JulianMurrayPhotography

Charity Laurus Video

2009-07-08T07:32:00.000-07:00

Charity Laurus from Julian Murray on Vimeo.

Charity Laurus

2009-07-07T23:37:00.001-07:00

Charity Laurus of Gods Girls

Lucha Libre

2009-07-03T22:17:00.000-07:00

Beluga Heights

2009-07-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Here are the last set of photos from our LA trip last month. Auburn is a artist from St. Paul that I worked with 2 years ago, and she got signed to Beluga Heights which is a label super producer J.R. Rotem started. I got ahold of Auburn and let her know Lace and I were coming out there for a week and we should shoot since it has been two years and get some updated photos of her. Auburn ran it by Zach who is a partner in Beluga and everything got cleared as well as being able to work with Jason Derulo (singer and songwriter who has worked with Lil Wayne, Danity Kane ect..) and another young artist Mann.

Not going to make this a epic post like the last one but would like to say thank you to all the artists and Zach for being so nice and giving us the chance to collaborate.

MNFinest Swimsuit Calendar

2009-07-01T12:23:00.000-07:00

BUY IT NOW AT WWW.MNFINEST.COM

The MNFinest 18 Month Calendar is officially out, yet I am yet to still see it I am pretty proud to have been able to be apart of it. I get asked all the time how I got started in photography, and also how I have been able to do this full time since I started photography.
Here it is:
I started photography about 3 going on 4 years ago. I worked at a grocery store from when I was 14 until I was 20. After high school I went to St. Thomas to study Criminology, but after a year and a half of that I partied my way out (blame it on the al al al alchohol). I was still working at the grocery store and for some reason really liked The Games album photography for The Documentary which I found out was shot by who is my favorite photographer Jonathan Mannion. For whatever reason I remember that album photography is what made me want to try doing photography. So I saved up $1,000 working at the grocery store (theres this thing called Peak Part Time which me and my buddies were on at the store and got paid $15 per hour to bag groceries so I made the money pretty quick). I bought my first camera and took my little sister Mela out one day and tried some portraits. 6 months into me attempting to do photography with friends I was pretty decent for then, but as I look back now I was just dog shit. That didn't matter and who is now a good friend of mine and owe my career to and always will, Mike of Infusionfoto called me up and said he needed help with the MNFinest calendar. I still don't know why he asked me, I am guessing because I was only 19 and had a little bit of talent at that time, compared to a lot of the awful photographers in Minnesota on Modelmayhem (inside MM joke). I was making $75 a hour for the 1st hour at shoots and $25 a hour every other hour. Easy to say, I quit the grocery store (and cause of legal reasons that were going on at the store) and started working with Mike and the company.
That summer was probably one of the best summers I had ever had, I was doing awful in school because I wasn't interested in it, and had found one thing I had a passion for. I followed Mike around the whole summer and then another year after that helping him and learning. Mike is a amazing natural light photographer which I know that is why I learned so quick being able to shoot in natural light first, then learning strobes and such. Sorry for the long summary but I tried to write it quick because I don't like reading and I can imagine not a lot of people will get this far in the story huh huh!
Mike turned down the opportunity to shoot this years calendar, which was good and bad. Good because I got the opportunity to shoot my whole first calendar, but bad because I wish he shot more and I really miss hanging out and working with Mike.

One more thing, I also owe my career to Thurl, the owner of MNFinest, aka the man that cuts the pay checks. Thurl is not much of a internet guy so I doubt he will ever come across my blog, but I always have wanted to thank him for believing in my talent and supporting it (not just financially but the guy thinks I am a really good photographer and it means a lot). Actually when Lacey and I publically announced that we got engaged, he was one of the first people to take us out to celebrate. Overall hes a great guy and I will never be able to thank Thurl and Mike enough for helping me get through these first early years of my career and wherever I go or whatever I do in the next part of my career I will never forget it.

Sorry for the long entry, here are the babes most of you clicked on this blog to see,
peace~

p.s. buy the calendar at www.MNFinest.com

Jade Mckenzie

2009-06-21T13:51:00.001-07:00

I did a shoot for a artist named Mike Page a few months ago and built a business relationship with him and his manager D. Jones. Jones picked up another artist Jade Mckenzie who is a singer/song writer here in Minnesota. Brand new artist but if pushed right this girl could be huge. Check out her single Night Rider at:

www.myspace.com/jademckenziemusic

DJ Skee

2009-06-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

I guess I have to start out and say that I love my job because I get to meet so many people (the good and the bad). My favorite rapper of all time is The Game. I have followed him and DJ Skee for years, especially listening to Game and DJ Skees 300 Bars track over and over again. I put out a lot of emails reaching out to people in LA letting them know I would be in the area for a week. One of the people that responded was DJ Skee, was not expecting that at all. So sure enough Thursday May 21st Lace and I were sitting in DJ Skees house setting up a shoot for him. We had limited time so had to move fast and make it happen... Shot in his house for about a half hour, then followed him on what was to us, a 30 minute joy ride through the city to go to his studio. There we met about 10 more industry people, which just so happend to be the people that were going to be filming the next day at a shoot with Beluga Heights for a reality show that I was set to shoot for. Shot for another half hour at his studio and called it a wrap. Overall this shoot was great for me personally because Skee was very helpful towards us and just a great person overall.

Smoov Shoot LA

2009-06-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

This was a shoot from LA of a local artist Smoov. We pulled up to a house we were set to shoot at, and got a phone call saying the location had been switched. We then ended up a a mansion in the hills to shoot. Every single day I was in LA shooting was beautiful sun light and a lot easier to work with than most Minnesota weather.

Brittani Senser: Universal/Bungalo Records

2009-06-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

I have known Britt for about three years now through the company I have worked for since I started MNFinest. (www.mnfinest.com)

Britt got signed to Universal last year, and is scheduled for a national July 27th release. You can check her music out at www.myspace.com/brittanisenser

Here are a few shots from the shoot we did for promo:

Cecil Otter & P.O.S.

2009-06-02T14:58:00.000-07:00

I have been working on a possible coffee table book about the MPLS hip hop scene for the past year now. I have a roster of about 15-30 artists/groups that I would like to feature for the project. As my career progresses, I would like to be known as a concept driven photographer. I met with Cecil Otter (Doomtree/Strange Famous Records) and ran a concept by him of doing a photo where he would be holding a whole fish. Cecil was all for the idea, and the day of the shoot I went to Coastal Sea Foods to pick up the fish (also where the octopus is from in the other shoot I did with Jackie) and a image came into my head of Cecil holding a fish on a newspaper background. We got to the studio, set the newspaper background up in about 5 mintues, then Andrea Holton my good friend and makeup artist touched Cecil up and we created the shot in about 10 mins flat.

Back 3 years ago I emailed P.O.S. (Rhymesayers/Doomtree) asking if I could do a photo shoot with him. I had only been doing photography for about a month and now that I look back on it, I am glad the shoot never went through and was able to wait until I progressed A LOT. We came up with a simple concept that we could shoot in his house. Basically the main idea was to do a 6 shot series of his in home studio with just parts of him in the shot. The 1st shot is his hands, then his foot passing by guitars, then the one I will posted of him kneeing holding his ear, then to half his back and the final shot of him loading a BB gun. He brought out these gold teeth that he sells at shows and I did a up close shot of them as well as a BMX scene in his doorway. I like these photos because it reminds me that even at shoots that are on the fly, to just slow down, look around you and create something out of nothing.