Altering our View

I am musing today on Applied Texture over at Mortal Muses, come by and say hello. This image was captured on our day trip to Sirmione last weekend, and I just loved the piece of the castle jutting out into the lake. Beautiful light and reflections, a reminder of an era gone by. Perfect for a little texture to age it.

I love digital photography, for the way it can alter our view. Here's the original image, before the texture. A different feel, don't you agree? Which do you like best?

Castle Views

A craggy castle on the tip of a peninsula, guarding against intruders to a land of days gone by. This castle is in Sirmione on Lake Garda, an hour and a half drive from our home here in Northern Italy. Yesterday afternoon we took a little day trip out to this town, exploring a new part of this beautiful country. Besides this wonderful castle, there is a nice pedestrian town with wonderful lake views, natural hot springs, roman ruins and the most frigid wind coming off of the lake. A perfect afternoon for some of the best gelato I've had in a while!

I love these old castles. They are so solid, so real, even today. You can tell that life was not easy in the days these castles were needed. Bare stone rooms, small spaces, dangerous stairways. The majority of the inhabitants worked long hours in difficult conditions, lived in cramped spaces without much reward other than food, shelter and protection from invading forces.

This vision is so different than our idealized version of castles with turrets and princesses with flowing dresses. I find I like the reality of these solid places better than the gilded rooms of kings and queens later in history. There is something honest and true that resonates in the bare stone, coming through the centuries to speak to me in this age. Do you feel it too?

Start Close In

A new year, a new beginning. What castles do you want to reach this year? I have my own castles, dreams that float in my heart and my head. Dreams that require plans and effort. I could set resolutions, or choose a word of the year to move toward them, but this year I decided to choose a poem.

I wrote recently about my journey, and taking the step I can see in front of me. I plan to continue with that idea in 2011, and here is the poem to inspire me along the way. It is by David Whyte from his book River Flow.

START CLOSE IN

Start close in,

don't take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don't want to take.

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way of starting

the conversation.

Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people's questions,

don't let them

smother something

simple.

To find

another's voice,

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes a

private ear

listening

to another.

Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don't follow

someone else's

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don't mistake

that other

for your own.

Start close in,

don't take

the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don't want to take.

Happy New Year! Today ends 9 Muses Musing with RESOLUTION. I hope you've enjoyed the party! Come by, link in, and see what others are planning for their year.

Shall we Play a Game?

Something to do, on these cold and rainy winter days, like today. I recently learned to play chess, from my son. I enjoy it, even though I'm not very good. This photo from Marksburg castle in the Rhine River Valley, reminds me that this is a game that has been played for centuries. I can imagine the people of medieval times in this nook in the hall, concentrating and passing the time with a game on a long winter's day. (Although in my imagination I'm guessing the people are much cleaner than they actually were.)

Today I will say to my son, "Shall we play a game?"

Enjoy your Sunday!

One Brick at a Time

Today marks my 365th blog post - one year! I've been watching the little number tick up daily on my blogger dashboard and have been marveling. I've written one year of posts. To be honest, it took me two years to get the 365 posts, but I've decided it's the number itself that counts. And since most of the posts are since I started doing the photo-a-day posts last November, it means more to me. It's since that time that I've found my voice, found my eye, found myself here in this daily blog.

It's funny, for the last couple of years, I've watched all of these people share their "Project 365" photos where they take a photo every day of the year, and I always said "I could never do that." It's wonderful to see bits and pieces of people's lives captured daily, and they have a cool record of the year when they are done. But that never interested me. Much as I love photography, I don't feel inspired to take a picture every day. I didn't have interest in a project where I would start and invariably fizzle out after a month or two. But, when I got the idea to share a picture every day, to look through my pile of photos (metaphorically speaking) and pick out the best, the ones that speak to me in some way, now that I could do.

So here I am, at post 365. How did I get here I ask myself? One day, one image, one word at a time. Just like when building something monumental, a cathedral or a castle, it's built one brick, one stone at a time. That's what it takes.

Of course, in my case I don't have a blueprint. I'm just figuring out as I go along and that seems to work. I don't have hard and fast rules for myself, like "you must post every day" or "you must post in sequential order" or "you must have a specific topic" because that would all make it feel like work. I know myself, I would work really hard to meet the self-dictated rules and then, eventually, lose all interest because I would have lost the spark that got me started. Think about it, have there been times where your self-imposed rules have run you into the ground? Do you have any right now? I'm constantly on the lookout for them anymore. I've learned those little self-imposed rules are the ones that can get in the way of following my heart, creating great things because I'm so busy with the work of following my rules.

Thanks for joining me here, thanks for reading post 365 of the Kat Eye View. A place where rules are thrown out and images and words are based on whatever inspires me that day. A place where you can participate too, answer a question, leave a comment, tell me your view. I love to hear what's going on with you! I've met some amazing people this way, through comments and blog hopping and I love it. One more thing that motivates me to keep going!

Ciao until next time, post 366...

(Image is of Rheinfels Castle, in St. Goar, Germany in the Rhine River Valley.)

Fundamental Shift

I came to a surprising realization this morning, that somewhere, sometime in the last year I have made a fundamental shift. I can see this shift in several ways...

In my photography, I have moved from the idea that I'm just capturing our travels to share with family and friends and remember later, to the idea that I'm creating art.

In this blog, I've found my voice, sharing my unique vision of the world around me and my creative journey.

In my self, I have moved from identifying myself as an engineer (my day job for the last 18 years) to identifying myself as an artist.

I am an artist.
Photography is my medium.
I have a unique vision to show the world.

Wow, that feels great to put out there. This is an exciting realization for me. I hope you continue with me on this journey, because who knows where it will lead.

(Photo is the entrance to the Marksburg Castle, outside of Braubach, Germany in the Rhine River Valley.)

The End of the Path

Do you ever embark on a journey, where you can't quite see where you will end up? You see that there is a path, there is light, but you can't quite make out the end point. That's how I feel right now in my life journey, I am walking and enjoying the path I am on, but I can't quite see the final destination. Do I care?

Do you know where your journey is taking you? Do you care?

(Photo is castle rampart in Bled, Slovenia.)

Shapes of Light

Steps of a castle entrace at the Bled Castle in Slovenia.

This is a type of photo I've noticed catches my eye, as I go through and sort photos and pick my favorites for the blog. This kind of photo I would categorize as mostly about light, shapes and patterns. I could turn this to black and white and the photo would still work and convey a similar feeling. These images are often relatively monochromatic to begin with.

This is in contrast with the other type of photo I often share, in which COLOR plays a huge role, like yesterday's soaps from Nice. Yes, light and shapes and patterns are still important in these photos, but turning them to black and white would completely lose the feel and story.

Just a little observation on my photography for today, that's what I love about doing this blog. It helps me to see things in a slightly different way!

For the Look of It

I can't imagine that these chairs are really there to sit on, but they make a fabulous image. I think they are there for the atmosphere, to complete the vintage look of Castello San Sebastiano da Po where we stayed last year. I love the textures and shapes and light in this image.

Castle Views

Since castles, the real fortress castles, were in strategic locations on defensible hills, they also have fantastic views. That was not the purpose of course, it was all about military defense, but it certainly must have been an added bonus of living there! This view is of the chapel in the Bled Castle, with the surrounding countryside. Such green beauty! I wouldn't mind living with this view every day.

Arched Entryways

This arch is an entryway into the castle ruins of Rheinfels castle in St. Goar, Germany. This is one of the medieval castles of the Rhine River Valley, and you can go inside and explore the ruins a bit. It is very cool to get an idea of what life was like in these castles, it seems like a hard life of defending your territory, cramped and not-so-sanitary living. Not as romantic as we make it out to be today!

I liked this photo because of the scale. You can see Patrick and Brandon inside the arch, and get an idea of just how big it was. They needed to be able to ride through on horseback with flags, etc. so it had to be tall. One more use of the arch, not as decorative as the Rennaisance arches in the Italian courtyards, but interesting just the same.

Always a Princess...

I can't help it, I love the castle. I'm going through my Disneyland Paris pictures now and picked out this one to share with you today. I think I photographed the Sleeping Beauty's castle every time I walked by it! But this one is one of my favorites so far, I love this one with the early morning light (yes, we were there before sun-up!) and the moon. How pretty!