Kat Eye Studio

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The Art of Doing Nothing

I find it easy to be busy. There is nothing like a cram-packed schedule to clarify priorities and how to use my time. I am invincible. I am in control and get an amazing amount accomplished.


But I can only go for so long in that mode of operation. I get tired and cranky after a while. I’m productive, but I’m not the nicest to the people around me. I’m not at my best, or my happiest.

At some point, the pressure eases up and then I have different choices for my time. Do I continue to push forward on projects or do I take a break? What does “taking a break” even look like? 

Right now it looks like a puzzle. A good old jigsaw puzzle. And podcasts, lots of great podcasts. It’s easy to listen while puzzling. And maybe some Pokemon. 

It may sound crazy, but that’s my version of doing nothing. It’s something, sure, but none of it is accomplishing anything real. It’s taking my brain to another space for a little while, giving me a break from the “to do” list. Letting me recharge.

And it feels wonderful. Decadent and maybe just a bit rebellious. Exactly how doing nothing should feel. Like I am getting away with something.

What is your version of doing nothing? 

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The Speed of Time

Most of the time, we move through our days with an idea they are never-ending. They stretch out into a routine of day after day, week after week, punctuated here and there with a few big events. That illusion has been shattered for me with one big milestone this year: High school. 

It’s as if, all of a sudden, I am truly internalizing that my son is growing up. Growing toward gone. When the last four years of childhood started to get chunked up into grade levels… Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior… I woke up to how little time we have left with him here at home. How fast it all has gone.

In the blink of an eye, from seedling to full grown tree.



I was talking to friend at work with a young daughter, having the typical “it goes so fast” conversation. But I told him parents with older kids don’t say this to give advice so much as they are in shock. We can’t believe it ourself. We are dazed and surprised that this seemingly endless phase of life is nearing an end, ending, ended. We utter the words in the hopes we can make sense of it, for ourselves.

My son is finishing up his freshman year in high school right now. With this year, we started talking seriously about college. Prep courses and requirements and grades and activities. What he might want to study. Where he might want to go.

And in the back of my mind, this dawning realization that there is so little time left.

In the last few months, I’ve started to shift my thinking and priorities around the idea that he has about three years left at home. What do I want that time to look like? 

It’s an interesting shift. I’ll own it…. Up to now I haven’t been the most “involved” Mom. I’m there, I’m supportive, but my kid has never been the center of my identity or my world. I have a career (two!) that matters to me and a partner to share the load.

But now, maybe more than ever, I find myself turning toward my son. Realizing career can wait, art can wait. I want to be there, on the front lines, seeing him transform into an adult. I want to be available, when he wants it, to listen or advise. To nudge him in he right direction. 

Control has ended, influence is all I’ve got left. And three more years of time.

It goes so fast. 

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Marking Time to Summer

Crashing down the hill, arms akimbo, I am sliding headlong toward long days and warm nights. I couldn’t stop the momentum if I wanted to. I am going to land in a heap, limbs twisted and gasping for air, on top of summer at the bottom of this hill. Ready or not, here I come.


Next week is the last week of the leadership program for work, wrapping the program up and freeing up more time and brain space. One final trip to Stanford. Six months gone, in a blur of work and phone calls and winter weather. Relief to be done yet sad to leave the world of higher education, where I could play at being a student again. It has been fun. I’m reminded I’m good at being a student. Too bad it doesn’t pay a living wage.

Closer to home, Brandon is nearing the end of school and final activities are piling up. After the finish line, even more activities impatiently await. Trip to Ireland with his choir, trip to Colorado to visit relatives. Best time of year in Oregon–summer is–and he will happily miss half of it. It’s a shame at the same time it’s fantastic. So many options, so little time.

Summer is coming, ready or not. 

We try to measure time, parse it out into usable packets of minutes and hours and days and weeks. We look ahead and think, “After this, after that…” Why do we hurry it along so? We are rushing toward the future at the same rate as time creeps along. Always the same. We can’t change the physics of it. 

What can I do to slow it down, speed it up? Because I want to do both, right now. I want to quickly move through some parts to spend longer in others. 

I want long summer days with my windows open, the sounds of lawn mowers and wind chimes drifting through. I want to wander the house with bare feet and painted toes. I want dry hiking trails and burrs in my dogs fur. I want my teenager to sleep until noon and laze about the house, getting bored and saying there is nothing to do. I want to put projects off because it’s just too nice outside to do otherwise.

Come on summer, I’m ready.

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Losing Time

Hey, have you seen the month of July? I seem to have misplaced it. I know it is somewhere around here, in between two weeks of vacation and a new job at work and a “To Do” list a mile long. I just wish I could find July before it’s August. I don’t like losing time like this, discovering the summer days are getting shorter all of a sudden. On my hikes, I’m now out before the sun hits the hillsides and I watch it slowly illuminate the trees. It won’t be too much longer before I’m leaving the house in the dark. I’m not ready for that.

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Unfortunately, I recognize July is a lost month at this point, and it’s driving me nuts. I have this feeling of time rushing by without accomplishing anything for July. That’s not really true, of course. I’ve done a lot in July, I just haven’t had a lot of time to create new images of the type I want to create. And so I feel I haven’t accomplished anything. Silly, isn’t it, to measure myself against ONE aspect, when real life includes so many different aspects that come and go, ebb and flow.

