fog

November 13, 2014 by Kat

Creativity and Time

I’ve been on a remarkably even keel since the returning from the yoga retreat last weekend. It’s as if I rebooted. Reset everything to a new baseline. It’s wonderful.

It’s allowed me thoughtful space and given me new clarity. I’ve been thinking about how I’m spending my time. I’ve been pondering some little changes to focus myself back in on what’s important. Writing a book, for one. Evaluating what I want to tackle in 2015. And creating new work. Always, always creating new work.

I’ve been realizing a deep truth: As an artist, everything hinges on continual creation. Everything. Self-understanding, renewal, and growth all come from a creative practice. It’s in creating that I understand the direction I want to go. It’s through my artwork that I tease out the signals to follow. I don’t wait for inspiration and then create. I create and then I get insight. And so I create some more.

No matter what else is going on, creating has to be at the core. It has to be a priority for my time. The pace may change, but it can’t go away. If it does, eventually the fuel for everything else that swirls around the art I create… this blog and the book and the workshops and the art events… will slowly, quietly fade away. And you know what else will fade away? An important, even vital, connection to my heart and soul. The connection which provides understanding of who I am and the confidence to seek my own path, no matter the influences around me.

We forget this. Our culture tells us to do otherwise. It tells us to focus on all of the other things that require our time: Work and family and friends and commitments. Things beyond ourselves. Get the work done first, then have fun. Then, with your spare time and energy, with the dregs left over, only then can you create. Everything else, everyone else comes first.

That doesn’t work, for the artist. For the artist to have a thriving creative life, creating art has to be part of the priorities. It has to be the work. You have to give it your best time and energy, on a regular basis. You have to make the right choices for yourself, even if others aren’t happy with you.

So I renew the choice, for myself, to continue creating new work. I don’t do it because I need new images to share or to blog or to show or to sell. I do it because I’m not me if I’m not creating.

I’ve worked long and hard to figure out who I am amidst the clutter. I’m not going to let that knowledge or connection fade away.

January 16, 2014 by Kat

Adding Color (A Mobile Tutorial)

One wonderful thing about being an artist: Adding color to a black and white world. Isn’t that awesome? By the way, that statement is true in more than one sense. In the literal sense, as in my photograph today, as an artist I get to choose to add color to my work or not. I can leave my photograph as a direct interpretation of what I saw or I can change it, just with color.

And in the figurative sense, artists often add color and move outside of the lines of conventional rules of life. Who challenges the cultural norms of how we are supposed to act? To live? Historically, it’s the artists. And that adds color, lots of color, to a world that can otherwise seem black and white. You may or may not like the color, but that color enables our culture to continue to evolve and grow.

But enough of these deep thoughts… how about a mobile tutorial today, hmmm? It’s been a while! I created this piece a couple of days ago and thought it would be a perfect one to share with you, both for the relative simplicity of the steps compared to many of my edits, as well as I can share a new app I’ve been enjoying.

We start with the photograph, captured using ProCamera 7. As I mentioned in my blog post on Tuesday, I was feeling the urge to get out and photograph, and Tuesday morning was wonderfully foggy. I left for work early and spent some time photographing the trees in the fog on campus. There was this little tree with interesting lines I had never noticed before:

The photo looks a bit underexposed, which often happens in fog, even with the exposure control I have in ProCamera 7. The first step of the edit was pulling it into Snapseed, where I increased brightness and used the grunge filter to add color and texture. The nice thing about the way the grunge filter works, the bits of trees along the bottom, which are a bit of a distraction I thought I might have to clone out, end up blurred so there is no cloning work required. Bonus! And this is the first step to adding color, with the purple tint.

Next, the image went into Distressed FX. There are some great filters in this app for adding color! I use it all the time, playing with the different options and seeing which looks best. I love the range of color blends after using Distressed FX:

The next step is running the image from Distressed FX through a couple of other apps. First, the Autopainter app (I use the HD version, on my iPad) using the Benson filter. The great thing about this app is that you can stop it mid-processing to get different effects. I stopped the app at the end of Step 2, before Step 3 where all the detail strokes get added. It gives the image a rougher, more painterly, feel.

I also took the image out of Distressed FX, and ran it through a new app I’ve been playing with called Waterlogue. This simple app gives fantastic watercolor effects! I used the Soaked filter, set to Dark, and turned off the border. Love it!

The final step is blending the two images in Image Blender, to get more softness in the branches and a greater depth of color. I believe I used the “Darken” blending mode.

And that’s it! A very simple edit, but a wonderful result, adding a great depth of color to the black and white world I experienced that morning.

I’m going to be adding something a little extra to these mobile tutorials in the future! A map of the process I used, which I’m calling a “mobile recipe,” so that you can more easily follow the steps and try them out on your images. You can save these recipes and refer to them in the future when you’re looking for a little editing inspiration.

