Reckless Abandonment

Since abandoning necklace making, community gardens, and drumming, you'd think I'd have plenty of time to blog. But I have abandoned that too. Here are the things taking up my free time instead: taking pictures, pro bono design projects, and making copious amounts of crock pot food. When it went from 85 degrees to a brisk 80 here in San Diego, I put on my warmest sweater and got a hankering for hot stew. I should take pictures of these concoctions, bringing my current loves together, to be abandoned at a later date.

In the mean time, I will share with you some of my recent photo and design endeavors.

My friend Jason (producer of the not-ubiquitous Secret Life of Spiders) asked me to do the artwork for his band's first CD. I have long been obsessed with macro photography featuring miniature people, so I thought I'd give that a shot for this project. I went to the model train store, acquired some tiny things, and rented a macro lens. Here are some of the results:



To see the entire set, go here.

I was also recently asked to help a friend polish up a poster for a play he had written. Initially, I was just supposed to take photos of the existing components for the poster, which consisted of some hand-written lettering and many dismembered doll parts, (my specialty) and sort of clean it up. Instead, I steamrolled the project and rebuilt the whole thing. Because I am a control freak. But I had so much maniacal fun doing it.



And then, just when I thought I had run out of things to do, my old friend Stacy asked me to design the CD artwork for his steel drum band, Tobago Bay. This project is still pending, and I'm not sure I nailed the right cover for them yet. But what we have so far involved a photo shoot, a suitcase, and a fake airplane ticket:



(With special thanks to my pal Tawnya for all of her photo shoot assistance.)

Some other creative things come from the wedding of my good friends Tone and Melissa, who were joyously married on October 17th. First, I had the honor of doing their wedding invites, using a design borrowed from Martha Stewart's Super Rad Weddings You Can't Afford Magazine. It was a lot of fun to create, and we were very happy with the way it turned out:

On the wedding day itself, I wanted to capture some magic moments, and maybe get a feel for what wedding photography is like. Unfortunately, I am lacking the proper equipment. But with my pee-wee built-in flash and slightly decrepit Nikon, I pushed onward.

This is my favorite shot from that day, and as Melissa said, it captures their relationship beautifully:


Yes, that is the groom in the background, daintily enjoying a delicious chocolate cupcake provided by the Burger Lounge.

I really love the look of high-key photography, which I know nothing about. I found a Photoshop tutorial intended to produce that effect, and tried it out on this photo of one of the wedding attendants:


I think it's blown-out and lacking in detail, but I love the dramatic effect on the eyes.

Thanks for making it to the end of this lengthy update. I hope to have more photography efforts and creative projects to share with you soon.