As you can see, this website is called MLp.
Me? My name is Magnus Lorentzson – so that just leaves the ‘p’ in the name to explain.
Your humble servant, at your service
Throughout my professional career, I have worked to ensure that musicians, vocalists, actors, dancers, artists, artworks, products, architecture, speakers etc. are heard, seen and presented in the best possible way. I have done this from various positions (from volunteer to supervisor) and with various roles (photographer, lighting designer, set designer, sound engineer, etc.) within the sound, lighting and visual arts industries.
I thought of things like photography, photographer, project & production manager, production coordinator, Parisian when I registered the company.
Looking at the Swedish version on this website, I’ve been bla bla bla a lot here – let’s forget all about that = this is about photography. Okey?
How did it all begin? Well, my dad was an amateur photographer. Kind of P1 if you like.
Now when looking back, he was actually a brilliant teacher. I’d never thought of him that way before… He taught me, step by step, how a camera worked, what the different controls were called and what they did, and then how to handle the large, mysterious, clunky but beautiful 6x6cm Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, where the image as I remember it appeared upside down in the viewfinder once you’d flipped up the sun visors.
In a calm and loving voice, I was told that it was OK to make mistakes, that I had time to try again, to gently press the shutter button rather than quickly snapping a photo, and so on.
I bought my first 35mm camera with money earned from various jobs during the summer holidays. Goodness me, what a different time, what a different world it was! Buying and loading the film yourself. Hello!? Going from a film format of 60×60 to 24x36mm and at the same time getting a built-in exposure meter in the camera + help with focusing. So incredibly modern!
Studying to be a mechanical engineer was, I suppose, just about fun, but living in the darkroom and becoming chairman of the school’s photography club… Now we’re talking!
It is now the mid-70s. Dark side of the moon was still no. 1 on the stereo and my big sister, who was always interested in music, worked as a booker for bands. The bands needed press photos for record releases, ahead of tour kick-offs and so on, and I was given some of those gigs.
During one such session, I had positioned the band I was going to shoot on a large weeping willow branch that jutted out and brushed the surface of a small pond, when the band’s singer said he’d heard I was interested in becoming a sound engineer and wondered if I’d like to join them, in front of the camera, and go on tour with them. And that’s how it went. Life was simpler then.
Then came decades of other creative pursuits such as playing drums, light designer in huge exhibitions, sound engineer in theaters and concert halls…
The digital camera made its debut and I asked around about how those things worked and how much they cost etc., but nothing happened at that time, I didn’t take the bait. My photographic drought had me firmly in its grip.
The awakening was abrupt! We are now in the era of burnout, anno 2004. I got what I thought only those who didn’t love their job got – a flatter forehead by hitting the wall, AKA exhaustion depression. And so it came to pass that a digital camera became my new companion – someone to take out for walks. I walked and walked and immersed myself in angles and depth of field and new lenses, and rejoiced at being able to take so many photos without even having film in the camera… …and then, after a while, the fog lifted and life became a bit more fun again. For a few years, at least.
Thanks to a failed marriage in one capital city, I found a new one in another, and when my mum died, I inherited some money so I could quit my job and move to Paris. In this city of cities, there is a photography school called Spéos.
Being accepted there and getting to spend time both with people from all over the world and with absolutely brilliant teachers was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my whole life. If you get the chance – DO IT!!!
For example, the photojournalism teacher was the head of all ATP photographers in France; the teacher of printing techniques had been responsible for Sebastiao Salgado’s photos for exhibitions and had accompanied him during his time in Paris; my studio teacher had been Peter Lindbergh’s personal assistant for six years, and so on and so forth.
I was as proud as a, well, I don’t know what, when I was one of four students chosen to represent the school and hang a photo at the world’s largest photography festival, Les Rencontres d’Arles. The year was 2011…
In my Paris life I never stopped walking the streets with my camera. J’adore vraiment cette ville!
The time went on and I went home to my birthplace and photographed organ pipes. Who could have guessed…
The photos became the exhibition ‘The Glorious Pipes of Gothenburg’, which has been on display in the foyer of the Gothenburg Concert Hall on two occasions.
Now, Plan A is to continue with Trails, a photography project at my own pace.
But first I’m just going to…
Finally – some very nice words about me and my interest in photography;
He’s going for a walk. Leaving everything behind, everything but the camera. Going for simplicity. Going for a walk.
But it might as well look the other way around, as if the camera is taking him for a walk. Making him discover the world anew. Putting him eye-to-eye with the different dimensions of the world.
Camera in hand he’s opening himself to the present moment. He stays put for that very image that will catch his attention. A sudden glimpse of the unknown, of something he never would imagine, never thought of before or an instant, familiar feeling out of a long forgotten dream.
“Let’s make it simple”, he would say. In meeting with people he just knows how to make them relax and be at ease. Being who they are. He has a sense of timing, a way with words and a way to make us laugh. In fact, it’s quite hard not to feel invited into his world.
Kristin Lorentzson
Journalist