Give The Drummer Some Credit...

Rock and Roll drummers often get overlooked by photographers.  Maybe because they are tucked away at the back of the stage, or maybe because the lead singer gets all the attention.  Either way, a good music photographer should always check out the the action back there...  it can make for some pretty intense imagery!  

Did you spot some famous faces?  You might not be used to recognizing the creators of your favorite beats, but you've just seen pictures from The Police, Mute Math, My Morning Jacket, Secret Machines, The Roots, The Black Keys and more.  Who knew percussion photos could be so fun?!?  

Dear Carrie Brownstein...

Carrie Brownstein of the Washington rock group Sleater-Kinney performs at the Gypsy Tea Room on September 13, 2002.

I've had a secret crush on Carrie Brownstein for over a decade now.  Long before she started getting recognized by regular folks for her wonderful acting/comedy efforts on Portlandia... Even before most of the hipster music kids jumped on the Sleater Kinney bandwagon in the mid-2000's...  I photographed her on stage a couple times over the years at Deep Ellum's Gypsy Tea Room, and was always mesmerized by her stage presence.  This girl can rock!  

If You Read FD Luxe..

If you read FD Luxe, you'll see my photos.  Of course, you'll also see my photos run in D Magazine, D CEO, USA Today, The NY Times, The Dallas Morning News, Businessweek, and a million other places... it just so happens that a copy of the current FD Luxe was the closest thing to my desk at the moment.  But, you get the idea.  Keep an eye out!

Photos of SMU...

I was scouting locations this week for a magazine that wants to do portraits of our Olympic athletes for an upcoming issue.  They plan to do all the shoots in Dallas, so I had to go through and take detailed images of each potential location.  Though I only do it occasionally, some location scouts do this full time.  

One of the locations I scouted was the SMU campus.  I've always enjoyed the architecture of the old buildings, but this gave me a new fondness for some of the under appreciated parts of the campus.  The school has been around for a hundred years, so it's had plenty of growth and change over the years.

The photos below are from the old natatorium.  The brick, wood and metal throughout the building seemed to hum and vibrate with stories of the past.  I could almost hear a swim meet from the 1940's taking place.  It would be fun to go back and really document the lesser-known parts of the campus with an 8x10 camera, instead of just zipping through it with my Canon 5DmkII.  

Student Life...

I was recently hired to photograph student life at a north Texas trade school.  The campus was pretty great, teaching all sorts of technical skills.  They had nursing, carpentry, electric, culinary and more.  All the students seemed very nice and pretty happy, which says a lot for the program.  Here are some sample shots of what I got the other day, while shooting these students in action...  

If you like these photos and want to see more, you should visit my official website at www.janikphoto.com or give me a call.  I'd love to work with you, too!