Kat Eye Studio

by

On Top of the World

The height and vastness of the Alps is breathtaking! We had the opportunity to visit Schilthorn piz Gloria, this overlook at the top of the Schilthorn mountain. You can wander the walkways and eat in the rotating restaurant for a panoramic view. It was one of the more incredible places we ate in Europe. I’m still amazed at the view when I look at my photos.

Capturing this type of mountain grandeur with our cameras, showing the vastness, is not always easy. One way to show scale is to put an object or building up close in the foreground, like this overlook, allowing the scenery to play out in the distance behind. The lighting also serves to help contrast the near and far, since the bright light pulls you into the distance.

What do you think, do you want to learn more about capturing places? Join me in A Sense of Place. Spaces are still available! Class starts April 8.

by

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.

by

Don’t Reject Yourself

Yesterday’s conversation on fear was fantastic. If you are thinking you are the only one who feels fear, go and take a look at the comments. You and I are definitely not alone.

This topic was on my mind through the whole day. Funnily enough, a message with the title “Your Fears are Lies” appeared in my inbox later in the day. I’m on a list for fear.less magazine, which periodically sends out notes about overcoming fear, in addition to the free online magazine they publish “to show people they’re not alone in their fear.” The message was a perfect continuation of what I started writing about yesterday, highlighting some of the same points and adding others. If you want ongoing encouragement to overcome your fear, you can subscribe to the fear.less free online magazine and the emails here.

Later in the day, I also had a conversation with my husband about how we “pre-reject” ourselves. Here’s the scenario:
1. We see something we want to do or have an idea and want to propose it somewhere.
2. We think about asking or proposing and the little voice in our head starts talking. It says, “They will just say no.”
3. We are so afraid of rejection, we don’t want to hear a “no,” so we don’t ask.
Guess what! No one else had to reject us in this scenario. We did it for them!

Have you ever done this? I have. So, so many times. I’m starting to realize that I should let someone else say yes or no, not decide for them. Some of the time, when you put a question or proposal out there, the answer is no. Sometimes the answer is a big, blank void. That’s almost worse, to my mind. But sometimes, the answer is yes.

The only way you can get an answer of “yes” is to actually ask the question, send the proposal, submit your work. You open yourself up for rejection, but you also open yourself up for success. No one is going to come  knocking at your door or in your email inbox asking for this wonderful idea, because they don’t even know it exists until you put it out there.

Think on this. Look for times when you don’t even give others the chance to reject you, because you are rejecting yourself. When that happens, take a deep breath, put yourself out there and let them make the decision. Who knows, the answer might just be “yes.”

Photo is from Murten, Switzerland.

by

Exploring with a Camera: Waiting to Click

Exploring Patience in Photography 3

Welcome to Exploring with a Camera! This next couple of weeks we are going to be Waiting to Click. As always, I have a lot of ideas to share with you in this post and then there is a link up at the bottom for you to share your images on the topic. You can also share your photos in the Flickr pool if you are interested in being featured on the blog.

There is so much of our world that is changeable. When you tune in to it, you begin to notice the ebb and flow of life around us. “Waiting to Click” is about being aware of the changeable things in our environment, predicting what is going to happen and then waiting to capture the image we’ve anticipated. So often photographers talking about being ready, having the camera with us and available to shoot, in order to capture a fleeting moment as we see it unfold. Waiting to Click takes the readiness a bit further, adding a bit of both prediction and patience into the mix.

To get a great image by Waiting to Click requires your active participation. Here is what you have to do:

  1. Be aware of what is changeable in your environment. We live in a world of change, whether it’s the flow of traffic or the clouds blowing by, there are variables that affect the potential for us to make good images. By noticing the things that are moving and changing, and how they change relative to the things that are fixed, we can make use of them in our photography.
  2. See the image you want to capture. You need to see the potential shot. This may mean looking through or past the changeable things in the environment, or predicting their behavior to include them in the image you want to capture. 
  3. Know your equipment. In order to take advantage of a changing situation, you have to know your camera. What is the delay between shutter press and release? What is the timing if you use burst? I know we are talking about fractions of a second here for dSLRs, but those fractions of a second may matter. For point-and-shoots or phone cameras, the delay is longer and you really have to be able to coordinate the pressing of the shutter with the prediction of the shot.
  4. Wait for the shot to unfold, then capture it. This is the key. This could mean waiting for several seconds, or it could mean waiting minutes. Professional photographers might wait all day for the perfect light to capture the image they see. How long you are willing to wait is up to you.

