Photographer Spotlight: Adam Krause

Ask Adam Krause why he picked up a camera and he'll put it to you plainly: "I'm really really bad at everything else!"

The Brooklyn-based photographer claims the camera became a tool of expression during a time when he couldn't get his thoughts across any other way. "Growing up, I mumbled and stuttered a bunch and was not the best communicator," he explains. "When I started taking photographs in high school, the photographs were extremely angst-y but it was also the first time in my life I found I was able to communicate my emotions and ideas clearly."

Since leaving school, Krause has become known for his striking portraiture and unusual use of light, combining ambient sources with portable flashes to give each of subject an unnaturally clear, saturated look, every detail of a setting in razor-sharp focus.

"The celebrities I photograph are lit the same exact way I photograph my found subjects," says Krause. "I think that allows the people we tend not to look at feel 'special,' but it also helps the people we collectively deem 'special' not to seem so special, just allowing us all to be shown as human beings."

The equalizing effects of his lens have extended to everyone from Phillip Lim to a community of Florida alligator hunters. "The mood is really this vulnerable confidence," says Krause. "I think we all have it in us, usually that feeling you get after you take a nice shower and you're all alone." His subjects may be alone in the frame, but at the rate Krause is going, their faces are sure to be shared with a much bigger audience.

Contact Us