Kat Eye Studio

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Burst of Flavor

We continue to investigate Repetition in Exploring with a Camera this week. I was trying to decide what image to share when I realized I had the perfect repetition image staring me in the face! I have this image from a Venice market stall matted, framed and sitting in my dining room, ready to drop off to an exhibition. This image is all about repetition – with repeating shape, subject and color.

If you’re around Eugene, Oregon, you’ll be able to see this “Burst of Flavor” in the Taste and Flavor: Spicy exhibition at the David Joyce Gallery in Lane Community College from August 29 through January 1.

If not, you can enjoy it here along with some wonderful images featuring repetition from our participants. Visit them below, and link your exploration of repetition in too. We’d love to see how you repeat yourself!


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Thrill of Discovery

There is a thrill of discovery that sometimes happens when you go out exploring. On our excursion last weekend (yes, the one with the grumpy pre-teen in the back seat), we happened past this awesome hot dog stand in the middle of nowhere.

“Stop! Turn around!” I exclaimed to my husband, “I need to photograph that.” I couldn’t resist the red, yellow and black and the vintage car. There were so many cool details in this little place! It’s too bad it wasn’t open, they serve Chicago-style hot dogs which are my husband’s favorite. We’ll just have to go back again! I’m sure there is another photograph or two to be captured.

I hope you have a chance to get out this weekend, maybe experience a little thrill of discovery of your own.

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Ignoring the Looks

Do you ever feel self-conscious taking a photo? Most of us do, when we start out in photography. Maybe for a long, long time. That little voice in our says things like…
You probably shouldn’t be photographing here.
What will people think?
They are looking at me!
If we listen to it, that little voice can prevent us from taking photos in many situations. It can prevent us from following our heart, prevent us from capturing the image we were called to take.

Today’s market/wheels photo is no exception. It was taken just off Piazza del Duomo in Florence. This little snack cart also had bicycles for rental. As we walked around the duomo, I spotted it and spent a few minutes studying it with my camera, while the vendor of the stand looked critically on. Did it make me uncomfortable to have him there? Heck yeah. But I had a mission, to get a good market/wheels photo. I was struggling with this scene, but I knew I had a unique image here to capture. So I too a deep breath, ignored him, and moved around for a while, eventually finding this composition that worked. I love the depth of the image, looking down the street past the cart to the chair and the second bicycle.

I must be honest, if I had stopped, it would not have been the first time my resolve had withered under the gaze of a watcher. There have been countless times that I have noticed people watching me photograph, and stopped what I was doing. Why? Was I doing anything wrong? Being on the street, in a public area, absolutely not. There are no people, so neither was I violating anyone’s privacy by taking their photo when they didn’t want me to. And who knows what the vendor was really thinking. Probably, “Yes, a tourist! How much money can I get her to pay for an apple?” (I’ve never felt like I was a walking dollar sign anywhere in Italy more than I did in Florence. That town is tuned to squeeze every dollar it can out of tourists.)

So, how do you get over the gazes? The seemingly critical eye of people around you?

  • First, you have to want the shot. Want it more than you care about anything else. If you’re worried about how you look more than how the photograph looks, you will not overcome your discomfort.
  • Second, you have to be willing to look a little weird to the average person. Non-photographers will not understand what you are doing when you get down on the dirty ground to get that awesome angle. You will get looks. Accept that as a fact.
  • Know your rights, but also be respectful of others wishes. Are you on private property? Is there a sign that says “no photography?” Are you in a store and the owner asks you to stop photographing? On private property, the property owner sets the rules. Respect them. In public places, a little respect also goes a long way, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t photograph.
  • It happens rarely, but if someone asks you to stop photographing, politely apologize and move on. A little humility also goes a long way.
  • Realize that the quizzical looks you get are really just passing glances. People aren’t paying much attention to you. They are off in their own world. If they stop and watch you for a while, you can acknowledge them with a smile and a shrug of your shoulders, and get back to capturing your images.

I could have let the looks of the vendor scare me off here, but I’ve grown a thicker skin. The image I’m working toward is worth more than avoiding the looks I might get. If you get tripped up by this common feeling of worry about what other people are thinking as you take a photo, I encourage you to take a deep breath and continue. Do it once or twice, to push past the discomfort, and see how it goes. What’s the worst that can happen? You apologize and offer to delete the photo if someone asks you to stop. The best that can happen? You get an awesome image, and you have a little more confidence the next time you are photographing out and about.


Don’t miss the giveaway I have going on right now for some Evidence of Love! Visit here to see the details and enter. Today is the last day for entry – I’ll draw tomorrow morning!

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Crepes, Anyone?

