Introduction:
Nathan Myhrvold, a renowned photographer, chef, scientist, and founder of Modernist Cuisine, joined a conversation series hosted by Professor Michael James O’Brien. Myhrvold’s innovative photography techniques and award-winning cookbooks have resonated with food enthusiasts worldwide.

Background:
Myhrvold holds a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics, along with two master’s degrees and a culinary diploma. He is the co-inventor of over 900 listed US patents and has held prominent positions at Microsoft and Intellectual Ventures.

Modernist Cuisine and the Cookbooks:
Modernist Cuisine, a groundbreaking cookbook series, is regarded as the definitive guide to culinary techniques and recipes. The books have been praised for their comprehensive approach, detailed instructions, and stunning photography.

Innovative Photography Techniques and Equipment:
Myhrvold has developed innovative photography techniques and equipment to create captivating food images. He builds his own super high-res cameras and utilizes specialized lighting setups to capture the essence of food in unprecedented detail.

Inspiration and Early Photography Interest:
Myhrvold’s passion for photography began at a young age with plastic cameras. At the age of nine, he received a Kodak Instamatic camera, sparking his interest in capturing images of the world around him.

Early Influences:
Myhrvold’s early photographic influences include Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. He credits these photographers for inspiring his pursuit of excellence in composition and technical mastery.

Conclusion:
Nathan Myhrvold’s unique perspective as a scientist, chef, and photographer has led to groundbreaking innovations in culinary techniques and food photography. His work has revolutionized the way people think about food and has inspired a new generation of chefs and photographers.

Background and Inspiration:
Nathan Myhrvold found a Contax rangefinder in a thrift store, sparking his interest in photography. He eventually became a physicist and worked for Bill Gates, but later decided to return to his passions for photography and food.

Combining Photography and Food:
Myhrvold’s love for photography and food led him to write cookbooks with stunning visuals to captivate readers. He aimed to explain culinary concepts through photography, making dense text more appealing.

Unique Photographic Techniques:
Myhrvold used innovative techniques to capture food in unique ways, such as cutting objects in half to reveal their interiors. He also employed high-speed photography and robots to capture fleeting moments, like a spilled glass of wine.

Exploring Different Perspectives:
Myhrvold’s photography goes beyond food, delving into various subjects, including the movement of stars and microscopic structures. He showcased the beauty of everyday objects and phenomena that often go unnoticed due to their speed or size.

Birefringence and Vitamin C:
Myhrvold’s exploration of microscopic subjects led him to discover the birefringence property of vitamin C. He captured stunning images of vitamin C crystals formed by dissolving crushed pills in water and letting them crystallize on a microscope slide.

The Crystallization of Vitamin C:
Vitamin C crystallizes beautifully under cross-polarization, revealing incredible patterns invisible to the naked eye.

The Majesty of the Palouse:
The Palouse region of eastern Washington boasts stunning rolling hills and vast wheat fields, creating a picturesque landscape.

Hidden Aspects of Food:
Blueberries contain orange seeds, a hidden characteristic revealed when cut in half.

Homage to Andy Warhol:
A dynamic recreation of Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can, using fresh tomato slices.

Giuseppe R. Simbaldo’s Pizza Man:
A pizza-themed portrait inspired by Simbaldo’s style, depicting a pizza man made entirely of pizza ingredients.

Reenacting Historical Events:
A recreation of a Roman bakery scene, complete with a wall mural and models posed as bakers.

The Challenges of Perspective:
The Romans’ lack of perspective in their art required careful shooting techniques to accurately capture the scene.

The Evolution of Photography:
Photography’s rapid adoption by artists led to stunning early works by Ager and Emerson.

Utilizing Digital Technology:
Modern digital photography opens up new possibilities for artistic expression and camera rig experimentation.

Ultra High-Speed Cinematography:
A custom-built champagne-sabering robot allows for precise and controlled ultra-high-speed captures.

Visualizing Everyday Phenomena:
Exploring the aesthetics of everyday occurrences like ketchup squirting and raspberries dropping into water.

Capturing the Essence of Coffee:
Photographing the intricate patterns formed by cream pouring into coffee.

Combining Glass and Photography:
Attaching a glass panel to a vessel and photographing it from both sides to eliminate the appearance of glue.

Black and White Backgrounds:
The choice between black and white backgrounds depends on the desired artistic effect.

Exploded Diagrams and Sandwich Photography:
Nathan Myhrvold introduces the concept of exploded diagrams, a technique used in engineering to visually represent the components of a system. He applies this method to create a pictorial representation of a hamburger, showcasing its individual layers.

