While most students spend Dead Week cramming for tests, many of Iowa State’s design students parade through the Iowa State Photo Service hunting for pictures of their final projects.

Photo Service Communications Manager Mike Haynes said “loads and loads” of projects file through Photo Service, located in the Communications Building.

The students are seeking still photos of their projects for their portfolios.

“The end of the semester is the busiest time,” Haynes said. After-hours photo appointments from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. are even booked to accomodate everyone.

Haynes said everything from 10-foot paintings, to jewelry pieces, to architectural models are photographed.

Photo Service employees say weird stuff is not uncommon. Some of the most “unique” projects include a real fly with a pin through it and a plastic quilt, said Media Production Specialist Bob Elbert.

“Each square of the quilt had a pocket and there was a piece of spoiled fruit in each pocket,” he said.

“It reeked. It smelled like fermenting fruit.”

Haynes said “carloads and truckloads of stuff come in.”

“Sometimes the students projects are so big we have to go to where the project was made to photograph it,” he said.

Haynes said due to the amount of things they have to photograph at this time of year, students have to wait 10 to 14 days to get pictures of their projects taken.

Student projects are not the only things photographed at Photo Service.

Throughout the year, photographers take pictures for faculty and staff, and for several college publications.

Photo Service uses two studios and three photographers.

“We also take pictures on location,” Elbert said. “Right now we are doing about 80 percent in studio and 20 percent on location, but that can flip-flop.”

Photo Service is open year-round. Students are charged to have their projects photographed.