Today Lila and I were talking about still life / product photography for a project she’s doing. I was sending her some of my favorite quirky things I’ve found and saved, when she pointed me to David Sykes. I’ve seen a few of his pieces before, but never had a name or website to attach to the work. Seeing the rest got me into a conversation with Kelsey about how I like really GRAPHIC photography, and she, naturally, feels the same way about illustration.

So, I decided to share some of today’s inspiration:

The Art Center Burnout™ is a cold hard fact of life. From the innocent and naive view of a first termer, two and a half years straight through is a cake walk. For anyone not familiar with the system, Art Center goes by 14 week terms, year round. In the very beginning they tell you it takes 8 to graduate—three terms a year equals two and a half years of creatively stimulated bliss. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

As it turns out, everyone is lying to you through their teeth. Pesky little things like car crashes and needing to sleep every once in a while seem to make this task nearly impossible (although a few have done it). After the traumas of last term there was no question about my particular level of burnout. But this term was supposed to be better. With the theme of Just Make it Pretty, I set it up so that I wouldn’t have too many classes that required me to go on a brainbender. But alas, my work has still been mediocre, forced, and probably pretty boring. When did design become like pulling teeth?

I thought I was a design machine—that sleep was unnecessary and having to do it made me weak. Things like going to bed or taking the afternoon off are simply unacceptable, and when I inevitably succumb to one of these earthling tasks I beat myself up. The problem is, when you live with this attitude for too long, your body will eventually start to hate you. Everyone has a breaking point, and mine seems to be right around now. I took an internship after my fourth term, and planned to do another one in the fall as “breaks”. You would think that I would understand at 40 hours a week working in Beverly Hills or New York City isn’t exactly R&R, but remember, I’m a design machine.

Let it be known here and now, I am not a machine. Turns out, something had to give, and it was looking a lot like my sanity was going to be the first casualty. With two terms of classes left to graduate, boring and mediocre just don’t cut it. I need inspiration, rejuvenation, and little bit of sleep god dammit—or my graduating portfolio is going to look just as tired as I do.

So, here’s the plan:

I’m going to spend my summer term living in this:

Working for these people (two Art Center alums) on a little project called HOERAG (more on that later), doing an independent study (including a lot of photography and writing) with this guy, and maybe eating a few of these:

Edison, Washington is a town of 133 people (yes, that’s even less than my alma mater, the world’s smallest highschool) where my parents own 40 acres of farmland. It’s a quirky artist’s enclave surrounded by miles and miles of agriculture. It doesn’t get much more rural than Skagit County (population density 59 people per square mile). They have promised me a few chickens, a few farm responsibilities, and all the peace and quiet I can possibly handle. I’m even going to trade work for vegetables and ride my bike everywhere. How much more idyllic and quaint can life possibly be?

Now if I can just survive the next three weeks…

FINALLY FINISHED!!!

Okay, almost. Jeez.

Click to make it bigger–more when I finish finish, and when it’s not 3:45am.

Here’s looking at you, projectors.

If I had to pick two things to only eat for the rest of my life, they would be frozen yogurt and pho.

Editorial is in a room where they also hold a Drawing Concepts class. This is a snake.

Blood.

Brains.

Kelsey drew this picture of my cat in a coffee cup in another late night Winchell’s expedition.

When Kelsey and I stay up late working, we occasionally make midnight donut runs to the Winchell’s near her house.

And donuts displays fit into modular dreams very well.

These are my birthday shoes from Angeline Tournier in London.

I call this one “floral bag, out of focus”

Sean teaches the chillins about oldstyle numerals and when to use them.

A riveting Communication Design 4 critique. Obviously the TA’s job is to look for photo-ops.

Sometimes you find broccoli in the weirdest places.

This weekend I took a little field trip to the famed Rose Bowl Flea Market to get some props for my Editorial project. I’ve been hearing about this monthly event since I moved here, but never thought much of it or had the time. Turns out it’s GIGANTIC. I was on a deadline so I didn’t get to browse like I wanted to, but hopefully next time I’ll get a chance to do some serious treasure hunting.

The flea market is held in the parking lots surrounding the famous stadium. Cars and gates and police officers are everywhere. It’s $8 to get in, but a lot cheaper than a day at Disneyland.

I acquired two plastic steeds to photograph for class (post coming soon), and used the rest of my energy taking pictures of nick nacks.

The collections of weird things were astounding. Here you can see an assortment of scissors of various lengths. Some other highlights included a box of sheriff badges and a whole booth devoted to vintage Playboys.

I want–nay I NEED this gold chair. Doesn’t everyone?

Too bad my house is already decorated to the gills–some of these little chotchkies would fit right in.

More adventures, more pictures. Today Lila and I went to Port Townsend where it was cold and touristy.

