Behind the Music: Rudgr – The man who captures the moments

Imagine the moment. Stood in a sea of fellow fans, waving arms in the air, as the beat prepares to drop towards a frenzy-inducing climax, somebody, somewhere, is capturing this moment forever. Sure, in 2017 it is common practice to now see festival goers with phones in the air, proud of their latest artwork as they proudly stack filter after filter on the image their camera rolls now cling to firmly. But beyond this, awaits the man taking this practice to the extreme.

Born as Rutger Geerling, the photographer also known as “Rudgr.com” is, like so many of those he snaps, originally from the Netherlands. Those with a keen ear, and in this case eye, to the industry will be no doubt familiar with his name, and more so his work. Having covered the biggest EDM festivals and club gigs in the world, his massive portfolio is only a testament to his photography skills. And his rival photographers look up to him as a father figure in the world of EDM photography.

All those magical moments you can remember. With the scent of long festival summer nights still lingering; they’ve all been captured and immortalized forever by this unsung hero of the industry. A true heavyweight of the business, Rudgr has covered the likes of Tomorrowland and Ultra Music Festival. He has worked with many of the world’s top DJ’s like Armin van Buuren, Hardwell, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, and Afrojack. His 2015 book on 20 years of dance music photography got rewarded with the prestigious Dutch Pop Media Award and he currently represents Canon as one of the few Canon Influencers.

But as he was quick to point out in an exclusive interview with We Rave You, this was a career that came about through sheer passion, more than expectation, stating:

“What started out as taking pictures for fun, during a very boring Masters study, turned into scuba-diving with sharks, having snowboarders miss me by inches (sometimes not), standing between 30,000 raving people or climbing active volcanoes while seeing the furthermost corners of the earth. The choice of doing what I loved instead of what I learned was the best decision I ever made. This is living life to the fullest!”

As part of our Behind The Music feature, We Rave You had the exclusive opportunity to sit down with EDM’s most famous photographer in the video below and find out first-hand his thoughts on the emotion in his work that Hardwell describes as “pure art”: