Chicago & Me

Chicago & Me

We danced a little dance

of lines and curves.

Looking up, up up,

I forgot to look down,

and saw inside instead.

Saw that life

is play

and art

and travel

and friends.

Life is joy

in the moment,

seized.

A camera,

an orange umbrella

are all I need

to be happy.

City of lines and curves,

of light reflected back,

I see Me.

Forgive the random poetry, I'm reading a book of poetry right now and was inspired by the snippets of ideas strung together. These photos were taken at the Cloud Gate sculpture, aka "The Bean," in Millenium park in Chicago. It was quite empty as I walked past on my way to the Art Institute, and I couldn't resist a few self portraits with my orange umbrella. The moment just made me happy.

Colors don't Fade

One of the great things about photography, the colors you capture never fade. You can come back to your images again and again, and the colors remain the same. In the depths of winter, when life can seem monochromatic, this is a joy. Bright color is always to be found in my photo archives!

I hope you've enjoyed studying color for the last month, with the Exploring with a Camera themes of The Color Wheel, Part 1 and Part 2. From monochromatic to triadic, you all found some great color! We finish up Part 2 today, with a bit of fall complementary color I found on the Oregon Coast this weekend.

Since I'm in Chicago this week, there will be no new Exploring with a Camera tomorrow. I have a great one brewing to share with you next week, when I am back home. In the meantime enjoy some dynamic color as you visit the links shared in Part 2.

In the Interest of Color

This morning I participated in the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk, through with 1117 photo walks were planned in local communities today and tomorrow. The Corvallis photo walk was organized by one of my local photography friends, Jones Oliver. It was great to get out and meet other photographers! We had local folks from Corvallis and a few from other towns in Oregon, as well as my brother from out of state. 

I captured this image of the purple chinese eggplant and the orange peppers specifically with our current exploration of the color wheel. It's a triadic scheme, purple, orange and green, in approximately the recommended proportions. Do you think it works?

More images of the photo walk to come later! Hope you are having a great weekend.

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What's going on around Kat Eye Studio...

• The current Exploring with a Camera theme is The Color Wheel: Part 2. Check out the post and join in the exploration.
• Registration is open for Digital Photography Basics! Class starts October 16. Visit here for the details.
• Want to know what's going on in the studio? You can subscribe to the Kat Eye News to stay up-to-date on all the happenings.

Finding Color and Space

From scooter love yesterday to Burano love today. I am sharing "color" today, in honor of the wonderful Rachael Taylor who has featured me on her blog. Rachael is a surface pattern designer I met at the Do What You Love Retreat in May. Her work is beautiful and simple, and she loves bright colors, just like me. Stop by and visit her blog here to see me featured, and stick around to see her work. You will find something you love, I guarantee it. My favorite is this orange bag, which I brought home with me from the retreat. I'm so excited that it arrived with my goods from Italy, and I can start using it again. Orange Power!

I'm celebrating negative space on Mortal Muses today, so thought I would share some "space" here too. Have you stopped by and visited Mortal Muses lately? There's been a lot of change! We celebrated our first year at the beginning of August and now have five lovely new muses bringing their beautiful images and words your way. I have always loved how having nine different people working together creates a place of such beauty and diversity, and that has not changed. I hope you will join us there.

PS - Don't miss the giveaway on yesterday's post, there is still time to enter.

A New Day, A New Outlook

A new day has dawned, and my outlook has changed from fearful to ready to take on the world. Thank you all for the support and encouragement provided on yesterday's post! It's good to know that I am not alone, when those attacks of fear come along. So much wisdom and encouragement was shared yesterday, and I know it was meant for more than just me. The comments were filled with messages that we can all take to heart.

Here are just a few:

Diana said... I agree that fearlessness has to keep being relearned. (for me, too) Taking small steps takes energy and letting fear take over halts any progress forward.

Cheryl said... Fear does paralyze and then we begin to fade. Fortunately, we can reverse the fading and renew ourselves. New chapters in life mean new challenges and that is a wonderful process.

Gina said... Yep, you hit a chord here....being fearful is something we all have to fight. It does get easier as you age because you realize you want to make the most of the time left. Better to take the risk than live with regret. 

