In center and up close, new acquaintances or best friends, Ken Quemuel weaves together the different characters that crosses his path using a pair of plastic sunglasses. His ongoing series, Look Like A Dork, is shot entirely in film and frames each set of eyes in the same tortoise aviators. To know a bit more about the man behind the lens, I asked him a few questions and this is what he had to say:
LMN: Who are you and what do you do?
KQ: My name is Siik, or Ken, and i am a designer/animator for motion graphics. (i also dj and stuff http://siik.org/)
LMN: When did you begin your “Look Like A Dork” project and why?
KQ: I started it February 2009, unknowingly really. I just shot my friend while we were eating dinner and when I got it developed I thought it looked pretty funny, so I started bringing it everywhere I went and getting friends to put them on. Soon I started getting people asking me to shoot them, and it just started getting bigger and bigger.
LMN: What has shooting these “dorks” taught you?
KQ: That when people look off camera to appear dramatic, it’s almost always to the left! And that girls always want a reshoot.
LMN: Why use film?
KQ: I like not knowing what my shot looks like until I get it developed, instant gratification is overrated. Plus I don’t have to photoshop it up – the nature of whatever film i use will make the pic look pretty awesome already.
LMN: Who/What are you current inspirations?
KQ: Hmm as far as photography? I browse flickr a lot but never pay attention to names, I just fave and click over and over.. but I do pay a lot of attention to medium format/6×6 images, I enjoy looking at those a great deal.
LMN: Do you have any other ongoing or future projects you’d like to share with us?
KQ: My friend Jeff in Jawaii wants to start a photo blog based on the premise that we both have Canon AE-1′s. I also try to travel every 6 months and shoot the whole time i’m on vacation, so i’ll have a new london set after this new year.
Click here to see the rest of the Look Like A Dork Series.
