trees

August 25, 2016 by Kat

Back to the Forest

Summer in Oregon is awesome. After what is often a long, gray winter, the feel of the sun on my face and the ground under my bare feet is delicious. I love being warm enough to lose the sweaters and socks for a while. I love the long days of sunshine, the morning hikes with my dog, open windows at night. All of it.

But there is a downside to Summer. It also continues to be a challenge for me creatively. I’m all over the place. My bare trees are gone, I don’t have a focus. I don’t have anything that brings my work together. I experiment, and this year, nothing is sticking. So I’m back to the forest for a while, back to the trees.

There are multiple reasons I like trees as a subject so much, but this summer I’ve realized a really important one — these images fit my creative process.

When I made the decision to stop the abstract project, I thought I would continue with the figurative work. But it hasn’t happened, even though I have tons of conceptual ideas in my head and on paper. Why??

The challenge, I’ve found, is the advance planning these types of images take. If I have a concept, I can’t just sit down and create whenever it comes to me. I have to go around collecting the imagery I want to use in that concept. That takes time and energy. It was easier to do on vacation, where I had lots of free time and people around to model. I typically don’t have this kind of random imagery that works for the figurative work on my camera roll. So what I’ve been finding is that when I have time to sit down and create, typically early mornings, I can’t create that work unless I’ve planned ahead.

It turns out, I don’t like planning ahead in my art. I like to capture images as I move through my day, and then play with them later. Images of things that catch my eye, where I can stop and play with composition for a few moments as I capture a photo. They aren’t images of things so much as images of light and lines. It’s the interesting lines I like to photograph. They are the inspiration. Ten minutes of photo play can sometimes fuel my mornings for a week, maybe more.

Because my art is not just about creating a finished piece of a concept. It’s also about meditation. It’s my own personal escape into a quiet space that takes my mind away from everything else going on in my life. Playing with the image, a single image, and seeing what I can do with it brings its own unique joy.

The process of creating is more important than the finished piece.

I recently listened to a great podcast by Malcom Gladwell (Revision History Episode 7, Hallelujah) where he talks about different kinds of creators. There are those who have a concept and do things all at once, and then there are those who don’t have a concept in mind but eventually reach completion through experiment and revision. I’m the latter. It takes longer, but it’s the way that works for me.

So the trees are back. Not just because they are easier, because I certainly don’t believe art should always be easy, but because creating this way makes me happy. I need these morning moments of quiet and clarity in my life right now more than I need to create boundary-pushing art. So this is what I will do, what I will create.

What works for you? Are you a conceptual creator or an experimental creator? What matters more to you, the completed piece or the process? Think about it, and allow yourself to be true to the right process for you.

PS – Don’t miss out on the chance for me to create you a new profile photo! Read more here.

November 13, 2014 by Kat

Creativity and Time

I’ve been on a remarkably even keel since the returning from the yoga retreat last weekend. It’s as if I rebooted. Reset everything to a new baseline. It’s wonderful.

It’s allowed me thoughtful space and given me new clarity. I’ve been thinking about how I’m spending my time. I’ve been pondering some little changes to focus myself back in on what’s important. Writing a book, for one. Evaluating what I want to tackle in 2015. And creating new work. Always, always creating new work.

I’ve been realizing a deep truth: As an artist, everything hinges on continual creation. Everything. Self-understanding, renewal, and growth all come from a creative practice. It’s in creating that I understand the direction I want to go. It’s through my artwork that I tease out the signals to follow. I don’t wait for inspiration and then create. I create and then I get insight. And so I create some more.

No matter what else is going on, creating has to be at the core. It has to be a priority for my time. The pace may change, but it can’t go away. If it does, eventually the fuel for everything else that swirls around the art I create… this blog and the book and the workshops and the art events… will slowly, quietly fade away. And you know what else will fade away? An important, even vital, connection to my heart and soul. The connection which provides understanding of who I am and the confidence to seek my own path, no matter the influences around me.

We forget this. Our culture tells us to do otherwise. It tells us to focus on all of the other things that require our time: Work and family and friends and commitments. Things beyond ourselves. Get the work done first, then have fun. Then, with your spare time and energy, with the dregs left over, only then can you create. Everything else, everyone else comes first.