Now let’s see a few examples of Waiting to Click, to further explain what I mean…

Moving Vehicles


Vehicles of all sorts are always moving around us, when we are out and about in the streets. You may recognize the lead-in image for this post as another in my emerging market/wheels series, and the capture of this shot is a great example of Waiting to Click. I saw this image across a very busy street in Siracusa, Sicily. I paused for a while and watched the traffic flow. There were a few moments in each traffic light cycle, where the cars passing by on the street cleared out just long enough to photograph a few frames. While traffic was going by, I looked at possible angles and compositions, and situated myself in the best spot for the image I envisioned. I waited for the next traffic light cycle, and the moment the cars cleared out, I got the shot.

In some cases, you want the moving vehicle in the shot, like this one of the Milan subway I captured with my iPhone camera. This was my first outing with the camera, and I was just getting used to the delay. I was fascinated by the crowd on the other side of the subway platform and thought it would be a great shot to have the crowd behind the train pulling into the station, so I practiced with a couple of shots of the crowd to get the framing and camera timing down. Then, when I heard the train coming, I was ready to click as soon as it entered the frame and captured the image I wanted.

The light this particular evening in the Venetian Lagoon was spectacular. I took several images of the sky but knew the shot would be more interesting with a boat in the foreground. I had my exposure and composition dialed in, it was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity to come along. When this boat came by, I was ready and waiting to click.

People


We are often surrounded by our fellow human beings, and depending on the shot you want, that can be a good thing or a bad thing. You might think that Europe is an empty place, from my photographs. I really love to capture an empty street or place, to allow the viewer room to imagine themselves in the frame. To do this, I often have to wait for a lull. Just like cars, the flow of people will change, but it’s less predictable. Here is another in my market/wheels series, captured in Bologna. It looks like this was a deserted street, but this was a busy Saturday afternoon, the weather was nice, and people were out on the streets in force. I used the times when there were people coming by to set up the shot and play around with composition. When I found the image I wanted, I waited for the people to leave the frame, and clicked.

Here is another image where I waited for the frame to clear, with the exception of the people seated on the left. Evening at the Roman Baths in Bath, England is certainly quieter than the day, but there were still many people wandering around and listening to their audioguides. (I’ve learned to dislike audioguides – people stand immobile for minutes on end gazing at something while listening to the commentary, much longer than they do without the audioguide.) Meanwhile, I patiently waited for them to move on so I could get the right image. 

Often, your image will be enhanced with a person or two in just the right spot. The next two examples, from Cinque Terre and Bath, are images where the mood is further conveyed by the people in the frame. In both cases, I had to wait until the subjects walked into the right light to capture the image.

So far I’ve shown you empty or mostly empty places – what about crowds? I’ve learned quite a bit about photographing a crowd over the last couple of years. Capturing a crowd can convey the energy, the hustle and bustle of a place, but it has to be done right. In general, I’ve discovered that for a good crowd shot, you want to have full bodies – partial people walking into the frame or cutting off feet is distracting. For a generalized crowd, you also want the people to either be small enough their faces aren’t easily distinguishable or facing away from the camera. Nothing attracts the human eye quite as much as a face, so your crowd shot can become an unintentional image of a specific person if you’re not mindful. Here’s a comparison of two images within moments of each other in Madrid. The first shot is one I would consider a nice crowd-in-the-street scene, the second has more crowd distractions.

Crowds ebb and flow, which is a great thing. Unless you are in an insanely crowded place (like Venice at Carnevale), you can usually situate yourself in a good location and wait for the crowd to disperse itself in a way that works for your intended image. This example from Venice (not during Carnevale) was one where I waited for a good crowd position before pressing the shutter.