I’m embarking on a new adventure in my photography… I have an exhibition at our local Arts Center coming up in April. It will be a joint exhibition with another photographer in a small gallery space they reserve for local artists. I’m excited and nervous!

I’ll be showing images from my Market/Wheels series. Since I discovered this series in the last six months I was living in Italy, I had always planned to go back through my archive from Europe and find more images to fit. I knew there were more there for the series, just waiting for me to re-discover them. The upcoming exhibition gave me the motivation to get this project done.

The problem now… I have too many images for this small exhibition! I’ll have to carefully choose which I want to display. I thought I would share the new images here over the next few days, and at the end add them to my Market/Wheels portfolio and get your opinion on which you like best. I have my favorites already, but this will be a fun, interactive exercise to provide more feedback as I get ready to decide and order prints.

This first one I’m sharing is from Taormina, Sicily. I love how the shape of the crepe cart echoes the shape of the doorway behind, and how the vendor situated the cart so perfectly in the opening. I wonder where the vendor disappeared to? It doesn’t really matter, since no one seems to be interested buying crepes at this time of night. Poor lonely, little crepe cart.

Anyone interested in crepes today? I find I wouldn’t mind one for breakfast, right now!

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The Fruits of our Creative Labor

All life moves in cycles. Whether we notice the cycle of the seasons, where the earth transitions from growth to dormancy across the months, or the cycle within a day, as the sun rises and sets. Our lives are bound by cycles.

It is easy to forget this, as we look at the results of a cycle. In harvest time, we may see the results of the farmer’s efforts in the piles of fruits and vegetables in the market, but we don’t see all of the time and energy spent to get there. Preparing the soil, sowing the seeds, tending the growth, picking the fruit – all happen outside of our realm of vision. We only see the end result, the tomatoes sitting on the table, ready to eat.

Creativity is like this too. I am revisiting my concept of the Spiral of Creativity lately. I have had to remind myself that creativity is a cycle. I remind myself that creating something new and launching it into the world is not as easy as the end result would suggest. Shiny, delicious tomatoes don’t just end up on tables without a lot of someone’s time, spent in the dirt. That time in the dirt is when you “go dark” to the outside world. The time of the spiral where you are acting on and finishing an idea, doing something to make it real. No one else can see the effort you are putting in, to get things launched. They will only see the final result. It may look like nothing is going on for a while, as you create something new, even to you.

It is so much easier to be in the starting phases of the spiral, absorbing, processing and practicing. It’s fun, and takes less time and energy to keep things moving. You can have multiple things going at once. My recent experience suggests it takes a lot less energy to jot down a few ideas about what you would like in a website, than to clearly articulate the details to a web designer. It takes less energy to sketch out layouts and envision them in your mind than it does to populate something real.

When a project is in the “finishing” phase of the spiral, there may not be much energy for anything else. All focus narrows to that one item that needs to be launched into the world. I was reminded of this fact on Tuesday, when I had no words to write here. I had images, lovely images, but no words would come. The creative energy I use for writing on my blog was being used in other ways.

For a short while I thought something was wrong, until I remembered how all things cycle, including creativity. Until I remembered the spiral and how I’m nearing the launching edge with my new website and new classes. At least this time in the spiral, I’ve been through the process before. The first time, as I was creating Find Your Eye, the final parts of the spiral were hard because I hadn’t completed a full cycle before. Now I know how wonderful it is to launch something new and real into the world. All of the time and energy is worth it.

Whether it’s vegetables or classes or websites or art, I’m reminded the Spiral of Creativity applies. You can’t bring something new into the world without an expenditure of time and energy. You don’t get those delicious tomatoes without some digging in the dirt.

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What’s going on around Kat Eye Studio…

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Change is in the Air

The seasons are changing, can you feel it? We have a crispness in the air some mornings. The apples are arriving at the market. The leaves are still on the trees and the days feel like summer, but change is in the air. I can feel it.

Change is coming to this space too. I have a new website under development at the moment. Yay! I love this blogger space so much, it’s been the site of my journey, but it’s become too small for what I want to do. I realized a few months ago that I had no room to grow. Things have been getting crowded around here. As I added the Liberate Your Art postcard swap and Find Your Eye classes, I’ve maxed out the available space.

So in a short period of time, I’ll be packing up the virtual boxes and moving to a new space where The Kat Eye View of the World and Kat Eye Studio will both reside. It is interesting how my virtual life is mirroring my physical life, with a big move. Just as it was time to move home from Italy, it’s time to move from here. I can feel it. At least with this move, I won’t have a garage full of stuff to deal with!

It is exciting to see my new site develop. It’s seeing a vision coming to life. There will be space, and room to grow. Lots of light and color and beautiful images. I can’t wait to share it with you!

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

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