Focus Stacking and Custom Camera Development:
Myhrvold discusses the use of focus stacking to achieve extensive depth of field in photographs. He highlights the need for custom cameras to capture specific images and explains the construction of a camera with a computer-controlled stage for precise lens movement.

Field Camera Rig for Stacked Pictures:
Myhrvold presents a camera rig designed for outdoor photography, allowing for the capture of stacked images in natural settings. He emphasizes the use of a focus motor controlled by a computer program to take hundreds of shots for a wide depth of field.

Macro Panorama Camera:
Myhrvold introduces the idea of a macro panorama, combining the techniques of panorama and macro photography. He explains the development of a specialized camera equipped with a unique lens to capture this type of image, enabling the creation of immersive panoramic shots at a microscopic level.

Custom Camera Design for Blueberry Photography:
Myhrvold discusses the creation of a custom camera for blueberry photography, utilizing a specialized lens to achieve the desired visual effect. He emphasizes the need for tailored camera designs to meet specific photographic requirements.

Nikon Industrial Lens for Macro Photography:
Nathan Myhrvold acquired an industrial Nikon lens with a large image circle, allowing him to create high-resolution macro images. The lens has a 5x magnification and an image circle of seven inches in diameter, comparable to a five by seven view camera. A custom sliding back was built to accommodate a Phase One camera, capturing five shots for a single frame. Computer-controlled focus ensures sharp images at high magnifications.

Chive Flower and Microscope Objectives:
To capture intricate details of small subjects like chive flowers, microscope objectives are used. A custom microscope was built with precise computer-controlled movement, allowing for micron-level focus adjustments. A human hair is about 100 microns thick, and the microscope moves by a hundredth of that for each photo.

Snowflakes and the Challenges of Capturing Them:
Snowflakes are small, with intricate details and a tendency to degrade quickly. A special-purpose microscope was built to capture snowflake images outdoors, ensuring minimal degradation. The microscope’s parts are heated to prevent condensation and icing, ensuring clear images.

The Challenges of Photographing Snowflakes:
Cold weather is necessary for capturing good-looking snowflakes, with temperatures below minus 5 Fahrenheit or minus 15 Celsius. Snowflakes are caught on black foam core and examined under a microscope set up on a porch. Focus stacking is used to compensate for the depth of the snowflakes, which exceeds the depth of field of the microscopes. A special illumination system called Rheinberg illumination is employed to make clear snowflakes visible against a clear background. The color filter determines the background color, creating annular color rings and highlighting different aspects of the snowflake’s structure. Snowflakes undergo sublimation, evaporating directly from a solid state, leading to the erosion of sharp edges over time. Controlling humidity around the snowflake could potentially help preserve its shape, but this requires a specialized setup. Snowflakes often stick together in the air, resulting in multiple arms appearing as a single snowflake. The use of artificial sapphire slides, with high thermal conductivity, helps chill the slide more effectively than glass. A gradient filter can be used to create a background with a color gradient, adding visual interest to the snowflake image. Combining Rheinberg illumination with top lighting can further enhance the snowflake’s appearance.

Myhrvold’s Love for Photography:
Nathan Myhrvold’s passion for photography drives him to capture stunning images, often resulting in people asking to purchase his work. He opened galleries to showcase his photographs and motivate himself to continue taking pictures.

Upcoming Book on Pizza:
Myhrvold’s next project is a comprehensive book titled “Modernist Pizza,” which will explore the world of pizza in great detail.

Reasons Behind Choosing Pizza as a Subject:
Myhrvold had previously covered savory cuisine and bread in his earlier books. He considers pizza a unique combination of bread and a main dish, making it the most popular single dish globally. Pizza’s popularity as an imported dish is widespread, with pizzerias present in almost every country.

The Evolution of Pizza:
Myhrvold’s research revealed that pizza has undergone numerous transformations over time. The most recent common ancestor of modern pizza was a street food dish in Naples during the 19th century. Despite its popularity, pizza was virtually unknown and undocumented in Italy until the 1920s.

The Spread of Pizza:
In 1870, Naples experienced a cholera epidemic and significant emigration, leading to the spread of pizza to the United States and South America. Modern pizza in Naples developed in the 1960s and 1970s using superior flour imported from Canada. Pizza in the United States diversified, resulting in distinct styles like New York pizza and Chicago pizza. Unique pizza styles have also emerged in countries like Brazil and Argentina.

