For a clever and creative guy, Alfred Hitchcock seemed occasionally unsympathetic to the artistic process. He sounded pretty impatient with the quest for inspiration and said that if an actor asked about the motivation in a scene, Hitchcock would reply "your salary."

So what is the price of creative inspiration? For Vincent Van Gogh, the mental demons that led to his death also led to his masterpieces of post-Impressionism. For folk muso Bon Iver it took a nasty break-up and some long months in a log cabin to produce his pretty debut album For Emma, Forever Ago. For Sydney artists, it might cost you regular meals and time spent in Centrelink queues before you see the dollars rolling in.

The good folk at Semi-Permanent know your bank account probably ain't over-flowing. For this reason, they offer early-bird ticket prices to their annual orgasm of design delight and tomorrow is your last chance to nab one. The creative conference will take place on May 13-14, and this year's line-up makes the price of creative inspiration very acceptable indeed. Production designer Annie Sperling, typographer Seb Lester and Australian artist Reg Mombassa will have treats for the eyes, while Australian creative agency Moffitt.Moffitt and Kiwis Alt Group will nurture your brain. There's more speakers as well; I assume they will have treats for your body.

So get your early bird tickets and get excited by this guy. Photographer and fisherman Corey Arnold divides his time between capturing fish and photos. His ongoing project FISH-WORK chronicles the commercial fishing lifestyle around the world. That might not be an obvious source of creative inspiration, but they never are, are they?