For those of you who may not be so familiar with the international professional soccer scene…Mr. Bakary Soumare, is a Malian born professional soccer player, who played as a defender for the Chicago Fire during the 2008 and 2009 seasons and currently plays in Europe for the US Boulogne in France’s Ligue 1.

Bakary called me the other day and was wondering whether I would photograph his condominium that has been in the making for the past year in Chicago’s Wicker Park area. My eyes started clicking as he described it to me and his dwelling turned out be a very slick, functional space with a very contemporary design. Despite the rain and dreary looking conditions outside, representative of the rainy spring we have had this year in Chicago, the space shows very nicely and the rooftop terrace is absolutely phenomenal. A very nice place for a very nice person.

So without further ado, here is a multimedia show from the shoot, stills are below. Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stills from the shoot can be seen in the Interior Photography gallery.

In March of 2011 I had the pleasure of attending an awesome workshop conducted by the wonderful Ami Vitale at Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. The week-long intensive, and I mean intensive, was focused on Multimedia Story Telling. Ami has traveled the world and her work speaks for itself…superb storytelling through images, video and audio. Aside from being a very sweet person, she is an excellent teacher who shared her knowledge of essentials to multimedia story telling such as scriptwriting, location scouting, video, audio, photography, editing, post production on Final Cut Pro (worth a week-long seminar in and of itself…) and, and, and, and…. in a very condensed time frame.

Here is the result of a very fast week in which we absorbed and processed many “first time” moments. The video was produced in collaboration with my team mate Ms. Edwina Pickles from Sidney, Australia who shot all stills for the piece. Large portions of the audio represent Mr. Robert Randazzo of Absolutelyneon.com and the editorial contribution was provided by the brilliant Ms. Courtney Allison of Freelance Courtney.com.

Click here to view the embedded video.

“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. Also commonly known as, “America’s Main Street” and “The Mother Road,” this classic route served a purpose other than transportation; it gave America a story.

People are still fascinated by the historic stretch of road that once connected Chicago and Los Angeles. It has been 25 years since Route 66 was decommissioned but the persevering landscape continues to tell its story. The meta-narrative of Route 66 thrives on America’s economic engine. As the first completely paved highway, it was seen as an opportunity for Mom-and-Pop type diners, motels and service stations. In a booming economy the traffic on the highway flowed and local businesses did well. Naturally, the opposite occurred in times of bust until Route 66 was dismissed as America’s Mother Road and simply became just another road.

The sophistication of highway engineering introduced the modern design for interstates. Even though Route 66 underwent constant changes to keep up with safer and larger roads, it was deemed irrelevant in 1985. Since then its local economy survives on the legacy of Route 66 and now refers to it as “Historic”. It is the untouched scenery that preserves its memory and allows people to savor one of America’s greatest stories.”

On my road trip back from New Mexico to Chicago, I shot additional film footage and still photographs in Texas and Oklahoma. I will put this together in an upcoming segment, Route 66 – Part II. Stay tuned and please check back…

I AM the documentary had its official debut in Chicago this past Friday and my dear friend Courtney had arranged for us to see it at a sold out AMC theater in downtown. The showing was followed by a Q & A session with director Tom Shadyac who is traveling to 50 cities in the US to promote his film’s message.

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?” Thankfully, the movie also ponders insights into what is right with it.

Filmmaker Tom Shadyac,  known to some for his Hollywood’s blockbusters such as “Ace Ventura,” “The Nutty Professor” and “Bruce Almighty”, shares the story of his quest for truth and continuous awakening after a cycling accident left him incapacitated, possibly for good. After a painful and prolonged recovery, he emerged with a new sense of purpose, determined to share his own awakening to his prior life of excess and greed, and to investigate how he as an individual, and we as a race, could improve the way we live and walk in the world.

Inspired by I AM from Marian Kraus on Vimeo.

Ultimately, after much consideration and contemplation, he changed his extravagant lifestyle, sold his 17,000 sq. ft. Beverly Hills estate, moved to a mobile home community, and re-started life, a simpler and more responsible life. Heard of that kind of an “awakening” before? Perhaps, however, the movie is a fresh reminder about the impact that we all have on life and our environment. It also invigorates the potential of bringing about positive changes in the world on a variety of levels.

Shadyac and a small film crew of four embarked on a journey to meeting with and interviewing a variety of remarkable men and women, scientists, psychologists, artists, environmentalists, authors, philosophers, entrepreneurs and others in his quest for truth. Amongst them are such luminaries as Dr. Noam Chomsky, historian Dr. Howard Zinn, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, physicist Lynne McTaggart, poet Coleman Banks, David Suzuki, Ray Anderson, John Francis, Coleman Barks, and Marc Ian. They engage in a fascinating dialogue with Shadyac and ponder some tough questions.

