Kat Eye Studio

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Why We Need Art


I was so excited last weekend, visiting the Saturday Market here in town. I found the first American image for my market/wheels series! Yay!

When I applied the standard “seventies” processing used in the series to the image, I got chills. I had this amazing realization. This series transcends place and time. All over the world, farmers are bringing their delicious wares to markets on wheels. They always have, they always will. I can go anywhere in the world, anywhere, and find images for this series. I could be in the middle of rural China or my little town of Corvallis and I will find a market. In the market, I guarantee I will find wheels. Within this commonality, I can see the differences too. The unique elements that tell the viewer where I am.

This is why we need art. Art is a way to equalize. Artists find connections, and commonalities. We speak in a language that transcends words. Anyone, anywhere in the world can identify with a piece of visual art. It can move us, bring us together in a way that nothing else can. 

And each of us, with our unique vision of the world, has something to offer that conversation. Whether it’s with a camera or a paintbrush or pieces of glass. Each individual point of view adds depth and dimension to the world we live in. We share our differences, and in the process, find the similarities between us. Don’t you think, if the everyone in the world participated in the conversation this way, the world would be a better place? I think so. I hope you’re joining in too.

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What’s going on around The Kat Eye View of the World…

  • Linking in to Paint Party Friday today, with these two works in progress started this week. I’m loving the colors! I’m picking up some new liquid acrylics in similar colors tomorrow at our new art supply store in town. (Check out the bottom of the page – I’m featured!!) I can’t wait to play with the new colors, and see where they go next.
  • The current Exploring with a Camera theme is The Color Wheel: Part 1. Check out the post and join in the exploration. 
  • Do you want find your unique vision of the world through photography? Registration for the fall series of the Find Your Eye e-course is open! Visit here for more info.
  • You can subscribe to the Kat Eye News to stay up-to-date on all the happenings.

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Meet the Scooter

I would like to introduce you to my scooter. I know, you’ve heard about it more than once (here and here), but it hasn’t had a proper photographic debut on my blog until now. Ta-da!!

This morning I rode it downtown on a photographic excursion, so I had both the scooter and my camera together for the first time. They were instant friends, can you tell? The scooter and camera will be having more play dates in the future. Watch this space.

I don’t know why I seem to be using seventies processing on all of my scooter pics lately, but that is how I see them. Maybe it’s the retro styling of the scooter, but who really knows. I’m having fun, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

I hope you are having fun on this lovely Sunday too!

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What’s going on around The Kat Eye View of the World…

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Scooter Love in the Pacific NW – and GIVEAWAY!!

Who would have thought it! I went to Portland (1.5 hours north) on Saturday with a friend to see the traveling production of Mamma Mia. After the show we headed to the Northwest section of the city and what did we run across? Vespa scooters. Not one, not two… Seven in all. Seven!! I was in scooter heaven! Especially this one, parked in an empty garage against a textured wall in some moody light. It was calling my name. Luckily, I had my little Canon PowerShot with me to answer the call.

Someday, I will have a red Vespa scooter. And I will park it in front of every texture-y wall I can find to take pictures. Until then, I will take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way to live vicariously through taking photos of someone else’s red Vespa.  And I can do this in Portland. Who knew?

What a weekend though! Not only was there fabulous scooter love to be found, but we received our container from Italy. Yay! Early Saturday morning, the truck pulled up and there was the container waiting to be unloaded. All sealed and packed, just as it was as it left from our apartment on Via Matteotti. That means, however, that our lives are in disarray again. The semblance of order and routine we had been able to create for a few weeks is once again dismantled as we unpack boxes and try to figure out how to fit everything in to our house. Our house in the US and our apartment in Italy were the same size in square feet/meters, but there was so much more storage in the Italian apartment. Add the belongings that were in storage in the US to the items we collected over two years in Italy, and you have the makings of one gigantic garage sale in a few weeks. First priority is to get to the point I can walk through the house without tripping over anything though!

On top of that, the Liberate Your Art postcard swap blog hop was going on. So fun! I had such a great time hopping around, seeing where the art ended up. It provided a much needed break from the unpacking. The swap turned out better than I imagined, and the blog hop was a blast. I can’t wait to do the swap again in 2012!!

Until then, I have tons going on around here…

  • Find Your Eye registration is open for the September-October class series! I’ll be running Starting the Journey and the all-new Journey of Inspiration. Right now the August class, Journey of Recognition, is going on and has it been fantastic. I couldn’t ask for a better group of participants. I love doing this!
  • We are exploring Night Photography in Exploring with a Camera. I had forgotten how much I love taking photos at night! I hope you will join us and link in before Wednesday. You can still get the Night Photography Camera Companion if you sign up for the newsletter too. I’m sending a “catch up” newsletter to all new subscribers this week so that new subscribers don’t miss out.
  • You still have a few more days to catch Superhero Summer Camp too. Sign up for this fun and free six-week class closes on August 31. 
  • And finally – in honor of the seven Vespas of Portland – how about a GIVEAWAY!! My first one on US soil. I am going to give away a set of my new “Classic Italian Transport” postcards to one lucky reader, and a Vespa mousepad to another.

