michael@harlanturk.com
646.808.4159

Michael Harlan Turkell, a once aspiring chef, now freelance photographer captures the inner workings of kitchens for his award-winning “BACK OF THE HOUSE” project, which documents the lives of chefs in their restaurant world.

As former photo editor of Edible Brooklyn and Edible Manhattan, his recurring BACK OF THE HOUSE series appeared in the magazines from 2006 – 2011. Michael’s been nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award in Visual Storytelling, included in 25 Under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers V2, (PowerHouse Books), received a Photo District News Photo Annual Award, and has had his photos printed in an array of publications, and cookbooks. He also hosts a show on HeritageRadioNetwork.org called THE FOOD SEEN, which he brings together guests working at the intersections of food and art, which was a finalist for the 2012 Stitcher Awards.

He has photographed the “The New Brooklyn Cookbook”, for William Morrow/Harper Collins, Clinton Street Baking Co.’s cookbook for Little, Brown and Company, “Simple Food, Big Flavor” with Chef Aarón Sanchez for Atria/Simon & Schuster, “Beginnings” by Chris Cosentino of Incanto in San Francisco, CA for Weldon Owen, released on Spring 2012; Anarchy in a Jar’s Jam On cookbook by Penguin (Summer 2012); Sara Jenkins’ New Italian Pantry app (Winter 2012), Joanne Chang of Flour Bakery in Boston, MA, Flour Too cookbook for Chronicle Books (Spring 2013), Brooklyn Farmacy & Soda Fountain for Ten Speed Press (2014) and a cookbook about New England with Chef Jeremy Sewell of Lineage, Island Creek Oyster Bar and Eastern Standard, all in Boston, for Rizzoli (2014), and sits on the board for the Food Book Fair. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his in-house sommelier fiancé, and a cat that has a beer named after it (Sixpoint Craft Ales’ Masons Black Wheat).