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Photographing architectural marvels, innovative new constructions, schools, churches, and manufacturing facilities has always been a passion of mine.  Exploration, discovery, collaboration and carefful preparation is involved with every project.  Architects, designers, engineers, developers, CEOs, and community leaders may each have a an aspect of a place to highlight. Telling the story of a building through photography, enabling others to see and experience the  place is a tremendous creative challenge..  Architectural photographers have needed patience for the right conditions, lighting sources both natural and created, specialized architectural lenses and software expertise as tools to help tell these stories.  And now, using aerial photography, we can create images that enable  viewers to visualize the scale and setting of structures as never before.  For the next week or so, I'll be posting images from a recent assignment of Buffalo Central Terminal, an iconic Art Deco Jewel, that preservationists are struggling to restore. 

Lake effect bands, postponed photoshoots, snowblowing feet of snow, and a late afternoon Google meeting-snow day in Buffalo. Finally, a late night Manhattan on the front porch. Chillin' in the 716.

Located in midtown Manhattan, LIM College educates students in the business of fashion and provides internships and job opportunities through its undergraduate and graduate programs.  The college wanted to build a library of images for use in its recruitment programs.  Working with an art director and a crew of one, we shot hundreds of images over several days, featuring New York City as our backdrop.

LIM wanted the images to reflect the energy and synergy that studying the business of fashion in New York City provides.  All of the individuals photographed are actual LIM students and alumni.  Most are photographed in Manhattan; a few, fashion entrepreneurs, are photographed at their own ateliers.

Over the next weeks, I’ll be posting more of the images from “Young in New York” on social media. 

Ah, to be young in New York…

Is it any wonder that mankind stands open-mouthed before the bartender, considering the mysteries and marvels of an art that borders on magic?
Tom Bullock, The Ideal Bartender, 1917
 
Waxlight's Summer Cocktail Class…a subject I was willing to study on a sultry, summer afternoon. 
 
I've been collecting cocktail books and recipes for years but this was an opportunity to listen and learn from a legendary bar director,  And then, of course, there was the tasting part.   I registered, paid my class fee, and arrived at Waxlight Bar a Vin early. Tony Rials, our master instructor, provided detailed directions for our distinctive cocktails.  Needless to say, every student came to class prepared, pen and paper at the ready, eager to learn. However as a visual storyteller, I took notes on my camera, using only available light.. 
 
Tony instructed us on proper bar set-up, techniques and ingredients required, as well as the subtle nuances necessary to prepare the perfect cocktail.  We all had the opportunity to practice measuring, cracking, shaking and stirring, and...tasting. It was hard not to excel.

The afternoon passed too quickly but the instruction resonated.  I can’t wait for next semester.
 
To view a brief video of the class, visit @kckratt on IG.

The At Home section of this website features some of my favorite architecture and interior design images.   I will soon be adding images from a recent Buffalo Spree assignment to that section.  It was challenging to capture the warmth and intimacy of this dark and moody den.  The greenery outside the windows added an important connection to nature that I wanted to be sure to include along with the richly detailed interior space.

View our At Home Gallery

On assignment for Buffalo Spree Magazine in 2012, I photographed Ted Lownie, principal architect for the restoration of the Darwin Martin House Complex.  In 2020-21, I started shooting the Jun Kaneko/Albright-Knox Public Art Exhibit on the grounds of the complex. Based on my conversations with Ted during the portrait shoot,  I like to think he would have approved the integration of art, architecture, and design that is the Space Between.

American Stories was a collection of portraits created in 2004 during the Bush/Kerry presidential election. Reimagined as black and white images, the portraits are a powerful reminder that each of us has a voice in creating the American story.

This image is my favorite from a recent evening stroll through the Jun Kaneko installation at The Martin House in Buffalo, NY.   It is not the most colorful or the most dramatic but it is the one that most reminds me of the gardens I visited in Kyoto, Japan.  There is a solitude, and a unity between man and nature, that so typifies the Japanese aesthetic for me.

This week Buffalonians, young and old, lovers as well as solitary strollers, gather to view the cherry blossoms in the Japanese Garden.  In the time of corona, there is a particular poignancy to this cherry blossom season.  People are seeking reasons to take joy wherever they find it.  The Japanese have a word that may explain the lure of cherry blossoms,  hokorobu, which  means ‘to turn buds into blossoms’ as well as ‘to make us smile.’  
 
The Japanese Garden in Delaware Park is located behind The Buffalo History Museum. This public garden was a gift from Buffalo’s Sister City of Kanazawa and is maintained by Buffalo Olmstead Parks Conservancy.

In an environmental portrait, the location illuminates the subject's personality and illustrates a place where he spends much of his time.  I recently photographed James Hickey, artist, sculptor, and hairstylist through the window of his Hertel Avenue salon.  Hickey's own painting on the back wall, the open blade of his casually cocked razor, and the bokeh from the evening street lights all inform this image of a highly creative, edgy and intense human.

I've always loved galvinized steel and have been a collector for years.  But it was not my first choice for a background when I decided to photograph a still life of araucana and browm eggs.  I originally posted the image on IG (kc kratt) in color, but I decided to post it here as a black and white.  There is an incredible tactile quality in this treatment which emphasizes the texture and sparkle of the galvinized as well as the luminous sheen of the eggs.  

