About J. A. Kraulis

It is commonly observed that people often don’t look at all like photographs of themselves. I’m hoping. It’s interesting to note, however, that until photography had been invented, one couldn’t really know what oneself looked like. What about mirrors, you ask? Get serious. That’s not you, that’s you backwards, so it doesn’t look anything like you at all. Play a song backwards or try to read a book in a mirror. ?naem I tahw eeS
(With mirrors too, a half truth is sometimes better than a whole one, or at least better than two half truths, unless you haven’t tired yet of playing with Photo Booth on one of the newer iMacs.)
Andrew says this can’t be another write-up about a photograph; I have to write about me as this is supposed to be a bio. I kinda resent that. I always felt that one of the benefits of having worked only for myself since graduation from university was not having to write resumes or bios. This had better be short.
The most important thing is that I have a wife and two kids, none of whom look like me. We have a large dog and a superior cat, who have taught us that what matters is not how big you really are, but how big you think you are. (The same thing is true in politics and journalism, but you don’t want to get me started.)
I have a couple of degrees, the most significant being a Bachelor of Architecture, and there’s even an interview of me about that here, but if you don’t believe that McGill is the best school in Canada, you will only find it irritating.
Actually, what are the images of a photographer if not his or her extensive biography. This will save me a lot of work: a large number of mine are at Masterfile. If you are a buyer of stock photography, you should spend a lot of time at that website.
I haven’t done magazine assignments for a while, but I continue to produce books and calendars. Most of mine (especially the calendars) are out of print, which is a good thing because many of my earlier books don’t come up to today’s standards. Unfortunately, I’m amazed to find that just about every book I have done shows up at Amazon at some point. The lowest price for a used one of mine that I saw there was 24 cents. (24 cents !! OK, that was in American cents, but still.) There was a catch, though: shipping would have cost $9.98.
That said, the last two books I’ve done, Grand Landscapes of Canada and The Canadian Landscape are pretty decent. I would recommend buying several copies as gifts. I’m not just saying that. I’ve given them to many people myself.
J. A. Kraulis