Not surprising, in the process of trying to illustrate what’s wrong with the world, Shadyac discovers that there’s more right than he ever imagined.  He learned that the heart, not the brain, may be man’s primary organ of intelligence, and that human consciousness and emotions can actually affect the physical world, a point Shadyac makes with great humor by demonstrating the impact of his feelings on a bowl of yogurt at Heart Math http://www.heartmath.com/. Similar experiments by Dr. Masaru Emoto have documented the impact of love, beauty, truth, generosity, compassion and the like on water. For more see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAvzsjcBtx8 and here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto. Now mind you, the human body consists of about 75% of water…

And Shadyac’s own story illustrates, as that of many who went before him, that money is not a pathway to happiness.  In addition he learns that in some native cultures, gross materialism is equated with “insanity”.

He furthermore discovers that, contrary to conventional thinking, cooperation as well as collaboration and not competition, may be nature’s most fundamental operating principles.  The film further illustrates that humans actually function better and remain healthier when expressing positive emotions, such as love, care, compassion, and gratitude, versus their negative counterparts, anxiety, frustration, anger and fear. Charles Darwin used the word love 95 times in The Descent of Man, while his most famous phrase, survival of the fittest, appears only twice.

We are all tied in a web of mutuality, all connected through “The Field”  (see also Lynne Mc Taggart  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynne_McTaggart ) and if you see that we are all connected through a web of a higher order you cannot help but get pulled into the simplest of acts. A simple smile or a friendly “Hello”, helping the homeless person on the street, and if you can’t spare money, give them some time, ask them about their story, tell them that you care, reach out, tiny acts do matter and have a profound impact.

To serve as a brief re-member about the beauty of Nature, that essentially is at the root of all, I have assembled this visual excursion from my photo archives. Enjoy.

The challenges that humanity faces are complex and far reaching. From deforestation, overpopulation, depletion of the ozone layer, stark imbalance of global food distribution, to wars, terror and aggression in many areas of the world, Faith is knowing that if YOU shift, you shift the circle around you, and then a wider circle and then the world around you changes. That is the power you have that you are not told about, in kindergarten, in school or on your job. You do not need money to shift that, all you need is to open up your heart and spirit to feel and understand that, and when you do, you become a part of energy that changes things.

Everybody talks about the economy these days, and everybody has a theory how to fix it. But very few people talk about the fact that it is rotten at its roots, you can not have a system in place that promotes for you to take everything and all that you can and expect for it to last forever. It does not work in Nature and it will not work for us. And until we recognize that and wake up to it, and until we meet each other at our needs as opposed to our greed it is all going to stay the same. So once again, here too: If nothing changes, nothing changes…

Events of change have been occurring throughout history of mankind, that is evolution. But if we consider some of the monumental changes of the past 20 or 30 years, just to name a few the collapse of communism, the abolishing of apartheid, the ideological shifts in China, the recent uprising of the masses in Egypt and Syria, they all are a result of mankind’s awakening to follow their heart’s and spirit’s longing for freedom, equality and to elevate their basic quality of life.

The internet and libraries are loaded with information how we can improve the quality of life for the underprivileged people on our planet and how to apply changes in our life styles that will facilitate the conservation efforts to save our endangered natural environments. Much of it should not require to be read upon as it is rooted in our DNA. Most of it is basic common sense.

Hope is bestowed upon the younger generations by what we teach our children. If we are teaching them our way they eventually will continue to bring forth a world as we know it. And we, the generations that went before them, need to call that into question. It is NOT about win, win, win, accumulate, accumulate, accumulate status, status, status, external beauty, external beauty, external beauty…and it is also not about “Idolatry of magnitude” that is so wide spread these days. What is it about to you …? It is about you and the changes that you can facilitate.

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…”

However, the very least you can do is to spread the word about the movie http://iamthedoc.com/

Watch a dynamic multimedia production showcasing an awesome World Class Squash Championships held in the autumn of  2010 at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, IL.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Chicago Photographer Marian Kraus highlights the event that benefited METROsquash and the world’s top squash players who competed for the trophies and prize moneys of $100,000 total. Some fantastic matches throughout the week led up to the finals  of the 2010 METROsquash which featured a battle of textbook squash by the dutch Laurens Jan Anjema against the famous Egyptian attacking style by  Wael El Hindi. A tinned volley drop gave the match to Wael at 11-7 in the final game and he was crowned the winner of the 2010 METROsquash U.S. Open. It was a hard fought victory for Wael and the packed crowd that stayed up close to midnight gave him and his opponent a well deserved standing ovation.

On the ladies side, the 2010 METROsquash U.S. Open featured the classic match-up of youth against experience. The up and coming Amanda Sobhy had the packed home crowd on her side as she was the youngest U.S. born squash player to ever reach a US open final. She was playing against the very experienced former world open champion Vanessa  Atkinson from the Netherlands. Atkinson led throughout the match and won comfortably 3-0.

