Kat Eye Studio

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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 Next Destination

You never know what you are going to find, as you wander around a city. This photo is from Turin, and is one that is hanging on my living room wall. At the time I was looking for photos I could do a “spot of red” processing to match my decor scheme, so that’s what I saw. Today I look at it and find it more humorous… these stately buildings and this proud statue, looking down on the red plastic chairs and umbrella. What must his stone lordship think, to have these plastic things mucking up his piazza? The blend of modern and historic in one place provides plenty of opportunity for these types of photographs here in Europe.

We are off to visit a new destination, for the next week, and I will be absent here. We are travelling further south in Italy, to Naples and Sorrento. We plan to visit the Amalfi Coast, Capri, and hopefully, if it hasn’t all collapsed yet, Pompeii. That is quite the scandal here, what is happening with the ruins in Pompeii.

I’ll see you in a week or so, with photos from a new area. In the meantime, I have a couple of posts scheduled for you, including the Share Your View on Holiday Lights. Please come by and link in, I can’t wait to come visit all of your photos when I get home. Have a great week!

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Evening Stroll

Wander around any European city on a warm summer evening, and you will find people out and about. Enjoying an aperitivo, window shopping, meeting up with friends, listening to street performers… tourist destination or not. There is such an energy, a feeling of shared community, to the piazzas and placas and platze no matter what country you are in, what language is spoken around you. This particular evening on the Riva in Split was no exception. This is one of the things I absolutely and truly love about being here in Europe and Italy.

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Quiet and Empty

What a difference a few hours makes! During the day, this location in Piazza San Marco by the Doge’s Palace is brimming with people. People in line to tour the Basilica, people shopping at the overstuffed souvenier carts, people wandering around taking photos. But just a few hours later, near midnight, it’s almost empty. How wonderful for me!

Recently, my husband asked me why I don’t like people in my photos. Sometimes I will patiently wait for minutes for just the right shot, as people move in and out and through the frame I’m trying to capture. He and my son have to wait patiently too, until I’m ready to move on. They are good sports, I must say!

But there is a good reason for it. What I’ve discovered in my photography, is that I like to provide a place for the viewer in my photograph. A place for the imagination to wander. If there are clearly other people in the photo, if they are the subject, then the viewer might just see those people, and their experience, from the outside. If it is of an empty place, the viewer can participate in the photo… project themselves into the place, let their minds wander, imagine themselves there or create new story in the place. We all have a unique vision to show the world, this one just happens to be part of mine right now.

So, today I ask, what story do you see in this photo? Have you ever had that experience with a photograph before?

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City Portrait

I tend to like these photos through gates and arches and doorways. It’s as if the city itself is both the frame and the subject. You get a sense of being outside and looking inside, but the twist is that you are already inside, just by the nature of seeing through the arch. Enjoy the perspective, and the little view of the duomo piazza in Brescia.

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Arches with a Fountain

This photo is of the Palazzo della Ragione with the fountain in Piazza delle Erbe in front, in Padova (aka Padua). I spent a fun day there with my sister, on our tour of the Veneto in November. This town is full of arches, there are all of these covered arcade walkways along the streets. It was a sunny day when we were there, but I bet everyone is thankful for them when it rains.

I had an amazing realization about arches this morning… Of course it’s not just me, there are lots of arches all over the place because it’s part of Rennaisance architecture and Italy is where the Rennaisance happened. Whew. Glad I figured that one out.

But yesterday’s post also made me realize that I do show a selective view of the places we visit in my photography. Do you notice graffiti in my photos very often? No, but there’s lots of it here in Italy. Patrick mentioned it in his blog post yesterday. So the photographer does impose his or her preferences in the photographs. And, apparently, I prefer arches, with no graffiti!

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