Kat Eye Studio

  • Home
  • Portfolio
  • Books
    • Art with an iPhone
    • Digital Photography for Beginners
  • Workshops
    • Mobile Photography Workshop Series
    • iPhone Art Workshop
    • Out of the Box Composition Workshop
    • Photography & Creativity Talks
  • Free Resources
    • Mobile Tutorials
    • Exploring with a Camera
    • Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap
  • Blog
  • About
    • Artist Statement
    • Background & Experience
    • Contact

November 1, 2014 by Kat

Photo-Heart Connection: October 2014

It starts with seeing.

IMG_3529.JPG

Every photograph, every finished image, they all start with that spark of seeing.

Seeing beauty. Seeing possibility. Seeing whatever it is I see in life.

Whether or not I take a photo, whether or not I process a photo I’ve captured, I’ve still seen. Borne witness. Captured a moment in my minds eye.

No matter how busy we are, no matter how much of a hurry we are in, we can still see and acknowledge the world around us.

That’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.


One of the things I am most grateful for is how photography has taught me to see. I notice things that others don’t notice. The curve of a branch, the color variation in a leaf, the impression of a heart in the empty space. Amazing, beautiful things fill the world around us and we just have to open our eyes to see. I’ve been reminded of this as the last few weeks have been busy. Rushing to and from work and evening activities, Philomath Open Studios (come by this weekend!) and short days have meant little time for photography. But I’ve still been seeing.

My Photo-Heart Connection is a reflection of this month’s seeing, from one of the times I did have a few minutes to spare as I walked to my car in the parking lot at work, pulling out my camera and exploring the lines and colors of the autumn trees. I had been seeing them all week, and finally got that chance. The seeing for myself was enough, but capturing and sharing it with you makes it even better.

What is your Photo-Heart Connection this month? What have you seen, how has it touched your heart? Share it with us here.

An InLinkz Link-up


Filed Under: Photo-Heart Connection, The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: autumn, photo-heart connect, photography, transition, tree

September 23, 2014 by Kat

Season of Attention

Summer is lingering in Oregon. School has started, but the wonderful hot, sunny weather has continued. I’m still wearing sandals and short-sleeved shirts. Fully engaged and cruising along in summer mode.

But the trees… They are heading in to fall. They aren’t waiting around for me to catch up, either. Quietly, stealthily, autumn color creeps along the branches.

IMG_3293.JPG

If I’m not careful, I will miss it. This is a season where attention is required. There are a few short weeks of transition, and in Oregon it can be even less. Autumn can disappear as quickly as the first rainstorms arrive, the wind and rain knocking the fragile, fading leaves off the trees.

Noticing the shift in color, I am reminded to take a deep breath and be in the moment. So much is going on in my life right now, it’s easy to keep my head down and focus on what’s next. But if I don’t look up and around once in a while, the season will be gone before I’ve registered it.

These moments of realization make me so thankful that I am a photographer. How else would I wake up and be in the moment, without the desire to pause once in a while and capture the world around me? Without the joy of tiny details catching my eye? I can’t imagine.

Autumn now has my attention, however long it lasts. I look forward to seeing what each day has to offer me.

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: autumn, Corvallis, transition

March 13, 2014 by Kat

Under Construction

Things might be a little messy around here for the next few days! I’m moving to a new WordPress theme and we just made the transition. While I’d love this to be seamless, I’ve learned there is only so much you can do in advance on a live site. We’ve figured out the format and the basics, but then you just have to go live and then edit. There is nothing I can do at this point except work through the mess.

Construction Cone Kat Sloma Photography

So please forgive the dust! If you find pages that aren’t working, see weird things going on in the text, etc. please let me know. I’ll be working through fixing all of this over the next few days and don’t want to miss anything.

Why am I going to a new theme, you ask? When my site was set up in 2011, I chose a great theme, but it turns out it wasn’t supported through all of the WordPress updates of the last few years and things were slowly breaking. My web guy and I kept having to do workarounds to get it to look right. Not only that, it wasn’t mobile responsive, so couldn’t easily be read on smartphones and the like.

Once I get through this transition mess, I’ll have a responsive, supported site that looks good across all platforms. I just have a little bit of work to do to get there. Bear with me!

Filed Under: The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: transition, website

November 1, 2013 by Kat

Photo-Heart Connection: October

There is beauty in autumn. And no, this time I don’t mean the vivid colors that some trees and plants use to herald their demise. I mean the quiet beauty of transition.

The beauty of a graceful exit.

IMG_0359

I love the lines of the bare trees of winter, that is no secret. But as this fall has progressed, I’ve enjoyed the emerging lines which are accentuated with the receding leaves. Some leaves go out in a blaze of glory, falling from the tree en mass in their bright colors, still flexible and pliant until days on the ground. One day the tree is full, the next it is bare. It’s startling. But other leaves age in place, slowly and quietly making their transition, losing a bit of themselves here and there with a whisper until one day they are all gone.

It’s these leaves I’m noticing. They speak to me of tenacity. Of a will to continue, even with the inevitability of the end. And wow, aren’t they beautiful? In their demise, they are so graceful. They accentuate the beauty of the bare tree beneath, rather than covering it, as the summer leaves do. It’s almost as if this is their finest hour, their greatest contribution. This is when the tree and leaf are truly one. They tell me that a tree is not either/or, bare or full, it’s both. I can see both seasons, appreciate both, together in this brief moment. These leaves chastise me in my wishing for one or the other; in my desire to hurry or slow time. They remind me there is only this moment. Can I not see?

This time, as any other, I look to the trees for lessons. This season’s lesson for me: How to appreciate the transition. Regardless of what is coming, it can be approached and experienced in the moment, with grace.


“Graceful” is a word that keeps coming to me, over and over, to describe the lines that I want to capture in my photographs. The way I want to live my life. Lately, I see grace all the time in the lines around me, whether it’s in the trees or the sand or extension of a human hand. This month it’s been especially clear to me in the transition of the seasons, as my Photo-Heart Connection expresses. It seems so dramatic to say this, but I ache for the beauty of it all. I do. I am deeply touched by the grace I see in the face of inevitability. I want to have that kind of stoic strength in my approach to the transitions of life. I observe it, I photograph it, and I know I fall short. But I keep going, hanging on, working toward that kind of being. I wonder: Do you have to first see, before you can be?

What is your Photo-Heart Connection this month? Do you see deep longings or light playfulness in your photographs? Your heart is telling you something. Explore the message. Share it with us here.

Filed Under: Photo-Heart Connection, The Kat Eye View of the World Tagged With: autumn, leaf, personal growth, photo heart connection, silhouette, transition, tree

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Upcoming Events

Books Available

  Digital Photography for Beginners eBook Kat Sloma

Annual Postcard Swap

Online Photography Resources

search

Archives

Filter

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Upcoming Events

© Copyright 2017 Kat Eye Studio LLC