That doesn’t work, for the artist. For the artist to have a thriving creative life, creating art has to be part of the priorities. It has to be the work. You have to give it your best time and energy, on a regular basis. You have to make the right choices for yourself, even if others aren’t happy with you.

So I renew the choice, for myself, to continue creating new work. I don’t do it because I need new images to share or to blog or to show or to sell. I do it because I’m not me if I’m not creating.

I’ve worked long and hard to figure out who I am amidst the clutter. I’m not going to let that knowledge or connection fade away.

October 16, 2014 by Kat

A New Crush

I am one of those who has no trouble imagining the sentient lives of trees, of their leaves in some fashion communicating or of the massy trunks and heavy branches knowing it is I who have come, as I always come, each morning, to walk beneath them, glad to be alive and glad to be there.
— Mary Oliver in Winter Hours

On a whim last week, I wanted to read some poetry. When I did a search of our online library, a few of Mary Oliver’s books popped up on the list. I like a lot of quotes I’ve read by her, I thought, so I checked out her book of essays and poetry, Winter Hours.

Oh my. Have I found a kindred spirit in Mary Oliver! Every other paragraph there is something I want to write down. She expresses in words what I feel about so many things, like the quote above. Did she reach into my head to extract that? No, no, of course not. It’s that she finds her inspiration in morning walks in the woods with her dog, creating beautiful and simple poetry and prose out of her experiences. She has followed her ritual long, long before I discovered a similar one for myself.

But the similarities mean that her words resonate deeply with me. She is someone I can learn from and look to for inspiration. Someone whose art speaks to mine. For aren’t poetry and photography similar? They are both made of fragments, a partial view of the whole, conveying an experience which must be expressed; can’t be suppressed.

Her creative philosophy resonates with me too. In an interview with her on NPR from a couple of years ago, she said, “I always feel that whatever isn’t necessary shouldn’t be in a poem.” And I thought, That’s exactly how I feel about photographs! In my imagery, I want to distill the greater world down to the essentials, keeping only what is necessary to convey something. Simpler is often better, I have found, for conveying emotion.
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March 20, 2013 by Kat

An Expanding View of Place

I always like to think of growth as a spiral. I may come back to revisit topics and lessons, but each time from a slightly different point of view. Each trip around the spiral, I’m a step higher or to the left or the right, and everything looks a little bit different.

With my recent trip to Singapore, I had the opportunity to revisit my Sense of Place from a new point of view. After the dramatic shift in my photography over the last few months, using the iPhone 5 and exploring creative edits, mainly of trees, I wondered what would catch my eye. I took my regular dSLR travel kit along with the iPhone. Which camera would I use most? What would I want to capture – silhouettes of trees or bicycles and scooters? Would my Sense of Place be the same?

The answer: Yes, and No.

I discovered that what caught my eye in visiting this new-to-me international destination was much the same as what captured me across much of Europe. The textures of history, signs of cultural differences and interesting two-wheeled transportation. The same Sense of Place I’ve come to rely on in my exploration of the world and my photography. It’s what grounds me, no matter where I find myself.

But I also discovered that I saw something new… the interesting textures and shapes of the trees against the sky. Different trees… palms and mangroves and rain trees. Trees with leaves instead of bare branches. The natural beauty of the place captured me as much as the interesting urban environment.

My Sense of Place has expanded. What a powerful and joyous thing to realize.

I recognize now that I had been worried that my Sense of Place would diminish, without traveling as much as I used to. But the opposite has turned out to be true. Not doing as much international travel over the last couple of years has pushed me in new ways. I’ve expanded what I see. This has in turn affected my photography as I travel. I see differently. I see more. My style has expanded to encompass more than one point of view. Growth, artistic or otherwise, only happens when we are pushed outside of our comfort zone.

This experience was a humbling reminder of the spiral of growth I can embrace as I walk through life. I can fear the changes and try (ineffectively) to stay in the same place on the spiral, or I can rejoice in the change that comes from new experiences.

How wonderful to realize I can revisit “place” with an ever-expanding point of view.