The Natural Elements


So far I’ve talked about human elements, but natural elements – such as light and wind – are some of the more changeable features in our world. As photographers, we live for light, so being aware of the light you are working with and how it may change is an important skill. Partly cloudy and windy days can be great days for waiting to click.

The following set of images from Stonehenge show how just a few moments difference on a partly cloudy day can make a huge difference in an image. Watching the light, and waiting to click at the right moment, can pay off big dividends in your images.

You may remember this group of three image from Cascais, Portugal.  This another time when I waited for the right light to click. The sun was going in and out of the clouds, and without the dappled light this image was not the same. I waited for quite a while for the sun to come out from behind the clouds to capture this scene.
For the next example, it was the wind that made a difference. With wind, you sometimes have to wait for a gust or wait between gusts, depending on what you want to capture. In this image of the main street of Murten, Switzerland, I had to wait for the breeze to die down so that the flags were hanging straight and clearly visible. A subtle detail, but one that means the difference between you being able to tell the location by looking at the image or not.
I’ve shown you a lot of examples where my patience paid off, but also realize that waiting to click doesn’t always work out. There are times when the elements don’t change as you predicted. There are times when you can’t wait as long as you like – the people you with are impatient or you have someplace to be at a certain time. But when you are aware of your environment, seeing the opportunities and waiting to click – sometimes magic happens. 
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
Click.
I can’t wait to see the images you captured by Waiting to Click, new or archive shots are welcome. Link your images in below or put them in the Flick pool. If you have the opportunity to comment on how you set up the shot and waited to click, that would be fun to read. I would love it if you want to add my button to your post, you can find the code here.

by

Subconscious Choices

The other night as I was falling asleep, this image popped into my head as the next in my series. I’m not sure I completely agree, but I’m also not sure you can argue with your subconscious mind. It does as it wills. This image is from Lugano, Switzerland in December 2009. The odd thing is, I haven’t thought about it twice since I took it. I never edited it or even noticed it in my photo review.

Here’s my internal debate about whether to include this in the series:
– It is definitely a vehicle with groceries.
– Not really any crates involved .
– It’s not red, but there is red in the photo.
– It’s not in Italy but it’s in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. But maybe the series is Europe?
Since this series seems to be evolving on its own, I guess I just have to follow along and see where it leads.

What do you think? Is it included or not? Here you can view images one, two and three.

I am off on vacation for the next week. Again. I know, it’s crazy, but true. Tonight we go to Venice for one night, because it’s Carnevale! This was one thing that I didn’t want to miss in my No Regrets Year. Sunday we fly to Sicily for the rest of the week since Brandon has the week off of school. From what we hear, it’s completely different from Northern Italy so it will be interesting. I have a few posts ready for you over the next week, and I’ll be back with more pics in a little over a week.  Who knows, maybe more in the series will appear.

See you later!

by

Set in Stone

A last little bit of love graffiti, this time from Murten, Switzerland. In Switzerland, you don’t find much graffiti, so these little declarations of love are a bit harder to find than in Italy. I loved the messages etched into the sandstone, in this little hideaway above the town. I wonder how long it took to create this heart?

I guess no matter the rules or the laws or the culture, the need to publicly commemorate feelings remains and is acted out in different ways. Whether it’s ink on a wall, a lock on a railing, initials carved into a tree trunk or hearts etched in sandstone, love finds a way to speak. I hope you enjoyed these images, this Valentine’s week.

Yesterday I was musing on street scenes at Mortal Muses, so come by if you would like to see the street personality of Lisbon and Chinatown in San Francisco.

Today I have one last message of love to share! Ashley at Ramblings and Photos has challenged us to write Love Letters to Kitty Paw, her cat. So, I dusted off my digital scrapbooking skills to help our cat Stevie send a letter. Didn’t he have a sweet message for Kitty Paw?

Click the image below see all of the fun love letters linked in! You might just be inspired to join in too.

Upcoming Events