Myhrvold’s Upcoming Book:
“Modernist Pizza” will cover the history and evolution of pizza, featuring recipes from various countries and regions.

The Significance of Food Photography as Art:
Nathan Myhrvold emphasizes the artistic potential of food photography, drawing parallels to other recognized art forms such as portraiture and architectural photography. Despite the prevalence of commercial food photography, Myhrvold argues that it can transcend its commercial purpose and achieve artistic value when executed by skilled practitioners. He cites examples of renowned photographers like Edward Weston and Irving Penn, who produced notable food photographs despite the genre’s general lack of recognition as art.

Challenges in Recognizing Food Photography as Art:
Myhrvold highlights the absence of food photography as a distinct category in art photography books on Amazon, suggesting a lack of appreciation for its artistic merit. He contrasts this with the abundance of picture books on various subjects, including naked women, men, and dogs, indicating a societal preference for certain topics over food.

The Emotional and Cultural Significance of Food:
Myhrvold emphasizes the emotional and cultural significance of food, arguing that its universal appeal and ability to evoke memories and comfort make it a legitimate subject for artistic expression. He draws a parallel between erotic photography, which elicits a physical response, and food photography, which can stimulate hunger, suggesting that both responses are valid artistic responses.

The Creative Process Behind Myhrvold’s Food Photography:
Myhrvold describes the diverse origins of his ideas for food photography, including specific events or the discovery of specialized equipment. He mentions his aerial drone shots of almond blooms in the Central Valley of California, which required customized software to capture still images effectively. He also discusses his exploration of macro panoramas, facilitated by the discovery of a suitable lens in an industrial lens catalog. Myhrvold reveals his interest in designing his own lenses using professional lens design software and potentially collaborating with a student who built her own lenses using a 3D printer.

Collaboration and Innovation in Food Photography:
Michael James O’Brien suggests connecting Myhrvold’s team with the student who created self-portraiture lenses using a 3D printer, recognizing the potential for collaboration and innovation in the field of food photography. The discussion highlights the importance of fostering creativity and experimentation in food photography, pushing the boundaries of the genre and exploring new artistic possibilities.

The Snowflake Microscope: A Complex Endeavor:
Nathan Myhrvold’s most challenging photographic creation to date was the snowflake microscope, taking about 18 months to complete. The project required learning new techniques, such as adapting a phase one large medium format sensor to a microscope objective and developing a cooling system to chill the device. The resolution of the microscope depended not only on the lens but also on the illumination system, requiring light from multiple angles to fill the aperture. The device was constructed from carbon fiber to ensure stability, as metal expands and contracts too much during temperature changes.

Instant Panorama Outfit for Storm Chasing:
Nathan Myhrvold created an instant panorama outfit for storm chasing, designed to capture wide-angle shots of tornadoes and lightning. The setup consists of four camera bodies strapped together in a frame, allowing simultaneous capture of the entire scene with a single click. The wide field of view is crucial for capturing the vastness of storms, which are often measured in miles.

Challenges and Adaptations in Equipment Development:
The process of creating unique photographic equipment involves adapting and changing existing components to meet specific requirements. The snowflake microscope required various modifications, including the development of a cooling system and the use of carbon fiber for stability. The instant panorama outfit involved synchronizing multiple camera bodies to capture the entire scene simultaneously.

Color and Food: A Visual Connection:
As highly visual animals, humans respond strongly to the colors of food. Color can influence our perception of taste and overall enjoyment of food. Nathan Myhrvold acknowledges the importance of color in food photography, as it can convey emotions and create a visual connection with the viewer.

The Power of Color in Food Perception:
The color of food significantly influences how we perceive it. Experiments show that people eat less under green light and more when served food in a refilling bowl. Changing the color of wine can alter how wine connoisseurs describe it.

Color as a Cue for Taste:
We use color to infer the taste of food. The wide range of flavors within white wines makes it challenging to distinguish them from red wines when their color is altered.

Memory and Food Perception:
Our memories of food, including its color, influence our perception of it. Proust’s madeleine is a classic example of how food can trigger memories and emotions.

Photography’s Role in Changing Our Perspective on Food:
Photography can reveal food in new and unexpected ways, altering our understanding of its physicality and fluidity. Myhrvold’s high-speed photography captures the dynamic movement of wine and glass, blurring the lines between solid and liquid.

Conclusion:
The presentation of food, including its color and arrangement, plays a crucial role in shaping our perception of its taste and quality. Photography can be a powerful tool for exploring and understanding the complex relationship between food and perception.