vancouver fashion and portrait photography

Music is what moves the soul into rhythm. Every year after the geeks have fled Austin, TX to recover from five days of SXSW Interactive madness, the streets of this cozy creative town are flooded by the musical soundings of thousands of rockstars from all over the world. The music portion of the South by Southwest festival is coveted by music industry folks, up and coming bands and music nerds. Every available venue, from parking lots, art galleries and even small storefronts are turned into rock n' roll havens. Static Photography photographer Kris Krüg had the chance to hang out with guys from Jones Soda as they traveled in their Jones RV from party to party.  What a wild ride!

When March rolls around you know that spring has sprung and the annual gathering of geeks is in full swing at the Interactive portion of the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX. Spread out over five days of panels, parties and networking, SXSW is the equivalent of geek heaven and geek spring break squished into on power-packed week. One respite of this crazy event is when there are small havens of quietness, power outlets and awesome smaller events which was the main goal of the Techset Hosted Samsung Blogger Lounge. Static Photography photographer Kris Krüg had a chance to kickback, recharge and spend some quality time geeking out in the lounge with his camera.

This year has flown by in a flurry of events that have elevated the city of Vancouver to all new heights. From preparation to the 2010 Winter Olympics to beautification of local neighbourhoods to headlining world tours, this city has been a hotpot of activity that has stretched culturally across many areas. Static Photography has had the chance to participate in many of these events with photographer Kris Krüg being front and center with his camera capturing all the highlights.

Without further hesitation here is the best of 2010 in our beautiful city of Vancouver, BC!

Static Photography has been very busy these past summer months. Every day is a constant hustle at our studio in Vancouver, BC but we get shoot some really awesome gigs. Photographer Kris Krüg has the ability to transform his photography and capture vital elements within vastly different experiences, from photojournalism to weddings, from flowers to live concerts. Here is a photo recap of some of the highlights that have come along our way in Summer 2010. 

Autumn has snuck up right around the corner, as well the Pop!Tech conference that happens in Camden, Maine every year. Static Photography has had the opportunity to be to at the event for the last two years with Kris Krüg being the official photographer. With over speakers and musicians from around the world, this event is life-changing and packed with innovative thinkers, world-changing leaders and our change makers of today. We are really excited to be heading back to Camden this year to photograph this amazing event again!

As an artist it is always exciting when you are given the opportunity to showcase you are in a public format. Kris Krug from Static Photography was given this opportunity last week when he was asked to be part of a live concert photography art show titled Front Row at the Fifth Gallery in Austin, TX. The beautiful thing about Austin is that every year Kris attends the SXSW festival that happens there every spring. The tail end of the festival is filled with four days of nonstop live performances in venues all over the city of Austin. A large chunk of Kris' live concert photography is shot at the SXSW music festival every year.

 

At Static Photography it is always exciting when we get the opportunity to shoot a live concert event. Usually a line-up includes one or two really awesome bands (unless it is the SXSW Music Festival !) but sometimes special events when stellar line-ups occur. Such was the Blazed and Confused tour that just came through Vancouver. This prolific tour included the musical acts of Beardo , Mickey Avalon , Slightly Stoopid and Snoop Dogg . Each of these acts in a solo performance would have been amazing, so to have them all on stage for one night was truly a sight. Stephen Marley was on the original tour line-up but was unable to make the Vancouver stop. :(

So Static Photography has been very busy since we got back from Shanghai, China. We were in Shanghai for two weeks with a schedule booked very full! Kris was shooting photos for his book Chinameme Vol. 1 Shanghai which he is co-authoring with Christine Lu. While in China Kris also spoke at TEDxShanghai and attended BarcampShanghai , which he helped start back in 2006. We also attended Shanghai's and China's first ever Gay Pride Celebration , a Ghostface Killah concert that was promoted by Splitworks Production as well as a few other events. We met new friends, shots hundreds of photos and explored many parts of the 25 million person city, under the burgeoning heat of Shanghai's summer.

The next big trip for Static Photography was traveling down to the southern section of Austin, Texas for the yearly festival of South by Southwest . SXSW includes four days of Interactive and Film followed by four final days of Music .

Kris was there for the whole festival, taking pictures of the participants of Interactive as well as photographing bands at their live performances during the Music section. Having previously been published in the LA Times , Kris' candid portraits of Interactive were chosen for a few selections of the 2009 Times coverage of SXSWi. 

Check out the new ION Magazine blog - featuring Daily(ish) Reviews, behind the scenes peeks at fashion and music shoots, and access to guest list and insider info on the by now legendary ION parties.

The Police recently kicked off their reunion tour here in Vancouver and Static Photography was on hand to take some photos of their dress rehersal. As long time fans of Sting and The Police it was amazing to hear them live (something we never imagined happening) and to be able to photograph them the night before they spin up their world tour. As an added bonus that night we ran into Lawrence Fishburne (Morpheus) at the concert and had the chance to take his photo as well.

Static Photography recently had the chance to do headshots and some fun creative portraits for Vancouver-based country-rock popstar AJ Woodworth . This shoot was so fun... AJ provided her own hair and makeup professionals and we spent a hilarious couple hours working our way from location to location with AJ's rockin' acapella vocals keeping us inspired all along the way. AJ and crew were exceptional to work with... beautiful and energetic and we think the shots show through her awesome personaility and smokin good looks. Lookin' forward to a new album from AJ (and hopefully some free tix to her shows!) here this fall.

One of the highlights of this years South by Southwest for us was shooting Iggy Pop live at Stubbs. Iggy is over 60 years old now but still rocks harder than almost anyone we've ever met. Dancing, jumping, screaming, crowd-surfing... the guy just doesn't stand still. Check out more shots of the Iggy Pop & the Stooges live show over at our Flickr account and be sure to get in touch with us if you'd like us to come shoot your band's show.

(Note: this blogpost is in-progress... system malfunctioning... links and stuff coming soon.) We went to SXSW again this year to shoot as many musicians and concerts as possible. This time around we spent a little bit of time doing some pre-planning so that in addition to live concert shots of some of the best indie bands around, we could also schedule several bookings for editorial shoots with bands.

Other than fashion photography some of our favorite shoots are live concerts and bands. Static Photography was at South by Southwest (SXSW) again this year and had the chance to shoot over 30 bands including Bloc Party both live on stage as well as behind the scenes.

DJ Jay Parsons has been spinning for years but has just recently made Vancouver his hometown and we're happy to call him a local. We're also happy that he called static when he needed photos done for his album cover.

DJ Jay was looking for something "different" when he was scouring around for a photographer and the recommendations he got from other artists in the biz just weren't right for him. He then took it upon himself to scour the internet and what he found was one shot, by our own Kris Krug, that was just what he was looking for. He proceeded to spend hours (literally) going through every one of Kris' over 5,000 photos on flickr and met up with Kris personally before deciding that static was the right photography company for him.