During the week 96 of the world’s top men and women squash professionals were playing 4 days on a McWil all-glass court on the Jay Pritzker Pavilion stage. The pavillion was designed by master architect Mr. Frank Gehry, and is a visual feast for every Chicago architectural photographer. The University Club of Chicago hosted the early rounds in its new Cardio and Squash Center. Attending and serving as honorary co-chairs were former Mayor Richard Daley and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Clare Muñana, Vice President of the Chicago Board of Education, is serving as event chair and Chicago’s own Top Chef Masters winner Rick Bayless who catered the gala reception before the women’s and men’s U.S. Open squash finals on Saturday. “It is my pleasure to co-chair the 2010 U.S. Open in Millenniuim Park, along with the Education Expo that METROsquash is hosting during this historic event,” said Daley. “Athletic activities instill the discipline and perseverance in our youth that help them attain their personal and academic best.” “The support METROsquash offers is key to the future success of young people and I am certain that through continued hard work, motivation, and determination, these students will become leaders in their communities,” added Gates.

All proceeds of the event supported METROsquash, a 501(c)(3) non-profit after school program serving Chicago Public School students through the combination of academic enrichment and squash instruction. METROsquash also hosted an educational exposition for 2,000 Chicago Public School students and their families, during the course of the week which gave students a unique opportunity to learn about the ways in which squash, academics, life skills, culture, and community service interact to build confidence and capabilities of Chicago’s youth.

“METROsquash is a leader in combining academics and athletics to provide Chicago’s students with excellent enrichment opportunities,” said Muñana. “This transformational program ensures that its students are fully engaged and supported in all of their endeavors – on and off the court!”

In addition, hundreds of local, out-of-state and international squash players – and METROsquash students – had the opportunity to compete in one of the country’s largest and hotly contested skill level events.

With 2010 having come and gone, it was in and of itself yet another very interesting year, a tad bit more so than previous years of recent history. In the end though, it had treated me well… in a roundabout way. Most of all I was able to expand my own distinct and creative way of seeing people, places and things. And even more so, to convey and share that with others. So…to get a glimpse into my year’s journeys, I invite you to view some of the best photographs from my commercial assignments as well as personal fine art photography work of 2010. Enjoy…and for all of us, to a MAGICAL 2011!

Click here to view the embedded video.

This presentation shows a distinct selection of Marian Kraus photographs from his client’s architectural photography assignments, advertising photography assignments, event photography assignments as well as his personal fine art photography shot in 2010.

I had the immeasurable pleasure of embarking on a trip to Germany over Xmas 2010, with Stella, my 5 1/2 year old daughter.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This short multi media clip may convey some impressions of this wintry excursion to visit friends and family in a country where everybody speaks “funny”…, especially to the ear of a young lady.

The idea to do a small photographic documentary on the Elkins, Glady and Bemis areas came up during a recent vacation in West Virginia. It was a first for me in this form. At the end I realized that the lifestyle and people there were not that different from those of Chicago Metro, or other places for that matter, at all. It was just that the demands and dynamics of life were slightly different…

Impressions of West Virginia from Marian Kraus on Vimeo.

A multi dimensional excursion through the Elkins, Glady and Bemis areas of West Virginia, as seen in August of 2010.

Thank you to those who willingly agreed to be photographed by a stranger with a big photo camera and a mid Atlantic accent …and thank you also for sharing your stories with us.

Mysterious Universes from Marian Kraus on Vimeo.

Recently, a good friend of mine came across some awesome medical charts that were made over about 100 years ago. While they show amazing and crafty details of the inner workings of the human body, my eye immediately started clicking as I saw the inherent abstractions and interplay of form, shape and color in them.

The contemporary multimedia presentation shows you close up segments, timeless extractions from an era long gone. These make great wall decor collages and a selection is available for purchase at our store

To view additional Marian Kraus Fine Art Photography please follow me here

G Skin & Beauty Institute from Marian Kraus on Vimeo.

Marian Kraus Photography’s representation of the latest state of the art campus addition of the G Beauty Schools in Oak Brook, IL. The aesthetic appeal and design features of the space coupled with the highest grade educational standards and work ethics of the ownership and management team clearly set a top notch benchmark for beauty schools anywhere.

For over 30 years the Hair Professionals Academy/G Beauty Institutes family of beauty schools has been the first step for thousands of hair and skin beauty professionals. The educational programs the schools offer are second to none as a result of a constant quest to offer students the best education available in the beauty industry. This recent campus addition enhances the existing Las Vegas, NV and Naperville and West Dundee locations in Illinois.

The institutes offer 3 different beauty programs for students to chose from: cosmetology, esthetics, and make-up. As a graduate of any of the programs the students will enter the beauty profession with the confidence of a solid education and training for a promising future in a sought after industry. A must see for those seeking an education in this market segment as well as those who want to be pampered…check it out!

To view additional interior imagery, sit back and relax and enjoy the show.

Experience a multimedia presentation showcasing the awesome Kerasotes ShowPlace ICON Theater at Roosevelt Collection in Chicago, IL and read more about it here

Kerasotes Showplace ICON Theater from Marian Kraus on Vimeo.