One of the things I’ve noticed about Western Washington this time of year, is that the light is always really gorgeous (when it’s sunny, like it has been). This is wonderful and annoying, in equal parts. Let me explain. From 8:30ish (when it gets light) to 1:00, the light says “Hi, I’m early morning.” From 1:00 to 4:00 (when it sadly gets dark) it says “Hi, I’m evening.” Basically, the sun is too lazy to get very high up in the sky this far north. This is confusing because if you wake up sometime in the very late morning (as I admittedly have been known to do from time to time), and the sun says to you, “Hi, I’m early morning,” as we just discussed, it easy to become severely disoriented. And then by 4:00 you feel like getting back in bed again. All I’m saying is I never seem to be able to pinpoint the time of day, even within a six-hour range. Combined with the right lens, however, it can really make nice photography a no-brainer. Consider:

These are some pictures I took around the homestead when I was playing with my new lens. Welcome to the farm!

Clooney in utter shock.

Cinnamon Stix airing out.

I like to take pictures, and Harley (my stepfather) likes to give me lenses. It’s a great little system we’ve worked out, and this visit home was an excellent opportunity to expand my collection. The last few years have brought me a macro and a wide angle lens, so it only seemed logical to add a zoom this time around. Harley wrapped up one of his old ones, offering to let me try out the different settings and then choose what kind I would like him to get me. After establishing that it would be more fun to take a lens that had been with him to war and back (Harley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who worked for the Seattle Times for 22 years), I found myself faced with this assortment, with the instruction to “pick one.”

Okay, the one on the bottom right is (already) my wide angle, but of course I choose the biggest.

Because it’s not about how big your lens is, it’s how you use it it’s about how big your lens is. This telephoto has been to Bosnia and was seized by the military when Harley was arrested in Croatia, among other things. This lens has serious street cred. Plus I can take pictures of things that are really far away, use it to spy on people, and it makes me look pretty pro when I carry it around.

Look for the product of this new photography development in future posts.

One of my new favorite things is taking pictures with my Zumi, a teeny tiny Japanese digital camera. I found it on Photojojo, a fun photography blog / resource that proclaims to have “the best photo tips, DIY projects, and gear in the whole wide world.” Their sense of humor is my favorite part. Just read their description of this little bundle of (camera) joy:

Missed connection: you and your creativity

It’s time you realize that there are other cameras in the sea — like the Zumi Digital. True, she’s no megapixel marvel. She has no interest in aperture or telephoto zoom. She doesn’t even have a legitimate viewfinder …

But if you were to take the Zumi on a date to the movies, she’d pick a documentary over a romcom. Then she’d bring her own snacks, laugh at your dumb jokes, and make all the first moves.

You see, the Zumi has been carefully crafted to take digital images and videos that have the look and feel of vintage film (lens flare, vignetting and all). Her “perfectly flawed” processing chip combined with a macro setting makes digital 8MM magic — so your everyday life look like an art house flick.

The Zumi is unusual, unpredictable, oh-so inspiring and fits in the palm of your hand. So it’s probably about time you and your DSLR had a “talk”.

You’ve seen my Zumi pictures whether you know it or not. Many of my photo-a-day shots (also on flickr here) can be attributed to my “spy camera” (as many of my friends call it), which comes everywhere with me. With my big/fancy DSLR I can get perfect high-res pictures whenever I feel like lugging around a giant piece of metal (more on that later), so it’s extra fun to have this tiny pocket pal for when I just want snapshots with a little pizazz.

After such great Zumi luck, I decided to follow Photojojo’s advice again, when they advertised a new SLR adapter for the Diana+ lenses by lomography:

You’ve got libraries full of flawless, uber professional, kick-ass magazine worthy photographs.

But despite the hundreds of dollars spent on whotzits and whatzits galore you’ve hit an artistic dead end.

Don’t fret photo friend! Even Thomas Kinkade gets tired of glowy lamp posts and elfish villages. You’re in a rut! And unlike Kinkade, you’ve got no mass produced art revenue to fall back on.

You do, however, have something far more reputable, The Dreamy Diana lens!

It’s a lovely plastic lens that transforms your beloved hunk of metal and glass into a digital toy camera. Yesiree you can now get that lovable Lo-fi “technology” on your digi cam from Lomography’s series of Diana plastic cameras.

Dianas are known for their low saturation, soft surreal blurs, and unpredictable colors.

Simply attach the plastic lens and its adapter directly onto your SLR’s body (Nikon or Canon) and shoot away. With one part Diana camera (old school lo-fi plastic) and one part modern DSLR you’ve got yourself one mighty fine recipe for unconventionally amazing photographs.

Finally! A way re-invent your style while kicking it digital with the hip kids and their plastic cams. (And for future reference, Thomas Kinkade = not hip).

But alas, my pictures look NOTHING like the examples they have on their site (below). I guess I’ve got a lot of experimenting to do.