Kat Eye Studio

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When Good Holiday Lights Go Bad

I’ve been wanting to get this shot for months. Since the days began getting shorter, and I began noticing the lights on my drive home from work. I love that “Books” sign with all of those books in the window! Usually there are cars parked on the street in front and three lanes of traffic passing by, so I knew I was going to have to make a special trip to capture it. I was going to have to be out some time when people were home in bed. When the streets were quiet.

4am on a Saturday should have done the trick. It was perfect… the streets were slightly damp, reflecting the red glow. The bicycle that’s usually there was still parked on the bike rack – score! There were no cars, except mine parked across the street. Just me and the shot I had been wanting.

Tripod, ISO100, 82mm, f/18, 25s

I set up, framed, captured… and then noticed the reflected Christmas lights. Argh! This store is across from our county courthouse, which was all done up in its holiday light finery. The lights were reflecting in the window, ruining my otherwise perfect shot. Just a reminder that you can’t get everything you want, especially when you are working with the Lights of Night.

Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to go out again, once the holiday lights come down. I hope the bicycle will be there next time! Has this ever happened to you?

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On the Way Home

I think one of the things I love about the Lights of Night is the storytelling it affords. There is something about looking at a building with the lights on inside that sparks my interest. Are the doors and windows open, inviting me in? Or are they closed, keeping me out? Who are the people around? And, as a photographer, I’m a bit more invisible. People don’t notice me taking photos at night, from the shadows.

This streetcorner shot from San Francisco is a great example of a story waiting to be told. There is the store, inviting you to stop in on the way home, and yet the the business man hurries right by. What story do you tell, from this image?

Handheld, ISO400, 45mm, f/4.0, 1/40

Shot during the blue hour, there was enough light from the store and the sky that I didn’t even have to change to my 35mm “night lens” to shoot this handheld. The slower shutter speed needed to get the exposure actually helps with the impression of the man hurrying home.

The blue hour is a great time to try your hand at night photography if you don’t want to haul around the tripod. Have you tried it yet?

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Tucked Away

Lots of news today!

First, today is the last day to link up for January’s Photo-Heart Connection. There’s been a great response to this new series! I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to connect with each of you as you connect with your heart. I love seeing the community of kindred spirits grow around this. Don’t worry about being a “latecomer” to the party. It lasts a week so that you have time to find your heart connection and write about it. That’s not always easy! Consider joining in today.

Second, the winner of the Evidence of Love postcard giveaway is comment #20: Sharon. Congrats Sharon! Enjoy sharing a little love with the world. If you didn’t win and you would still like to share the love, the images in the Evidence of Love series are all available in my RedBubble shop. Or, as always, I encourage you to create your own images and share the love that way. So many options!

I continue my sharing of new Market/Wheels images today with this one from Venice. As I showed the other day, in the Venetian Lagoon it’s not all delivery by water. Wheels are needed to get the market wares to the shops, the same as in any city, they are just smaller and non-motorized. It takes effort to live and work in Venice.

This image shows you what a typical market store looks like in Venice. Tucked in a side alley, off the tourist paths, you will find these little markets bringing fresh fruits and vegetables to the permanent population. The texture that is found everywhere in Venice comes through here, from the rust on the cart to the crumbly brick walls. It’s a perfect example of why I loved photographing Venice so much, with the bonus of being part of the market/wheels series too.

I hope you have a wonderful day today!

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A Stop at the Store

 
After spending the last week and a half either working hard at the computer to get my new ideas in place, or relaxing utterly by reading novels and watching the first season of Glee, I was ready to get out and photograph yesterday. While the day started with a tiny bit of sunshine, it was the kind that only lasts until the sun gets above the heavy cloud cover, so I needed to get out early. I tagged along with my husband on his morning errands, asking him to drop me off on the Oregon State University campus so that I could wander and take some photos. There is this metal shop building with fabulously textured (read: peeling paint) windows that we drive by often and I wanted to study it with my camera.

I had a great time photographing until the rain started. A little rain doesn’t usually bother me, I keep an umbrella in my camera bag, but this was cold, blowing rain. My fingers were going numb. I gave up and huddled in the bus shelter waiting for my husband to come back and pick me up. The bus route that goes near our house came by first, so I hopped on to get out of the cold. The bus doesn’t go right by our house, so I had several blocks of walking to get home after I got off. I opted to walk through the strip mall, using the protection of the overhang from the rain and wind. And then I saw it… the market/wheels picture! A very cute classic-looking bicycle, along on the bike rack in front of the grocery store. A completely serendipitous find, but making the sequence of photowalk-rain-bus-walk seem like a perfectly logical path to get a new image for my series. I can’t imagine getting here any other way.

A Stop at the Store

Don’t you love it when that happens?

Another synergistic happening yesterday… my photo “Window to the Heart” — the same image I shared on my blog yesterday as an example of a photo-heart connection — was chosen as the Photo of the Weekend by masteringphoto.com. It served to remind me that when I have a strong connection with an image, likely others will too. I would love to have you come by and show some comment love, if you have time. You might also spend a few moments to check out the site, run by Focal Press, publisher of many great photography books.

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A Personal Equation

art + creativity + photography = bliss
I’ve been coming back to this equation over and over again in my journal lately. It was only a matter of time until it showed up here. It’s a personal equation, something that speaks to me at a core level. I’ve been exploring what it means…
art = all of that which has been created before, by others. Art includes the formal definition of art, such as the paintings of the great masters, but it is also so much more. Art is the design of a building, the cut of a dress. It is the interpretation of musical notes written on a page. It is the combination of spices and ingredients. It is all that we experience, that comes from outside of ourselves.
creativity = a process, a practice. Creativity is not a “thing.” It is the swirl of ideas, the stringing together of old and new. Creativity is where observation, knowledge and action meet. It is the process by which we learn to make sense of the world around us. It is innate, in each of us. It is what allows us to string together words into a sentence and actions into a life.
photography = an artistic medium, a personal form of expression. My photography is the combination of all of the art I’ve seen and experienced in my world run through my own personal creativity filter. It is the way I can share my vision. Photography allows me to share the stories I see, in the details of life around me. Like this bicycle, in Ravenna. Photography is my art, given back to the world.
Input, process, output.
Art, creativity, photography.
Combine these three ingredients and I get bliss. What do I mean by bliss? I mean happiness that goes beyond the moment, to the core of my being. It is the connection to the heart and soul of who I am, who I always have been, who I always will be. It is something deeper than a pretty picture, a fleeting emotion. 
art + creativity + photography = bliss
It takes all three to make the math work. Without one of them, the equation would be unbalanced. It might equal “content” or “satisfaction,” but certainly not bliss.
I imagine that we all have our own personal equation. Part of our life’s journey may be to define it, as we live it. Do you know yours? If not, I’m guessing that creativity is in your equation somewhere too. Start there, and see what begins to fill in the blanks.

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