto Island Growers Food Cart. We had a pizza oven right outside our food cart and we made fresh pizza dough everyday and made many pizzas. Photo Three: Pizza

Photo Four: Guts of the Beast The lighting in this photo is artificial and is pretty evenly distributed all around this photo. There is slightly more coming from above and from the top of this picture, there’s a slight shadow under his legs and ears. I really like how well lit this photo is, it’s very balanced. The main focus of this photo is the pig’s legs and ears. The point of this picture is to show the way the kitchen gets the pig and how they have to fabricate him. The photographer is telling us that the food we see on the plate may look completely different then when it arrives to the kitchen. The composition elements demonstrated in this photo are; leading lines with the pigs legs, different textures, lighting, and he puts the veggies in the middle of the picture, but everything else follows the rule of thirds. I picked this one because it’s a unique picture and Marcus Nilsson is known for his unique pictures he captures.

Photo Five: Gluten Free Breakfast The lighting in this photo look natural and is coming from above and from the left. Maybe it’s a little too bright, the nuts on top are kind of drowning and hard to see. The main focus is obviously the muffins and the two wrappers next to the tin. I can tell because there’s nothing else in the picture. This picture shows grouping of the muffins, leading imaginary lines between the holes in the tin, lighting, textures, and almost symmetry, it’s even but not at the same time. I don’t now if there’s much to communicate in this picture other than the fact that the muffins are pretty and yummy. I picked this photo because I like the way he left then in the old pan and created space between the muffins.

The light in this photo looks like it’s coming from the window on the left side next to the table. It’s almost too bright closer to the window and a little too dark farther away from the window. The main focus of this picture is the two men eating their meal. The food isn’t really the main subject in this picture, more of the point of food and eating rather then the food itself. I think he’s trying to show how food brings people together. The composition shown in this photo is lighting, some lines with the silverware, many different colors, shapes, and textures. I chose this picture because Marcus Nilsson is also known for the way he eats through his photos, he take a picture, takes a bite, then takes another picture, etc. I don’t personally enjoy them, but they’re interesting. Photo Six: Lima, Peru

My Sources: http://www.marcusnilsson.com/ (Main source) https://fstoppers.com/natural-light/celebrated-food-photog-marcus-nilsson-dishes-shooting-camera-flash-tilt-shift-lenses http://www.americanphotomag.com/job-food-photographer-marcus-nilsson http://alastair27mancoll.blogspot.com/2012/12/food-photographer-marcus-nilsson.html http://blog.marcusnilsson.com/ http://bonappetit.tumblr.com/page/2 http://www.americanphotomag.com/job-food-photographer-marcus-nilsson?page=5 http://res.photoion.co.uk/ldphc/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/FoodPhotography_marcusnilsson.jpeg http://www.jmireps.com/photographers/marcus-nilsson/client_list