A folio
of quiet
places.
Nelly Dean is an interior and architecture photographer working between Copenhagen and New York. For the past twelve years, her work has focused on rooms that have lived a little — homes mid-use, apartments mid-renovation, hotels in their first quiet week before opening.
Her commissions appear in Wallpaper*, Dwell, AD, T-Magazine, and Cereal. Brands include Vitra, Carl Hansen & Søn, Knoll, Hay, Frama, and the recent rebrand of the Hoxton hotel group.
This folio collects sixteen projects from the past three years. It is meant to be read in any order — each chapter is self-contained, and the index begins on the inside back cover.
For commissions, please write directly. The studio takes on a maximum of twenty engagements per year, with onboarding starting six to eight weeks before the shoot date.
A four-person studio with two associate photographers and a producer. We share the same darkroom and a quiet north-facing studio in Nørrebro.
Each project is led by one principal — usually Nelly — with the rest of the team providing pre-production, location scouting, and post. Our clients work with us because we're small enough to know every frame on the contact sheet by name, but large enough to handle a five-day European campaign without subcontracting.
We approach every commission with the same opening question: what does this room want to say when nobody's in it? The answer leads us through scouting, light study, prop placement, and finally the shoot itself.
/01 Visit. Before any camera comes out, the lead photographer visits the location. This usually takes a morning. We're looking at sun-path, materials, the small embarrassments the architect would rather we missed.
/02 Brief. A written brief: forty to sixty intended frames, with light times, lens choices, and any styling work needed. The client sees this before we shoot, and amends until we're aligned.
/03 Shoot. One or two days, depending on the size of the project. We light with available daylight wherever possible, supplementing with a single hard or soft source.
/04 Edit. A selected gallery delivered within three weeks. The full archive sits with the client for licensing.
Twelve recent projects, three featured in detail. Each begins with a single photograph the client didn't expect to be the cover.
Use the index opposite to navigate. Full case studies including pre-production sketches, location plans, and unedited contact sheets are available to commissioning clients on request.
A two-day commission across the new Hay HQ in Aarhus — twenty-two principal frames, an additional series of working-space portraits, and an architectural cover for the launch campaign. The brief asked for "lived-in, not styled" — we shot during the team's first working week, with no rehearsals.
The light through the south wall — a single bay of frosted glass — drove most of the composition. We shot mornings only and reset overnight; the afternoon light flattened the colour palette in a way the client and we both disliked.
A single-day shoot in the Frama-designed apartment above the studio's pharmacy on Fredericiagade. Sixteen frames for a print magazine, plus an additional sequence of objects-in-context for the brand's spring catalogue.
A small number of recognitions, listed without ceremony. The work the studio is proudest of is rarely the work that wins prizes.