I will draw for the postcards on Wednesday morning when I write my blog post, from the comments left on this post. Let’s make it fun, you can have more than one entry. How about a whole bunch of entries!! Leave a separate comment for each of the following:
1. Just to say hi!
2. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook
3. If you are a newsletter subscriber
4. If you have registered for a Find Your Eye course (past or present) 
Good Luck!

Linking in to Creative Every Day and Creative Exchange, as always. Happy Monday! 

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Playing with Night

Since we’re exploring Night Photography right now, I had a couple of photos from my recent trip to Venice open to edit. Usually for night photos I do very little editing – cropping and a tiny bit of levels adjustment. I like the light of night as is. Looking at this one though, I started to see some “vintage” opportunities. There is just so much going on here, the store windows, the alleyway, the signs… not to mention the interesting light — it’s very well illuminated for night. I played around with some conversions and really like this one using Pioneer Woman’s Heartland action. Couldn’t this be from the 60’s? With the exception of a couple of modern details, I bet it could. I liked the photo before, I love, love, love it now.

It’s so much fun to do this type of play! I hope you are out exploring with your camera this weekend, staying up late and catching the night light. Maybe playing around with some edits, to see what happens. It’s all fun! Tomorrow the Night Photography Camera Companion will be sent in my newsletter too – yay! I’m so excited to send this, and I hope it helps you get some great night shots. Keep exploring the night!

PS – If you don’t know what a Camera Companion is, you can visit this post or sign up for the newsletter here – you’ll get the Basic Composition Camera Companion as a gift for signing up.

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The Next in the Series

OK, here it is. The third in the series I showed you yesterday. This is another image found on the streets of Parma. I’m toying with calling this series “Classic Italian” but we’ll have to see how it forms up. So far, it seems to be classic red vehicles on the streets of Italy near some sort of grocery crates. I don’t know if that will hold, but who would have thought I would have three of these? We’ll see what I find next week, when we visit Sicily.

The Exploring with a Camera: Breaking the Rule of Thirds link is now closed. The winner of the “C is for Camera” journal is Michelle, who goes by Pixie Dreams on Flickr. Congrats Michelle! Thanks so much to all who linked in, it was great to see all of these wonderful images. Don’t forget to visit Tammy Lee Bradley at Bliss and Folly to see who won the Vintage Camera trio.

Come back tomorrow for the next Exploring with a Camera post, this week we’re going to Capture the Sky!

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The Birth of a Series

Walking down a side street in Parma a couple of weekends ago, I happened on this lovely scooter. Of course I had to stop and photograph it, trying out several angles and compositions. Good thing it was a pedestrian zone, as I kneeled in the street for quite some time waiting for people to walk by so I could have an empty sidewalk. Every so often a scene like this will grab me, and not let go until it has its way with me. I’m always content to just follow the photographic muse when that happens.

When I got home, realization dawned on me. This image is the second in a series. Even though I didn’t plan it, the photo is a perfect complement to Where Fiats Retire, an image from Sorrento I shared a couple of months ago. Similar processing (read below for details) and I was good to go.

I’ve never had this happen before, an image come along months later that so perfectly pairs with an earlier shot. And not just any previous shot, a favorite. I loooooove that Fiat shot. Guess what? I looked through my images and there is another shot in the series, which I’ll share tomorrow. I wonder how many more are hidden there? Will they start appearing to me more often?

I guess this is how a series is born. I had no idea!

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A quick reminder – today is the last day to link in to Exploring with a Camera: Breaking the Rule of Thirds. Tomorrow morning I’ll draw for the winner of my giveaway as will Tammy at Bliss and Folly. Take a look at all of the wonderful images shared and be sure to link yours in too!

Photo processing in Photoshop Elements 8:
1. Cropped out some distracting info on the right edge.
2. Ran Pioneer Woman Seventies Action.
3. Added a Hue/Saturation Layer, and increased Hue to +5 and Saturation to +16 to increase the color of the  scooter back a little bit brighter.
4. The wall behind the scooter was too similar in color to the scooter, competing for attention. I added another Hue/Saturation Layer with Saturation set to -27, and used a layer mask to only apply this change to the red wall.

Here’s the original, straight out of the camera, for comparison:

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