just an average friday night

Holy moly, Friday night eye candy. I covered the Saks Mens Fall 08 Collection runway show and party for DC Magazine last night. These guys were the crowd favourites.

How to Photograph Your Home

Apartment Therapy posted an entry with instructions on how to photograph your home. To me, their tips seem basic but I can see how it would help. I think they left out the most important tip - to use their own site, and encourage readers to reference other interior design sites or magazines for ideas. Best tip I have is to select the images you're really compelled to, and figure out how to recreate the shot. You'll teach yourself to see differently and strengthen your compositional skills.

For example, in this image, instead of shooting the sofa and windows dead on, the photographer was likely positioned at or near the corner of the rug. Just look at the lines on the ground. From this angle they were able to get a larger area of the room in the frame, and has also created some lovely leading lines.

Image from Desire to Inspire.

dc art celebrity geek weekend part 2

I totally had a DC art celebrity geek weekend. This is what happened on Sunday:

KELLY TOWLES
Sunday was Adams Morgan Day Festival, an annual event that shuts down 18th Street NW between Columbia Road and Florida Ave, and opens up with stalls filled with food, crafts, jewelery, art, and just random stuff. One highlight/lowlight of the day: street karaoke with someone singing Ashley Simpson's awesomely bad "Pieces of Me".

However, I got to joke around about how awful the singer was with none other than DC's own Banksy, Kelly Towles. I've been a major fan since he exhibited at Adamson Gallery where I used to intern. Unfortunately, I was no longer at the gallery when his stuff was there, but it was magnificent.

Since then, I've kept a cellphone photo gallery of his random street art. I so, so desperately wanted to say to him "Look! Look at all the photos I have of your stuff on my cellphone!!" but my boyfriend, catching on to the beginnings of what could best be compared to a tween reaction to The Jonas Brothers, deftly averted the conversion to Kelly and his wife's new venture, De*Nada Designs.

To my chagrin, Kelly told us that he has retired from street art and has been working full time on projects with music bands and the De*Nada clothing line (from which my loving boyfriend bought me two tees to commemorate this awesome occasion).

But, Kelly could not have picked a better time to step back from the popularity of his work. Best to step out when you're at your peak, than to fade way unremembered.

Image from Kelly's site.

dc art celebrity geek weekend part 1

I totally had a DC art celebrity geek weekend. This is what happened on Saturday:

GREG FERRAND
I finally had the opportunity to buy a Gregory Ferrand original (it's my goal to start buying originals rather than reproductions) - and not only was it an original, it was the DRAWING he uses as the blueprint to his final paintings! I first saw his work at his OCCOA exhibit, and he's also been a faithful participant of Artomatic for the past several years.

Greg's paintings are amazing. the characters, which actually look like him, are so strong and emote so much - there is an amazing range of emotions that is read in his characters. his narratives are simple and straight forward, yet graphically very strong and definately emotionally charged. My all-time favourite pieces are Backward Isn't Forward, of which the original drawing was already sold when I ran into his stall at Arts on Foot, and Brilliant Girl Faces the World. The change in style is evident between the two, the latter of which is from his earlier collection, moving from starker imagery with high contrast, to muted, diffused, and more blended color compositions.

The drawing I bought served as the basis for the painting here, My Daddy's Somebody. The strength of the horizon, use of negative space, and tension in the characters are still very evident even in the sketch.

Most of Greg's original paintings are sold out (boo) but he's gearing up for a solo exhibition at Hillyer Art Space in March 2009 (yay!). I am absolutely saving up to buy a painting - something I should have done in 2002 when I was first introduced to his work.

Image from Gregory Ferrand's website.

"A Day in the Life of Maxim.com Photo Editor"

This is kind of a cool read. I know a guy who used to date the VP of Penthouse or Playboy or something, and I was really surprised that the veep of such mags was actually a woman. Do they help keep things tasteful and respectful, or are they just as raunchy as the couch-surfing college boy? Who knows, but this article on Maxim's female photo editor makes it all seem like any other person's day at the studio.

Image © Brian Berkowitz

photo shower curtain

This is kitschy yet kind of fun - Urban Outfitters is selling a shower curtain with one of Patrick McMullan's Studio 54 shots. Buy it here.

Read the PDN post on this here.

Image from Urban Outfitters.