So I’m trying to remember that as July slips away. And to figure out how to not lose August too!

A few bits and pieces to update you on…

Find Your Eye photo courses Button 150x150Registration is open for Find Your Eye: Journey of Fascination. It will run this fall from September 8 through October 11. I asked which Find Your Eye journey you wanted, and the most recent course, Journey of Fascination, was the overwhelming response. If you want to take an Instructor Led Find Your Eye course, don’t miss this opportunity. With my shift to On Demand courses, it may be a while before this one is offered as Instructor Led again. Register here.

Smartphone-Art-Button-125x125The Smartphone Art workshop here in Corvallis is coming up soon on August 10. I’m so excited about this workshop! The course materials are coming together wonderfully and we are going to have a good time. My only worry is that there is too much material for the one day course, and making sure I fit in the important bits to get everyone to where they can enjoy this fun process. The course is filling up, but there are still a few spaces available. Register here.

20130730-072251.jpgYou can now get this blog via email! Look for the orange sign up box at the top of the blog sidebar. If you can’t get over to check every day, this will help you keep in touch. You don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed with emails — I’ll be creating new posts no more than 2 or 3 times a week going forward. You can also sign up for the Kat Eye News, which includes a “Best of the Blog” roundup via the monthly email.

PHC-2013-button-125x125The July Photo-Heart Connection link up is opening in just two days on August 1. Be sure to plan some time to participate this month. Knowing this is coming up is contributing to my feeling of lost time… I haven’t even had a chance to visit last month’s participants, so how can it be time again? But I’m hopeful a review of July’s photos will help me put my creative accomplishments in a different light. See you Thursday!

See, I tell myself, you have done a lot in July!

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Time for Contrast

I did a little bit of time travel last weekend. I went back in time in my photos to find some German pretzels for an exhibition submission (the theme is Taste and Flavor: Salty) and I ran into this gem of an image:

A perfect fit for Exploring with a Camera: Chiaroscuro! I love it when that happens. I had visions of creating some self-portraits with dramatic light for this week’s Exploring with a Camera post, but with being sick and having visitors that did not happen. Luckily this image came along and presented itself to me.

The original image was already a good example of strong light/dark contrast, but I edited it to increase the contrast. I also moved the clarity slider in Lightroom to the left instead of the right, to give it a softer feel. I think the result is a bit mysterious, making me travel back in time. Don’t you want to know the story of this pocket watch? If you like the look, I’ll be sharing this Lightroom Preset in the newsletter tomorrow.

Thanks to all of you who have been linking in! I love that you are getting out of your comfort zone and trying a new type of lighting in your images. Stop by and visit those who have been linking in, below. The images are gorgeous! The link up remains open through 30 November.

Also, stop by and visit me on the An Attitude of Gratitude blog today, where I’m talking about what photography means to me.



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The Solution to “Overwhelm”

When you are overwhelmed by complexity, come back to the one thing you are doing. You can’t really do more than one thing at a time in any event. No matter how fast your mind is racing, there is just this present moment. There is no other time. There is no other place to be. There is nothing else to be doing. Just this. When this one thing is done, you will do the next thing, and that will be the only thing there is.
— The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes

So simple. So true, in both photography and in life. When the world threatens to overwhelm, focus in on one thing. This moment, this action, this detail, and the complexity collapses down.

I’m looking toward overwhelm. Not this very moment, but in September when I have some pretty big things all happening in less than two weeks of each other: My brother is getting married in Colorado on the 15th, I’m participating in the Corvallis Fall Festival on the 22nd-23rd, and then I leave for England to teach my on-location workshops on the 25th. Deep breath. OK, what to do? I take the advice I read in The Practice of Contemplative Photography and do one thing at a time. I have my list, I know what needs to get done. I can sit and worry, or I can focus on this moment and use it.

It’s amazing what focusing on one thing brings. My PrintMania! weekend is a good example. I focused on printing over the weekend, and wow, here I am pretty much ready for the festival. That doesn’t mean that’s all I did… I still went back-to-school shopping with my son, visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s Gordon House (more on that later), enjoyed a nice afternoon on the deck of a Bavarian restaurant reminiscing about Oktoberfest with my family, and finished a book. But when I chose to focus on the “to do” list, I focused on one big thing and got an amazing amount done.

I think that’s really why I’m productive – I can focus. I don’t believe that “multitasking” makes us more productive. The idea that you can do more than one thing at once distracts us. How often do you stop doing something to read an email only to go back to your original task, trying to figure out where you were? Distractions and interruptions waste time, and ideas. If you start and stop, especially with creative projects, you lose the string of ideas and inspiration.

If you want to do something well, and quickly, you need to focus on that one thing. The better the focus, the better the outcome. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t do many very different things in the grand scheme. I certainly do! I just do them serially, one at a time. It’s how I manage to work at my corporate job as an engineer, create new classes for Kat Eye Studio, practice my own art and enjoy time with my family. I don’t try to do them all at once. I focus on the one thing that needs to be focused on, in that moment. It’s all I really can do anyway, as the quote above reminds me.

Are you struggling with overwhelm? Are you facing a crazy period of time, like my upcoming September, and wondering how you will manage? The answer really is as simple as this: Do one thing at a time, and focus on that one thing, until it is done. Then move on to the next thing.

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