Whether it's with a three-thousand dollar DSLR or the simplicity of an iPhone, we all have some way of capturing those most memorable and not so memorable moments in our lives. In the ever-growing electronic dance music scene, photography and the ability to share your work via social media has risen to new heights. But when everyone and their mother is armed with some means of photographic recording, images often loose meaning through shear number. So what makes those singular "great" images great? Sure, being first always helps, but it's the uniqueness, quality of work, and passion that will get you the greatest insight and access to the world around you. And that's what Jon Brandon Cruz and Alexander Jacob (Cruz + Jacob) did. These two gentleman have been using their passion and skill for the couple of years to shoot some of the biggest name in the EDM industry.
Their recent short, entitled "No Credentials" (2013), takes us inside the world of EDM photographers and sheds some light on what goes on behind the flashy lights, CDJ setup, and the hundreds of people who make festivals like Ultra, happen. While in a similar vein to Kerslake's "Electric Daisy Carnival Experience" (2011), "No Credentials" focuses on the dark pits and on-stage passes of the festival photographer. In addition to providing behind-the-scenes footage of Curz and Jacob's festival experiences, the film features industry entrepreneurs, Kirill Bichutsky, Cesar Sebastian, Rukes and Mikhail Mehra, who discuss their thoughts on the evolving media landscape and its relationship with what the EDM scene has come to be.
No Credentials is a film about the phenomenal intersection of photography and electronic music. We've spent the last few years documenting electronic dance culture and we felt it was time to pull the curtain back on the entire scene in an unprecedented way.
