I think that when anyone starts to blog there are people that we each admire from afar, hoping that some day we’ll run into them or maybe even get to meet them. In early 2005 when I started my blog I kept hearing the name Kris Krüg also know as kk, to this day I still can’t pin point exactly what it was about him but I became a giddy geeky little fan.
Kris is a very well known Vancouver photographer; he takes shit loads of photos of awesome stuff and awesome people, some of his photos will be appearing in the new season of Project Runway Canada, and speaking of runways, just name a runway, Kris has probably been at the end of it gettin’ his shot. Just today a shot of his of Pete Doherty was used by Pitch Fork Media in an article on Pete’s new album. And let us not forget he also helps spearhead Canada’s largest social media conference, Northern Voice and also now finds himself as one of the top male social media pundits in the country – did I mention he is actually American? Pretty impressive stuff if you ask me. But what I love the absolute MOST and find truly exciting is how involved Kris is with the Olympics, the up coming ones here in 2010, Beijing, China AND he was in Torino, Italy.
It actually took me a while to realize that this Flickr home page photo was his but over the years whenever I’d pull up Flickr and the photo would come up I’d keep thinking to myself, someday, someday I’m going to meet this guy.
Kris and I do run in a couple of the same circles and through Facebook I noticed that we were being invited to some of the same parties, most notably a party last February where we were both down as GOING and I thought THIS IS IT I’M finally going to meet him and I dressed extra special and he didn’t show. A couple of weeks after that Northern Voice was set to start with the yearly opening party but I social anxietied out and couldn’t go but I sent Adam in my place with STRICT instructions that if he met ANYONE to please please pretty please meet Kris for me. As luck would have it Adam found himself outside side smoking right next to Mr. Krüg and my husband got to meet him. I made Adam fill me in on every detail, drilled him like a Hilti.
Late last year my name came up in conversation somewhere and I found myself invited to be his Flickr pal, well of course I will be your Flickr pal Kris! I sent him an email over Flickr basically stating I’d been following his work for years and was pissed off that we kept missing each other at parties, he mailed something cheeky back and we started an online friendship, next came Twitter, then came Facebook and THEN came the 604 awards where I finally had the pleasure of meeting him and for me this was enough, we’d already reached the point of here’s my number let me know if you are in the area kinda thing so I was content, I’d met someone I’d admired for years, I was good.
I heard a rumor that he wanted to take my photo, I was in Ontario at the time and I literally started jumping all over the room. I’m sure Rhonda will remember. But I didn’t know that it was 100% true until arriving home from therapy the night following the 604 awards to an email that said ‘whatcha doing I want to take your photo’.
FUCK FUCK FUCK. I couldn’t go over, therapy nights are my nights, I’m over stimulated, figuring shit out, I couldn’t go have my photo taken BUT at least I knew it was true that he did want to take my photo so I did another happy dance and just hoped like hell it would come up again. [i try not to get too excited about things until they actually happen]
Thanks to what Twitter has called the Shorty Awards it did come up again. [if you are on Twitter you know how this works if you aren't please bear with me a sec] Kris has made the finals in the photography category and when you vote it looks something like this: @shortyawards I vote for @kk in the Shorty Awards Finals for #photography because…, for my because I put ‘because he says he wants to take my photo’ I soon received an email and it took us one more canceled date mostly because there were a few rare Vancouver snow days but last night we managed to hang and he took my photos.
I was nervous; seriously nervous here is someone I’m just getting to know as a friend, but was having my photo taken by and I have never in my life had these sorts of professional photos taken EVER. Except for the parts where I attempted to act like a model I felt totally comfortable, minus what I think are normal nerves when you are someone who is still working on making eye contact when speaking to people let alone looking straight into a massive camera lens.
I am really happy that I was able to be myself, Kris and I had some great conversation, even totally nerdy stuff like he, myself and Adam all say sweedish instead of sweet, you know just stuff that made it easier to relax and I feel that these photos really show me and how I act when there isn’t a camera in front of me. At first I was thinking I wanted to go all sexy, but that isn’t me, I’m casual, laid back, I don’t sip on gin but I do like juice. I think my very favourite thing about these photos is that I have nearly no make up on and none of these photos have been edited. When Adam came to pick me up i think Kris liked his hat so now Adam has some sweedish shots of his own as well and I personally think he looks pretty damn fine.
So with ALL that said before I go I need to ask you a favour, if you are on Twitter whether you are following me or not but you probably should be following me but whatever if you are reading this and you are on Twitter, Kris needs you and I’m asking you to please vote for him in the Shorty Awards I mentioned above, all you have to do is click this line of highlighted text and VOTE for @kk.
That about sums up a thank you for taking rad photos of Adam and myself me thinks.
