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4 Tips for Hiring the Right Hotel and Hospitality Photographer: Managers of hotels, resorts and restaurants understand the huge responsibility they have to ensure their properties are promoted well. They know that advertising is the lifeblood of their businesses. Hence, they want potential customers to understand exactly what they have to offer. One of the…

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The softness of grasses swaying in the spring breeze...

How Photography Helps Cultivating Mindfulness

  The great thing about integrating mindfulness and photography is that you improve on your mindfulness and on your photography. When you are mindful while creating a photograph, it is called mindful photography. Mindful photography starts when you see things clearly and then it extends with the compositional and technical choices that you make. It also encourages…

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Skydiving on my birthday

Skydiving is it Calculable Risk or Luck

For the longest time a jump out of an airplane has been in my bucket list..it was an incredible feeling and sensation that is not comparable to anything else I had experienced. Yes, windsurfing in 60 mph gusts on Padre Island, flying loops and rolls in a stunt plane or going 120 mph on my motorcycle come close, but only close…and then, after dropping at 120 mph for about 25 seconds (you fall about 1000 ft. every 4 seconds) the swoooossh of the parachute is a very, very welcome sound. Jacob said: “Well, thank God that opened…”Amen, second that.

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Water photograph at sunset on Lake Michigan

Contact with Water

Water covers 70% of the Earth’s surface and is vital for all known forms of life. The cells in our bodies consist of 65 – 90% water. We cannot survive without it. So let’s look at some of the fundamental symbolic meanings of this odorless, tasteless and mysterious building block of life.

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Sunset in Costa Rica by Marian Kraus Photography

Quantum Leap Thinking

We can have a quantum leap in the results we achieve if we see such as possible and overcome our fears of making such a leap and take action by making the leap. To be a quantum leap thinker, you must come to understand your fear mechanisms…

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Impressions from Nepal

A long time dream of mine, an excursion to Nepal and the Himalayas, recently became a reality. I was a fortunate member of a small group of sound therapy students to participate in a singing bowl workshop and retreat at one of the most exotic and colorful places I have ever visited. The program was…

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Chestnut Place and Webster House Apartments – Old Style Chicago Luxury Living

Last spring I had the pleasure of photographing both, the Chestnut Place and Webster House apartment buildings as an update for my client’s marketing campaign. The featured multimedia presentations convey a good feel and impression of both buildings. Chestnut Place Apartments on Chestnut Street is situated right where the action is, close by to Rush…

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A family that overcame homelessness

How to end homelessness

A while back, the executive director of DuPage PADS, Ms. Carol Simler and I talked about the possibilities of creating documentary photography based visual tools that would help spreading the message of the agency’s important mission to end homelessness in DuPage county. We tossed various ideas around on what these tools could look like, and…

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Photograph by Marian Kraus of kids overcoming homelessness

We can end homelessness in DuPage County

For the past 26 years DuPage PADS has been providing hope for men, women and children who are homeless. Moving beyond providing shelter and meals, the not-for-profit agency has evolved to providing an array of services which seek to stop the cycle of homelessness in DuPage County. Headquartered in downtown Wheaton, IL In my previous…

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Peace starts at home, in your mind

Whether you are an artist, photographer, corporate executive, housewife, yoga teacher, athlete, therapist, writer, politician or barista…how do you begin each day…? As most of us feel the demands of life right away and are pulled in a multitude of directions as soon as we wake up, we are potentially exposed to a barrage of stressors and downers right from the get-go. Equally available however are uplifting and harmonious influences.

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Using zoom lenses as a creative tool

Photographers have ever more creative choices at their disposal, thanks to a rapid evolution and sophistication of digital cameras. Ultimately this brings a variety of challenges and rewards with it. The decisively crucial element of composition however remains unchanged, and rests with the photographer to decide. In my previous article we have primarily focused on…

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Perspective is Everything

Phillips Martin Real Estate, a well established Chicago based commercial real estate development, brokerage and asset management company, recently approached me as they were gearing up for a major update of their website. For marketing related purposes the partners were looking for a visually clean and distinct architectural photographic style. Ideal conditions of the subject…

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Oil and Commerce

Rising oil prices, commerce and retail giants, construction companies and architectural photography…how and why do they come together…? Well, my client Jackson Dean Construction, a Commercial General Contractor headquartered in Seattle, WA, who specializes in retail, office, healthcare, industrial and gas station projects, has built strong relationships with retail giants such as Costco Wholesale, Lowe’s…

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Chicago photography transforms The Garland Building’s lobbies

A few months back I was approached by Art Environments to provide samples of my downtown Chicago architecture photography for decorating some empty wall spaces in both lobbies of the Garland Building in downtown Chicago…in close collaboration with the condominium associations’ Board of Directors, management staff and my client, we identified and selected six images that were well suited to represent a cross section of the tenants’ tastes and dynamics.