Gilly said... I think we all feel fear a lot of the time and about a lot of things, and we have this idea that there are all these successful, competent people out there who never feel that way. It isn't true, of course, but often the scariest thing is simply to allow ourselves to be who we really are.

There are so many more too! You can read all of the comments here. I am so lucky to have such wonderful friends online!

Today though, a break from crab pots! Even I, with my current love for them, can't do three days in a row. I also found inspiration in this view of a fishing boat in Newport, capturing the reflected light, color and lines of the nautical world. While the paint was fresh and clean, the boat couldn't hide the evidence of the effects of the sea. Textures abound. That's my eye!

Do you know your eye? Find Your Eye registration is now open for the September-October series, if you want to find out. I think opening registration today has influenced my outlook for the better as well - I'm so excited to do this again! I am having so much fun with the current series going on right now.

Learning for today: Excitement and fun are great ways to overcome fear too.

Deeper than the Eye

The heart sees deeper than the eye.
- Found on my Yogi tea bag Friday

Inspiration... sometimes elusive, other times abundant. As a creative person, I'm always aware of my sources of inspiration. It comes from the reading I do, the playing in my craft. It comes from exploring the world around me. Inspiration is everywhere.

Let me repeat: Inspiration is everywhere.

This weekend, inspiration was found in crab pots sitting along the bayfront in the coastal town of Newport, Oregon. Aren't the colors and textures just amazing? I spent quite a while exploring the crab pots with my camera. A few years ago I took one picture of a stack of pots in this town, and for some reason that image popped into my head before my excursion. I was on the hunt for crab pots.

During my hunt I found a number of other things... some interesting texture, brought on by the salt water and proximity of the ocean. I found interesting colors, from the quaint buildings to the stacks of containers in the fish processing warehouses. I found interesting contrasts, in the people working in the processing plants in their rubber boots and the tourists in their flip flops. I found inspiration in the process of taking pictures, with three new Exploring with a Camera ideas coming to me. Thank goodness for my little notebook and pen, always with me in my camera bag.

Most of all, I found a deeper truth, finally understood with my heart instead of just my head. My inspiration comes from the process of creating my art. It is found when I am out and about, hunting for photos. Seeing the world through my viewfinder and lens. Translating something that just catches me out of the corner of my eye into something that is beautifully presented. It is the process of photography -- of exploring, capturing and then making those little tweaks in post-processing to perfect an image -- that matters to me. It is the process of creating that is the whole point to all of this artistic stuff. Sitting at home, inspiration doesn't come for me. It takes getting out and doing.

For some reason, a year ago or more, I had this idea that I would move back to Oregon and still share mostly photos of Europe on my blog. I have gazillions of photos from my two years of living in Italy on my hard drive - many unedited and just crying out for review. Who knows, I might even have ones I like better than my favorites hidden in the folders. So I've had this idea stuck in my head, that's what I would do... Edit my photos from the last two years and continue share them here. For some reason, I thought it was Italy and Europe that was inspiring me photographically, and that just the sharing of the images would be inspiration enough to carry me a good long while.

Not true. I know now: It's the creative process itself that inspires me. What living temporarily in Italy did was get me out regularly with my camera, to new places. It exposed me to new and different things. It got me out and doing. It got me writing and sharing. Trying new things, like painting. Once I was doing all of that, the rest took care of itself.

Inspiration is everywhere I go, because it's found within me. 

That lesson, learned with my heart this weekend, may be the most important one I've learned to date. I hope you can take it to heart too.

Linking in to Creative Exchange and Creative Every Day today.

The Return-from-Vacation Conundrum

So, I'm back from vacation. Back to the normal routine. Here I sit on a Monday morning, debating the ways to approach this week, where I have a lot to do after two weeks away... Do I jump in with both feet, and just try to get as much done as possible? Or do I ease myself into it, focusing on the priority things and let the rest slide? How do you approach this situation?

My tendency is to jump in and work to get everything done, but that can stress me out. (Case in point - I couldn't shut my brain off last night and didn't get a good night's sleep.) I think I'll try the second option, since "easing" sounds so much nicer, but I'm not sure how I'll do at that. I guess we'll see as the week progresses.

