A life at 50mm... With a Vancouver Photographer.

About a year and a half ago, during one of my trips to Chase Jarvis’s studio in Seattle, I got the chance to meet to 2 hip hop artists called Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

At the time, I had no idea who they were, but I actually knew one of their songs called “Wings”. But it’s only after they performed “Can’t Hold Us” (you can actually see me on this video…) for the very few of us in the room that I realized what was happening.

It felt like a huge slap in the face. I was clearly witnessing something that I would probably not be able to witness ever again. A one on one Macklemore and Ryan Lewis show.

Which also gave us time to snap some very cool photos of them performing.

(See more photos by clicking here)

And guess what…? As Chase predicted and as we all knew as soon as we saw them on stage that day, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis eventually exploded in the charts a few weeks later, and thanks to their very cool “Thrift Shop” song, they are now number one on the billboard chart, and on pretty much every other charts out there.

Congratulations guys, and to quote you: “This is fucking awesome!”

Thanks again to Chase Jarvis for this amazing opportunity, and to Ben and Ryan for the amazing live performance that day.

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I love reading a good book when I’m flying.

This time, my partner for the trip is “Trust me I’m Lying” (Confessions of a media manipulator) by Ryan Holiday.

I heard about that book while watching one of Chase Jarvis’s latest CJ Live.

To quote Chase: “Ryan is a media genius who hires and fires creatives–photographers, filmmakers, designers and more people just like us– AND he promotes, inflates and hacks some of the biggest names, celebrities and brands in the world. Ryan Holiday is all these things, he’s also the Director of Marketing for American Apparel, and he’s just 24 years old (yes you read that correctly – he took the job after he turned legal drinking age…). Mind blowing responsibility and million dollar budgets, plus the brains behind all those risque American Apparel ads you’ve seen…. Want to know all his secrets? How to create content that gets noticed? How to get hired as a creative? How to get your name in lights? And then hack the system to get results? It’s more than you think, and it’s not all fun and games.”

Definitely a good read in my opinion if you are a creative and you are trying to get your work out there.

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Scruff contest with Chase Jarvis…

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Chase Jarvis, happy to see me. The feeling is always mutual.

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Meet Adrian…

Portrait anyone?

Chase Jarvis, best kicks in the business…    (See the rest of the studio photos here.)

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One more picture of the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis private concert at Chase Jarvis Studio…

See the whole set here.

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Here are the photos of the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis private show at Chase Jarvis Live.

Click on the photos to see the gallery.

See the rest of the studio photos here.

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Click on the photos to access the gallery.

Those of you who know me, already know how big of a Chase Jarvis fan I am.

I have posted many times about his commercial photo/video work of course, but mostly about his great behind the scenes.

Chase Jarvis and his team were the first ones in the business to actually make full on videos about their work. Giving us tips and tricks to improve our own photography. If you want to know what I’m talking about, you should visit the ChaseJarvis.com video page.

Anyway, on top of all that, Chase also do what he calls CJ Live, which consists of a 90 minute broadcast from his Seattle studio every month or so.

A different guest is present every time, and so far we’ve seen Tim Ferriss, Sir Mix a Lot, Mike Horn, Vincent Laforet, Jasmine Star, Jeremy Cowart, Zack Arias, We Are Augustines and Jason Sutherland to name a few. They talk about photography, music, business and all sort of awesome stuff.

Last week, Chase announced that for his next episode of CJ Live, he would invite 25 people to come to his Seattle studio. I immediately entered the contest and got chosen to be part of the audience.

What a treat!

So I spent last Wednesday, in Seattle, in “the garage” as the studio is called. For this episode, Chryde, a french music video director and producer was invited with the amazing Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

If you’re not familiar with their work, you should know that Chryde founded what filmmakers, photographers and the music industry agree is “the most impressive underground music project to hit the web in the last decade”, La Blogotheque…featuring : The Takeway Shows (“Concerts à emporter” in French) and Pocket Parties (“Soirees de Poche”).

He is the man responsible for this video of Beirut. (Which was actually shot in the street where I used to work, in Paris. But that’s another story)

And of course, Maklemore and Ryan Lewis are two amazing musicians, who recently did this song called “Wings”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you should definitely check it out.

Anyway, the 25 lucky ones got to spend an amazing day at the studio, after the interviews, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis performed a bunch of their songs for us and it was very very cool to be there. The rest of the day got spent chilling with Chase, the crew, and of course, Macklemore, Ryan Lewis and Chryde.

You can check the video of this episode of Chase Jarvis Live here or here.

Of course, we were aloud to snap some photos so I brought back a few souvenirs for you guys. These are photos of the studio, the CJ Team and guests during the show.

I will also put some photos of Maklemore’s performance in my next post of course.

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Seattle on a Wednesday morning…

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Here is a great piece of advice I found this morning on “my modern met blog”.

As part of the creative industry, I am one of those freelance people who are making a living (at least trying to ;o) ) just by taking photos.

And as all of you know it’s not easy everyday. But the reason all the others quit and you don’t is because you know that’s what you’re here to do, and there is absolutely nothing else that you’d like to do when you get out of bed in the morning. Nothing!

Simple as that.

Anyway, these words of advice are part of a speech by Ira Glass, that you can find here.

Also, as most of you know I am a big Chase Jarvis fan and he’s also pretty good at helping us remember to keep going no matter what. Here is one of his latest essay on the subject, called “Yes is for wimps, get used to hearing no!”

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