I know I’ve said there will be a Smartphone Art eCourse this year, but writing an eCourse takes a lot of time and energy, and as I move into 2014 I’m just not seeing when I will have that much available time and energy. So instead of a full-on eCourse, online I’ll be continuing these mobile tutorials, and will help you use the resources I already have available to learn more about mobile photography. Stay tuned.

And in person, I’d love to bring the Smartphone Art workshop to your area! This is such a fun class, and absolutely the best way to learn this material is in person. I’ll be adding a second day with more great content and we can make it a weekend thing. Contact me and let’s chat!

June 26, 2013 by Kat

Possibility in my Pocket

Three days a week I get up in the half-bright morning, slip my iPhone in my pocket, tie my hiking boots on my feet, clip the leash on the dog and head out.

Every time I get out onto the trail, as my body and brain begin to wake up, I think, I’m not going to photograph anything today. I’m just going to walk. And every time, at some point, I reach into my pocket for my iPhone to take a photograph.

You see, like a child collects stones or leaves or twigs along the path, I collect photographs. Even with no intention to do so, inevitably something comes into my awareness that needs to be collected. I need to pause and revere the scene, the moment, as I frame an image.

Why does a child collect the stones or leaves or twigs? I’m not sure I know. Maybe because they are pretty or interesting. Or maybe because each one is different. “Look at this one, Mommy,” he says, holding out his hand. Look at this one, I say, taking a photograph.

Each one is a marker, a reminder, a special moment to later be pulled out and cherished. Each one has the possibility to be compared, contrasted, transformed into something new. Or, as is the case most times, to be filed away, like so many child’s rocks pushed into the corner of a drawer. Coming across them later I might think, Huh, why did I collect that?

Even so, I capture them and I keep them. I can’t seem to stop. I don’t want to stop. They are my collection, the possibility that I keep in my pocket, just in case.

June 1, 2013 by Kat

Photo-Heart Connection: May

Shelter. That’s what I see here.

In the chilly spring mist and rain, there is shelter here. The branches reach down to encircle and protect what’s below. The soft grass cushions the ground. The magical light filters through, bathing the scene in an otherworldly glow. I can stay here and be protected.

Hello, trees, I whisper, I’ve missed you. For me, you are hard to see when you put on your leaves. But this reminds me that your strength is still there beneath the summer finery.

And in addition to strength, you now offer shelter. Perhaps I need to sit beneath you for a while, and take what you offer.

The coming of the leaves has left me without one of my favorite subjects… bare trees. Oh, I haven’t missed them terribly. I love the sunny weather and the new growth of spring, so I’ve found many new things to photograph. Just not the trees, not quite as much. So it was kind of a surprise that a hike in inclement weather turned my eye back to the trees, revealing this month’s heart connection. It is kind of a surprise to realize that shelter is exactly what I need right now, as I try to remain in the space between. Shelter from my own self, if I’m truly honest, as my Photo-Heart Connection practice enables me to be.

How about you? What’s your Photo-Heart Connection this month? Share it with us, and then visit your neighbors in the link up. The connection to each other is as important as the connection to the heart.

January 5, 2012 by Kat

Grateful for this Day

Today as I watched the video linked below, this image jumped out to me. A moment, a tiny detail, captured on a Swiss mountain over a year ago. A moment when my eyes were open to see the beauty of the world around me.

I don’t have much time for blogging today, I have some early meetings I need to go get ready for. I want to leave you with this incredible video on gratitude. If you have 10 minutes, your time will be well spent. I guarantee you will see your world, your day and your photographs with a sense of gratitude by the end.

December 13, 2011 by Kat

Wintering

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.
~Pietro Aretino

It seems that many of us are feeling the same this winter, slowing down, hibernating and allowing what comes next. My dear friend Tara Leaver, whom I connected with at the Do What You Love retreat last spring, has a beautiful guest post today on “Wintering” at Creative Every Day. She reminds me that I am not alone in my feelings, being in the down part of the creative cycle. She tells me it’s ok to watch seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or, I will translate that into watching Battlestar Galactica and devouring some novels). Thanks for the permission Tara! Do check out her post if you have time today.

A couple of unrelated notes:

Don’t miss Many Muses Musing today! I am giving away a spot in the full January-February series of Find Your Eye. If you’ve wanted to take the class, today is your lucky day! You get an entry for a comment AND for a link in, so get yourself musing on today’s prompt GREETINGS and head over to link in.

Did you catch my post on Help-Portrait on Sunday? If not, you can read about my amazing experience here. Jones Oliver, our wonderful organizer, also blogged about it here. Visit his post to see more amazing images, including one with a snake!