Today's second question: Where in the world is this photo from? Do you think it's from Europe or the USA? Answer tomorrow!

Linking in to Creative Every Day and The Creative Exchange today.

Orange Power

Imagine my joy: On Saturday, while wandering the streets of Milan for a last time, I found another image for my market/wheels series. And not only that, but the scooter is my "power color" - Orange! What luck!  I find orange to be an energetic color, full of life. For some reason, when I use the color orange, in my art, on my blog or in my clothes, it gives me courage. Courage to be different, to stand out, to be myself. Courage to share the "Kat Eye View." This discovery has sort of happened organically over the last year, and now I love anything orange. So I couldn't help but enjoy this scene immensely. Thank you, Italy, for another wonderful gift.

How about you? Do you have a power color? How did it come about? I would love to hear your story too!

A Conversation between Summer and Winter

Summer leaned in to Winter and whispered, "Watch out, I'm catching up to you."

Winter answered, "I know, but right now, I'm still front and center. You are yet a memory of seasons past and a wish for the future."

We discovered the Four Seasons, all together, during Venice Carnevale. I liked the side conversation captured between Summer and Winter the best. 

There is a lot going on here on my blog right now:

- Don't miss the giveaway I have going on, hop on over to enter.

- Did you notice the square format of today's photo? As always, my current Exploring with a Camera theme influences my work. Come visit and see all of the square format images so many wonderful photographers are sharing.

- If you missed it, I did an interview for Diana Mulder's blog on Sunday. Stop by to say hi and see her beautiful paintings as well!

The Truth about Carnevale

Carnevale in Venice sounds magical, doesn't it? The pageantry, the history, the color in an amazing setting. That's what comes through in the images, isn't it?

Here's the truth about Carnevale in Venice...

It's all a big show for tourists and photographers. I have never seen so many big lenses in one place. Near Piazza San Marco, where the best costumes were found, it was like Disneyland. Disneyland in peak season with no crowd control. Instead of parents pushing and shoving to get photographs of kids with characters, it's big lens photographers pushing and shoving to get the best angle on the mask. Those in the masks, the seriously gorgeously costumed people, worked it for all it was worth and even had business cards to give to those with the biggest of the big lenses.

Here's a quick glimpse at the image those photographers were trying to get. There is probably a much better composition on this, I just didn't feel like pushing and shoving my way in to get it.

This is not my kind of photography, not my Venice.

I am forced to admit, Venice is a place that pretty much exists for tourists any more. It is a gorgeous, fascinating place with such a rich history. In some ways it is sad that it has been reduced to this to survive. In some ways I am glad, because otherwise this wonderful place would just be allowed to sink into the lagoon.

Carnevale is part of Venice's amazing history, maybe one of the biggest draws by the number of masks you see for sale in shops and crowds on this one day alone. It is incredible to see the costumes. I am glad we went, and I'm glad it was for only one day. I'm glad Carnevale was not my only experience with Venice, there is so much more to it than masks. I have more very cool images to share in coming days, but even as I share them I want you to know the truth behind them. It's not as magical as it seems.

Pieces of the Puzzle

In the last day, I learned something new. Another piece of the puzzle that is me, my creativity, my art fell into place. I started to see how the exploration of other art provides insight into my own. Influences my own. Directly.

In September, during my solo weekend trip to Paris, I recognized that I was really drawn to colorful abstract paintings. In a post on that observation, I wrote:

What does this mean for my art, my view of the world? What does the appeal of color and form and abstraction tell me? I don't know now, but I do know it will show up in some way.

Well, here it is, in the form of the colorful abstract images I captured in Burano a couple of weeks ago. My desire to capture color for color's sake, the interest in the color and form as the primary elements of the photograph.

I've known for some time, that seeing art in its various forms has been a huge influence on me during my time for Italy. I've known that this is an important part of my creative journey. I've just never recognized the direct link between the two like this - the viewing/observation of an interest in other art and then the relationship to it in my own.

I think many people believe that my creative inspiration is all Italy. "Of course your photography is beautiful/great/improving, you're in Italy!" I hear. But I know that's not true. Being in Italy has helped me for sure, but only because it's caused me to take an active role in exploring and observing and creating, and then learning from it all.  I believe that you can too, no matter where you are in the world.