Players gotta play and photographers gotta shoot—anything and everything they see.  It makes for a diverse body of work and occasionally that leads to unusual and fun assignments.  We recently completed a project for The Martin Group and Under Armour, #sweetcatch.  The client wanted to photograph a new line of specialty baseball gloves with fabulous, colorful desserts.  Working with the agency and local pastry chef, Lucy Levere, we created an eye catching — and mouthwatering — campaign. 

Reichert Technologies recently hired me to photograph a number of images to introduce their most advanced Phoroptor® for a trade show and advertising campaign. While shooting this assignment, the marketing folks brought over some of Reichert’s collection of classic phoroptors.  “Just have some fun,” they said.  And, of course, I did. 

This blog post, the current billboards and some of the tear sheets in the Marketplaces section of the website are representative of this project.

Fruits and vegetables from my garden, summer roadside stands, and local farmers" markets make for healthy and delicious al fresco meals.  And, they inspire "found" art as well.

Trimania is a building-wide creative fundraiser for Buffalo Arts Studio. On one night, every three years, the entire city block long TriMain Center is overflowing with musicians, digital strategists, performance artists, creative agencies, dance troupes, fine artists, photographers and over 3,000 revelers celebrating the Queen City's diverse artistic community.

I was setting up for my open portraits session, "Kitchen Table Talks," when Marty Boratin stopped by my studio. Marty had booked the majority of the musical acts for Trimania so he was busy coordinating all the final arrangements for the evening. A spring ice storm, multiple county travel advisories and numerous "Hey, is Trimania still on?" queries were blowing up his phone. Nonethless, he agreed to be a test subject--as long as he could stay on his phone. This image of the ever affable, unflappable Marty, managing chaos from the kitchen table, was not the story I expected to capture, but certainly one that most of us recognize.

Reshoot…a word photographers dread.  But a recent “reshoot’ turned out to be a wonderful assignment.  It is not unusual for clients to request that architectual interiors be photographed prior to being occupied so the photographer can highlight the structure, rhythm and flow of the space.  The Martin Group, a full service, fully integrated communications agency, recently hired us to do just that.  The pristine, contemporary, and light-filled interiors of its new headquarters at 620 Main are amazing and a joy to photograph.  The architectural firm on the renovation, CanonDesign, requested the reshoot. Their architects wanted the same shots from the same perspectives but this time with people interacting in each space.  This image is one of my favorites from that reshoot.

I enjoy people and I want to know what makes them who they are.  I approach the individuals I photograph the same way.  For me, a portrait session is a conversation.  I usually don’t even decide how or where I am going to shoot until I meet my subject and we begin to chat.  As we converse, there is a gesture, a turn of the head, a fleeting expression that somehow, to me, in that moment, captures the essence of the individual.  If the timing is right, the lighting is set and the camera is focused, I click the shutter and that moment is preserved.

Location, location, location...I've been photographing decks and railings on the Northeast Coast of late.  The weather was stormy as several nor'easters tore up the coast but we were lucky.  The day of this shot, the skies cleared for one hour, and the wind and rain ceased at exactly the right moment to capture this view.

Hoist and lift manufacturer, Columbus McKinnon, wanted to feature their products as "wall art" for a new showroom and training facility.  I decided to shoot against a black background and light to emphasize the almost organic beauty of the forged metal.   The resulting images had the drama, compostion and "art" the client had requested while still featuring the rugged strength and utility of their products.

Frozen in time, the lodge is located on a snowy volcano in Hokkaido, Japan.  Walking through the rooms, it seemed the inhabitants had simply fled.  Fireplaces were stacked with wood and wedding albums were laid open on desks. Decay--artfully arranged by the wind and water that had swept in over the years--overwhelmed everything with ice and moss  Past and present, winter and summer existed in the same moment. It was an eerily beautiful, incredibly silent lost world.

An out take from a recent editorial assignment for Buffalo Spree Magazine. I wanted to photograph Jill Jedlicka, the organization's executive director, in the Niagara River.  I brought my chest waders--and Jill was more than willing to enter the now much cleaner waterway and demonstrate the progress made in restoring the natural habitat of the Niagara.  A different image from this series was chosen as the December cover for Spree's "People of the Year".

I photographed the Eternal Flame at Chestnut Ridge Park for an editorial assignment earlier this year. Western New York was experiencing a severe drought and though the flame glowed brightly, the waterfall was essentially dry.  When I returned this fall to photograph the Eternal Flame for the Chestnut Ridge Conservancy, several days of steady rain had fallen.   Late afternoon sun broke through the dark autumnal skies, the flame burned against the steely gray shale cliffs and water tumbled over the falls.  It was a magical landscape, captured at what photographers call  "the magic hour".

I rented a studio space from Bob and Pen Creeley for a number of years.  During that time, we spent many hours talking about art, collaborative work, some of my favorite writers and the neighborhood.  We never talked about poetry but it was then that I began to read his work.  "I Know a Man" (quoted below) soon became a favorite--so direct in cadence, so American in its pursuit of forward motion...and so universal in its concluding cautionary note.

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.

--Robert Creeley 

Soaring ceilings, iconic red chairs and molecular shadows define the foyer of the Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, NY.  I shot this image as part of a larger assignment photographing the facility and the researchers of this renowned  institution.

Nothing left unsaid here...