As a young boy in Gothenburg, Lennart Durehed was captivated by the photographs in foreign magazines. The dramatic images in Life and Look fascinated him to such an extent that, several years later, he applied to the municipal school of photography. The subsequent years spent as a press photographer gave him the knowledge that it was the opportunity to use his camera to capture everyday esthetics, and not the actual assignment to illustrate the news, which fascinated him. In his quest to explore his own esthetics, Durehed took his best prints under his arm and traveled to New York. He showed his work to Avedon, Penn, Hiro and Art Kane. Irving Penn got in touch and he worked as Penn's first-assistant between 1973 and 1976. In addition to controlled photographic assignments for fashion magazines and advertising agencies, Penn's approach was to work on his own projects at the same time, in which free photography was permitted using the photographer's resources. This was a work method that Durehed would eventually make his own. Encouraged by his years in New York, he returned to Stockholm. A discussion about photography with art director Lars Hall, resulted in them opening Camera Obscura, the first gallery for photographic art in Sweden. For six years, under their direction, the gallery displayed Swedish photography, as well as a wide selection of the most prominent names in international photography. Many names were presented to a Swedish audience for the first time. In 1984, he opened his own studio in central Stockholm and assignments were soon received from advertising agencies, magazines and publishing houses. Assignments were conducted within the white walls of the studio, while Durehed's own projects involved taking the camera outdoors. In Durehed's images, there is often calmness, with environments devoid of people, evoking an atmosphere of eternal Sunday peacefulness.