Some Mornings

Are just about the picture. Have a great day!

Real Life Still Life

Everyday, we walk by countless places that people live in, work in, shop in, play in. We don't even see these places most of the time, they are just part of the background noise of our every day lives. The good thing about travel is that it makes you more aware of what's around you, you are open, receptive and seeking. You are actively seeing what is someone else's background noise, what they don't even notice anymore. The little details of real life that are fantastic still life compositions, if we just notice them.

This real life still life was found in a back alley in Murten, Switzerland. My son and I were wandering around the town on our guidebook walking tour, and I caught this flash of blue in the corner of my eye. Not one to miss out on a possible color photo opportunity, we headed down the alley to investigate and found this wonderful little place, where someone had clearly set this scene up with artistic intent. I loved taking pictures here, but this is my favorite of them all, because it just shows the whole scene as created by the artist.

How many people do you think see this, being tucked into a back alley? How many of those people don't even notice it anymore, as part of the background noise in their everday life? It's a good thought to ponder as we go through our everyday. See if you can find a real life still life, accidental or intentional, in your background noise. You don't have to take a picture, just notice it. It takes active looking, an awareness that requires to you be in the moment. You can't be thinking about where you are going, what tasks you need to get done next.

I think you might find it a refreshing, positive experience. And you may find you enjoy the places you go, the things you see every day, just a little bit more. Let me know how it goes.

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So excited, today is my first post over at Mortal Muses! We are currently musing on Reflections. You all know that's a favorite subject of mine. :)  And come back tomorrow for a new Exploring with a Camera -  I can't wait to share it with you! It's a good week, all around.

Italian Design

Ooooh, what is this beautifully wrapped box? Dont't you just love the colors? The idea of "Made in Italy"? Don't you just want to keep the box all neatly wrapped? I certainly do.

This is a gift from Brandon and Patrick, a bit early for Valentine's Day. I have found this Italian company, Campo Marzio Design, that creates professional, office-type items - folders, bags, pens in bright colors and fun designs. So much of what is available here is available in the US that it is fun to find a company that is pretty unique and not gigantic and well known yet.

I had wanted to get a pen but didn't want to spend the money, just told them it was a gift idea for someday. Probably less than two weeks later, they came home with this box. They wanted me to open it right away but I couldn't. I had to wait and take some pictures first. :) The packaging is so pretty!
The little scroll inside tells about the craftmanship of the pens, refills, etc. It has both Italian and English, the funny part about it is that the English is a very literal translation of the Italian, which of course is quite awkward. I love it.Patrick and Brandon did a great job of picking out a pen design that I love. Patrick was a bit disappointed that I didn't want to rip open the packaging and use it right away, but it's because I needed to savor and enjoy the whole package. It magnified the gift, it's so pretty! So, to Patrick and Brandon I say:

Merry Christmas!

Holiday Reflections

The window displays are gorgeous here in Italy! I loved this creative and beautiful display in one of the shop windows in Torino. I don't even remember what they were selling, but the display was memorable. Things are all decked out for the holidays here, extra colorful and glittery and festive. A bright spot in the dark and cold of winter.

We got a good snowstorm yesterday afternoon and evening, causing all sorts of problems trying to get home but we made it safe and sound. I need to get out today and get into the snow for some new pics while it lasts, it's supposed to turn to rain later this week. I asked for snow, and I got it!

Complementary Color

This picture has been popping up in my brain a lot to post, so I figure I just need to get it up here! This is from the back streets of Burano, one of the islands that is part of Venice, my favorite island of the ones I've visited. It's all about the color here. The identical houses are all painted different bright colors, so that the fisherman could find their way home from a distance as they were coming in from the sea.

The color is fantastic. I like this photo because of the way the complementary color scheme just brings the eye right to the focal point of the laundry. It's a sneak peek into the back streets and the every day lives of the people who live on this little island. I think they actually color coordinate the laundry they hang out, so that it is visually appealing.

I hope to someday see Burano in the sun. My two visits so far have been on overcast days and I just want to see the difference the sun makes. Someday...