In the heyday of the 1980s Don Kruse took his first paying job as a photographer. He photographed performances at the old Fillmore Club in San Francisco.
At the time he was contracted by a small company called AKG, which was a subsidiary of Bill Graham Presents. The pay wasn’t great because he was only paid when he took good photos and no matter how many photos were shot he only was paid for three that would be submitted. In other words if he shot three rolls of film or a single roll Don was paid the same. To keep costs down Don would try to shoot a single roll of 35mm with 36 frames.

This gig never turned into what made him money. What Don ended up doing for money was working with performers and artists directly. Don would photograph bands, models, and actors. For artists he would photograph their work. He got quite good at documenting an artist’s work and this was because it was a very technical process.
At the time Don didn’t feel he did a very good job at interacting with or directing human subjects. He expected them to know what to do in front of the camera. Some did know what to do while others would get lost and confused. That was not the model’s fault.

Somewhere along the way Don started working at a camera shop which he later managed and then helped start California’s first digital photo printing business with help from Kodak, Apple, and business partners. Later the dot-com thing happened and Don jumped on board. He naturally settled into Information Technology work as a manager and later a Director of IT (aka Information Technology Director).
Don matured in his photography practice over the years and found his way to learning how to direct and guide subjects to achieve the best results. He’s coming back to photography and filmmaking in a fully digital world. He still has a lot of vintage 35mm and Polaroid equipment but for efficiency’s sake working fully digital is the best for clients.