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Inhabiting a Large Body

So what is it that allows people to get excessively large? To essentially play Russian roulette with their health, and yes, their lives? And please don’t give me: “Oh…it’s hereditary… hereditary my butt!!” I am no expert on this topic by any stretch of the imagination, however, I would venture to say that unless you are a goner, or clinically and hopelessly depressed, or just don’t give a hoot about your health and your appearance…

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DuPage County PADS: Bringing Hope to the Homeless

Long known as one of the wealthiest counties in the nation, Chicago area DuPage County is full of expensive and ornate housing developments, beautiful parks and top-rated schools; but contrary to common belief there are also over a thousand people without homes. DuPage PADS helped over a thousand people last year, 174 of them were children. Thanks to the dedicated work of the DuPage PADS organization and selfless volunteers, families like these can receive the support they need to get a leg-up. DuPage PADS recognized the deep and heartfelt needs of those suffering around them and responded to those needs over 25 years ago. For this reason, I am incredibly grateful and excited to be collaborating with DuPage PADS over the course of the following months on a project which will result in a multi media presentation consisting of still photos, audio and video footage…

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Historic Route 66 – Boom & Bust – Part One

I had the pleasure of attending an awesome workshop conducted by the wonderful Ami Vitale at Santa Fe Photographic Workshops….here is the result of a very fast week in which we absorbed many “first time” moments…there has never been a highway quite like Route 66. It was written about in Grapes of Wrath, sung praises to by Nat King Cole and the inspiration behind the brand name for K-mart’s denim line.

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Life in Perspective

Both of these amazing videos, narrated by Mr. Morgan Freeman, have the potential to assist in bringing insight as well remote answers to the questions about the origin of life and where we possibly may be heading, into somewhat of a perspective.

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Reflections on Tom Shadyac’s documentary film “I AM”

I AM is an utterly engaging, very introspective and inspirational non fiction film that poses the seminal questions of: “What is wrong with the World?” and “What can we do about it?” The movie is a meditation on reality. So the question in all this is: “What is next for you to make this world a better place?” I AM isn’t as much about what you can do, as who you can be. And from that transformation of being, action will naturally follow. The power is in the moment not in the “…as soon as I…”

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Quantum Leap Thinking

We can have a quantum leap in the results we achieve if we see such as possible and overcome our fears of making such a leap and take action by making the leap. To be a quantum leap thinker, you must come to understand your fear mechanisms…

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Sexy Plastic by BMC

The question was: How do you make”ordinary, everyday kind” plastic parts look somewhat sexy…? My client BMC feels that I had the answer…I “joyfully disappear into the microcosm of plastics” when I set the parts up, turn on my Speedotrons and gel them up with multi colored sheets…

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The Best of the 2010 U.S. Open Squash Championship

Some of what many would consider to be my best shots of the world class matches…at the 2010 U.S. Open Squash Championships… among the top world class squash players are Mohammed Abbas, Thierry Lincou, Oli Touminen, Wael El Hindi, Vanessa Atkinson, Lauren Jans Anjema, Omar Mosaad Abouzid, Amanda Sobhy, Isabelle Stoehr, Line Hansen, Manuela Manetta, Latasha Khan and Nicolas Mueller

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Finals at the 2010 U.S. Open Squash Championships

Saturday, October 2, 2010 Fortune favors the bold–El Hindi and Atkinson are crowned as U.S. Open Champions during a rainy yet fantastic evening at the Pritzker Pavillion in Chicago, IL. [coolEye search=72157624970768241 how=album width=550 height=450 source=flickr rows=1 chrome=show tilt=4 brand=hide toolbar=show exactfit=yes] The 2010 METROsquash U.S. Open finals featured a battle of textbook squash against the famous…

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Quarterfinals at the 2010 U.S. Open Squash Championships

Quarterfinals day at the 2010 U.S. Open Squash Championships in downtown Chicago, IL. Once again some phenomenal squash matches by the world’s best squash players. Awesome turnout, sponsors and crowd loved it. [album: https://www.mariankrausphotography.com/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/2010US Open day 2/] contributed by squashwriter Phil Yarrow Tonight saw the continuation of the quarter-finals matches of the MetroSquash US Open. …

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Mysterious Universes within You and Me

…awesome medical charts that were made over about 100 years ago…they show amazing and crafty details of the inner workings of the human body, my eye immediately saw the inherent abstractions and interplay of form, shape and color in them…contemporary multimedia presentation shows you close up segments, timeless extractions from an era long gone. These make great wall decor collages…

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Luxurious Kerasotes ShowPlace ICON Theater

Recently I had the pleasure of photographing this awesome, state of the art movie theater on behalf of my client Graycor Construction. The ShowPlace ICON theater, located at the Roosevelt Collection on the north side of Roosevelt Road just west of Clark in the South Loop, redefines how movies are enjoyed in Chicago with a multi-sensory experience of lounge, dining and digital widescreen picture and sound. Luxurious design, state of the art technology and delectable dining converge into a fresh cinematic experience.

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