Meet Luke Kranenburg

Today we’d like to introduce you to Luke Kranenburg.

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born in Chicago and moved to a small town called Woodstock before I started high school. I was always bored living in a small town but I was always involved in sports my whole life until college. I wanted to play college baseball at my Community College but I injured my shoulder and spent basically a year in physical therapy the year before so I was realized my shoulder couldn’t take another year of beating and decided i needed to find a new hobby. It was kind of a tough process because all my friends went away for college and I felt pretty alone in a town I didn’t even want to be in so I needed find something I could do myself. It wasn’t until I was closer to 21 (I’m 24 now) when I bought my first camera and I don’t even remember why I decided to try photography but obviously it worked out. I eventually got pretty decent at photography but I never posted a picture on social media because I was afraid of what people may think because I was never an artistic person so I didn’t want people making fun of me or anything like that. It wasn’t until my mom found my Instagram which at the time was just pictures of me partying and doing stupid stuff a mom wouldn’t be proud of and told me “Why don’t you post your photography instead? You have a beautiful talent that I know people would love to see.” So what seemed like a typical mad mom lecture at the time, turned out to be a life changing conversation and I have my mom to thank for what’s happened to me since then. I deleted all the pictures on my Instagram and posted just about all photography from that point forward which made me fall in love with photography even more. Because of photography and Instagram, I met some of the most creative people ever, I’ve been given a lot of cool opportunities like working at the auto show and displaying my work at a show case, and it gets me a lot of paid gigs which is awesome since I am trying to make it as a full time photographer. Photography has definitely changed my life and I still feel like this is only the beginning for me.

Please tell us about your art.
Most of my Instagram following was built because of my cityscape work. For my cityscapes I always wanted to show a different perspective of what an average tourist would take with their phone. It like a cool challenge I would have for myself since most of my cityscapes were places that everyone goes to all the time like the Chicago Theater and put my own twist on it. Lately I’ve been doing portraits a lot because I like having more control of my the subject that way because I can change the model’s pose, facial expression, and mess with lighting more than I would be able to with a cityscape. I have love for both so I can’t really choose which one I like the best. What I want people to take away from my photos is that I try to be as unique as I can with my photos whether its editing, perspective, or lighting.

Given everything that is going on in the world today, do you think the role of artists has changed? How do local, national or international events and issues affect your art?
I think in the world today where the news always seems to be negative or horrific, our roles seem to be to bring out the beauty of the world. I’ll get a lot of people telling me on Instagram that my pictures of Chicago are beautiful but it’s too bad it really isn’t because of all the gun violence and murders. And that just gets me mad because I lived in Chicago as a kid and live in Chicago right now and I’m more in love with it now knowing more about the violence than when I was a kid thinking it was super safe. So I just want to let my work show that your first thought of Chicago shouldn’t be how violent it is but instead how amazing the city is.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
All my work I keep on my Instagram (@lukekran) and I sell my prints which all you have to do is email or message me on Instagram to inquire about.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kranenburgphotography.com
• Phone: 7733327322
• Email: kranenburgphotos@gmail.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/lukekran
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kranenburgphotography/

Image Credit:
Luke Kranenburg

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