About

My name is Drayke Larson. I describe myself using the following terms:

• Father – I have a beautiful five-year-old daughter who constantly amazes me with the wonderful things she does, thinks and imagines. She is the primary motivation behind everything that I do and you’ll see plenty of images of her all over everything that I do!
• Fiancé – As of May 2011, I am engaged to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, Michelle Kurnava, and our wedding is in May 2013! Stay tuned for that because it is going to be absolutely brilliant!
• Businessperson – In addition to my two photography businesses, ::photoSynthetique and Drayke Larson Weddings, I am also the leader (‘Lord General’ is my official title) of the Libertine Asylum. The Asylum is an artist advocacy group that seeks to connect artists with the tools and contacts they need to succeed in their chosen field.
• Tech Priest – This term originated in the game/rpg/novel series ‘Warhammer 40,000′, a vision of a grim, dark future where technology is viewed akin to magic. The tech priests are those whose responsibility it is to maintain the machines and electronics of that world. Most of my life has spent with a great aptitude in similar skills, leading to many jobs in tech support positions (as well as doing tech support even in non-related fields) and plenty of helping friends and family with their gadgets and computers, thus I have earned my title.
• Teacher – Beginning in 2012, I am now instructing students as part of the Minneapolis Community Education program. Starting out with basic photography programs, I will be expanding soon to include more advanced photographic, lighting and Photoshop techniques!

• Photographer

As you might gather from much of the above, Photography is something that is interwoven into everything that I do! There are pictures of me with my very first 110-format film camera, back when I was around five or six, that give you some idea how early I started. All through the years I always had a camera glued to my hand, getting my first job at 15 so that I could afford to purchase film and developing, creating mounds and mounds of prints of all of my friends and family. Then I spent my early twenties trying to figure out what to do with my life. Bouncing around jobs in a variety of industries, I couldn’t really find one that truly captured my interest, but taking pictures of everything along the way.

It wasn’t until my daughter was on her way, that I decided to invest in a nice, proper digital camera (my first dSLR, the Nikon D50) because I knew that there was no way that I would be able to afford all of the film and developing I was likely to need with a child.That first digital camera was the catalyst needed to get the attention of my first paying client. I had never considered photography as a potential career, it was simply this thing that I loved doing all the time. It was as integral to my life as eating or sleeping, it was just something I couldn’t imagine not doing. Then, while at a science fiction convention late at night, a man dressed as Captain Kirk and a woman dressed as an Orion Slave Girl saw some of the random photos I took of their costumes and asked me to photograph their fake Klingon-officiated wedding in the courtyard. I thought it sounded both super nerdy and incredibly fantastic, so naturally I said yes!

Several weeks later, I received an email from that same couple. They had seen my photos online of their fake wedding and wanted to know if I would meet with them to discuss shooting their real wedding. My very first client! The idea that someone would be willing to pay me to do what I love completely changed my life. Nearly overnight, I knew what I wanted to do with my future. Nothing short of creating art for a living was ever going to make me happy again.

It’s been a hard road, as it so often is for artists regardless of their chosen discipline, but I have never questioned it. I love creating images, I love working with the people that it brings me into contact with and it makes me happy. These are some of the most important things in life, to me.

Accordingly, most of my clients find that working with me is fun, comfortable and low-pressure. I often refer to my shoots as “Hanging out. With Cameras.”, because I find that when we’re just having a good time, talking about whatever interests we might have in common, my clients are far more relaxed and even though we’ll probably get a bunch of photos where they look goofy because they were talking to me when I clicked the shutter, there are going to be a whole lot more where they look beautiful because they were animated, happy, interested and no longer thinking about the camera. I leave the stuffy studio feel to the big company-run photo stores.

Fashion and portraiture are my favourite photographic styles and I think it shows in everything that I do, whether it’s weddings, children, families or animals that I’m creating images of. I love helping people look their best! My personal business motto is “Find Beauty Everywhere“, and I mean it. I think everyone and everything is beautiful, sometimes you just need to find the right angle to shoot from. This also means that I am a strongly equal-opportunity photographer in every sense. I work with a variety of clients and models of varying height, weight, age, skin colour, sexual preference as well as taste in clothing and every single one is worthy of the same level of respect.

My work has been featured in such publications as Gothic Beauty, Wired, the Gothic and Lolita Bible International, RX, City Pages, Vita.MN, and Dark Beauty, as well as having the cover image and several inserts for an upcoming book focusing on fetish fashion by Dr. Frenchy Lunning.

But that’s enough about me, what about you? I would love to learn more about you and the best way for us to do that is to find some time to create art together. So send me an email or give me a call and let’s see how we can share your beauty with the world!