Yellows Studio
Yellows Studio is a creative collective of photographers, stylists, filmmakers and graphic designers. We sat down with founder Mikkel Mortensen on his journey as the founder of Yellows Studio.
Nestled in a modern industrial estate outside of Copenhagen, Y2 is a collection of renovated studios set in a historic and protected mid-century building. The exterior has a beautiful patina created by the aging, fluted, green copper façade that wraps the building.
As soon as you walk through the original teak doors, you’re transported into a world of effortless style and creativity, home to photographers,
stylists, film makers, and graphic designers.
The six studios, that used to be laboratories, all range in size, and shape but are unified by planked concrete ceilings, large windows, and matte
white floors — providing not just the best conditions for photographers, stylists, and art-directors — but act as the perfect canvas for every creative project undertaken.
When was Yellows founded or incorporated?
MM I think it was registered for the first time in 2004, I'd just finished my apprenticeship and was two and a half years into my education.
So, how old were you?
MM I was 24 years old
Many try and then fail, why do you think Yellows succeeded?
MM I think willpower is a big reason. I don't give up, if I decide to do something I'm going to fucking win. I have a huge will to make things succeed and then, of course, there are skills. I have some key qualifications which are purely professional but on top of that I also have a good understanding of economics. I believe that the social approach and understanding I have for people is very important for success.
It was always an ambition of mine to do something different than what’s been done before. But more importantly if you're going to do something, you need to have people with you. If you need to go further, you only have so much power within yourself.
It sounds like you have good people skills that allow you to build relationships whilst remaining a visionary. Is this what made you stand out at the time?
MM I did a personality test once and I have a Generalist profile. I can do a little bit of everything. Then there are some individual areas that are just completely formulaic, which you don’t own at all. It’s that systemic approach that I’m completely lost in, repetition, I don’t find worth in it at all.
But speaking of repetition, you've stuck with Yellows for so many years. Why do you think this is?
MM No idea, it’s also surprised the hell out of me, even as a child I was always really good at understanding things quickly, then I’d lose interest. I'm the kind of person who can potentially develop quickly. However repeating something 10,000 times before you become an expert at something, I don't have the patience for that. It's too slow.
But there has been something about photography where I've been able to do that. I've always been able to see the interest in it, it's always been fun for me to stay in. I go into a mode with photography where I stimulate myself, it’s not something I have to try and make an effort to stay focused. I keep hanging on to it and refining it, and the fact that it becomes, so nerdy, in some way, it just feels so natural.
It's one thing that you've continued to be a photographer, but you've also continued to run Yellows as an entity. There’s a lot involved, and you’ve chosen to stick with that.
MM For me, I think it’s balance of stubbornness. In many ways, it's not my core competency but when you work on more difficult things, it's can be hard as hell to stay focused. So, it's this mindset of not giving up, you have to keep working hard at it.
Can you draw a parallel to the other things you've created? For example, your festival up by Tange, I've heard you describe the joy of seeing people getting involved and that it kind of grows inside you. Do you also have that feeling with Yellows?
MM I feel the same. When you create a space, a frame for someone, or something, and then the frame continues to develops itself — it’s taken to a place where you might not be able to carry it — that's where I love to work with those coincidences, where can things go, where can it take you? I don't have a need for control. I'm the type of person who has grown up in chaos, one way or another but, I’m also definitely comfortable in that chaos. Chaos for me is opportunity. If there's too much structure, I feel tied down and locked into things, if it's already predetermined, that’s when I get bored. Knowing what's going to happen, or being told what I’m supposed to do, I’d rather die.
If there's too much control, there's nothing left to chance, and it gets boring as hell. When you don't have to think about everything yourself, and something happens that you least expect, you’re open to it. It’s stimulating for you, if you don’t need to control everything.
When you create a business, it’s all about structure it’s about having an overview and looking forward. As well as, looking back, constantly setting paths and goals. There’s so much economy and culture inside Yellows, that’s why it’s super important.
I have always spent a lot of money on auditing and bookkeeping, from day one I could just feel that I shouldn’t be doing this. I understand it, I can talk about it, but I’m not going to sit and fiddle with it I mean, as it drives me insane.
You need to team. You need to know your strengths, you’re naturally not strong in all areas. You may think, I can do a bit of everything myself, but that doesn’t mean you should, or that you’re good at everything.
It sounds like that chaos factor has been your forte. If you go back to when you were 24, were you jumping into the deep end all the time?
MM I bring this into everything I do. I go where the danger is or where there’s risk. There has to be a chance for things to go wrong otherwise it becomes uninteresting.
What about when it's not structural or there’s no strategy. Is it more sensible?
MM It's 100% emotions and gut feelings.
Look at the world messing around with AI, structure, and order, you can create all sorts of rules for yourself and get all kinds of information. But you can also just look at it and feel whether it works or not.
When I relate this to being a photographer and my process, I've been doing this for years, I’m encoded in it, but I have the experience now to just let go of the technique and just take a step back and look at what I’m doing, it took me many years to let go.
I think for many years I wasn't looking at what I was doing, there was so much technique involved which in reality, I was super inhibited by. If we had to do something, it always had to be on point. We had to try new things: for example, I had way too many lamps on, and all kinds of bullshit, so I didn't have much energy left to see what it was I was doing. Looking back, I think it took me 10 years to be present while photographing, to be more confident in looking at what I was doing.
But its also meant that suddenly I just had a huge toolbox of things, technically too. And that's what I am, I am easily one of the most technical photographers I know, who can do a little bit of everything with the different techniques. Things that now belong to the technological aspect of photography back to analogues because I was part of that process.
You have a very picturesque approach to your work with the technique underlying. This makes me wonder whether some parallels can be drawn to the way Yellows was created, as it was funded by friends.
MM I think so. Yellows could have become much bigger than it is now if the right skill sets had been there. There are many things I have done that in hindsight would have done differently at this point
But that's the thing, it's hard to start-up both as a visionary, and as a practitioner, you wear so many hats. You can't just go out and hire the best as you don't have the money for that, so I don't know, I've always worked with the idea that you can take the elevator or you can take the stairs.
If you take the stairs and you fall over, you never fall any further than down to the next staircase. Take the elevator then you can get up quickly but if you go down, then you start all over again. So that's the safe one, and also, perhaps the less wise one. The staircase is hard work, going up those stairs takes a long time. If I had teamed up with someone who was super sharp in business for example, for starters it's a bit like an advertising agency.
In an agency you have a few different core competencies, you don't have one manager you have two to three managers who can do different things. One can do the creative part, one the administrative part, and one can do HR. That’s how it works in leadership, where you need at least three managers who can bring it all together.
I would arrange it like that if I could do it again, I would have made a plan sooner.
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