The timing for this revelation couldn’t be more perfect, with my upcoming A Sense of Place workshop and online course offerings in April. Would you like to discover your Sense of Place? There are two great opportunities available:

Join me April 13 in Las Vegas at Selah for the one-day A Sense of Place workshop. Great news! Spaces are still available and the registration fee has been reduced. In addition, if you join us for this one-day workshop you can take the 8-week online course for 50% off, a perfect companion course. Details will be provided after you register through Selah.
Reduced hotel rates have also been negotiated at El Cortez Hotel, right near Selah. Tower Rooms (either one king or two queen beds) are $77+tax/night with code SEL41213 and Cabana Suites (one king) are $88+tax/night with code SELCS41213. Call 800-634-6703 to make reservations.
Join the 8-week online course, A Sense of Place, starting April 7. This course dives into the Photography of Place, helping you to discover your own approach to photographing places, whether close to home or far away. Exploring “place” is fundamental to my photography practice and I love to help others explore this topic too.

February 27, 2013 by Kat

A Walk in the Woods

I woke up Monday to the sound of the rain. It figures, I thought to myself, It would be raining the first day of my new plan to go hiking regularly. But this is Oregon, and if you didn’t ever go out in the rain you would be stuck indoors for months, so I got out the rain gear and headed to the woods.

It was everything I had hoped for: peaceful, beautiful, solitary. Oh yes, and wet. But the sun came out several times, and I experienced a true joy to see the light dancing among the trees. Had I stayed at home, I wouldn’t have noticed the sun.

By the end, I was breathing deeply. My shoulders had relaxed, coming down from my ears to a more natural location. My body was tired but refreshed.

This is what I’ve been craving. It was hard to break the habit and walk away from the computer and the To Do list. But Day One of Project Forest Walks was a success. Today will be Day Two.

January 25, 2013 by Kat

A Serendipitous Mess

Ah, the joy of creating Artistic Blur in camera! Have you tried it yet for Exploring with a Camera this month? If not, you are missing out on lots of fun. There is something incredibly freeing about creating with in-camera blur effects. A lot of time it’s a complete mess but, ah, when it turns out! It can be perfection. Messy perfection.

I had a serendipitous find in my iPhone this week along the lines of in-camera blur and messy perfection. I went for a walk in the forest on Wednesday, hoping to capture the freezing fog we’ve been having. As I walked up the road, I took a couple of photographs and left my camera on as I held it in my hand, hanging down at my side. When I stopped to take my next photograph and pulled the camera up to get ready, I saw this on the screen:

Whoa! I didn’t intend to take that. It was captured by accident, as I was walking along, with the ProHDR app open. Let me explain on this app works… ProHDR takes two exposures of the same scene, one for the highlights and one for the shadows, and combines them to give an image greater dynamic range. To use the app, you frame up your photograph and then tap the screen to start the process. You have to hold still for a while (it seems like forever) while the camera analyzes the scene and then takes the two images of the scene. After that, it combines the two and allows you to save or cancel. I must have accidentally tapped the screen as I was walking along, and the app analyzed the scene and took the two shots, automatically combining them. So I got this cool double-exposure-plus-motion effect in the final combined image, and, the best part, I accidentally discovered I could use this app for in-camera artistic blur effects!

My goal of photographs of the freezing fog went out the window as I explored this new creative possibility. I tried all sorts of different things as I moved the camera between the first and second exposure on the app to see how it would combine them together. Like any of the artistic blur techniques, a lot of experimentation is needed to get anything that looks good. After all of my play, I was never able to recreate the twisting effect of that accidental shot. (I have no idea what I was doing to get that. I must have been seriously swinging my arms around!) I did learn a couple of things though: The best images were those with quite a bit of light area in each exposure, so that when the two exposures overlapped you can see detail of both, and the second image seemed to be more dominant in the final image, because of the way ProHDR exposes and combines the two images.

Here are my favorite ones:

I’ve shifted color on all of these final images through other app filters, because I liked how the different colors highlighted different parts of the image and enhanced the feel. I played with a lot of filters and color options to choose the final image. I’ll also note on the second image, I had to do some cropping. My finger got in the frame so I cropped that out along with some other distracting elements. I don’t think you can expect to get a perfectly framed final image out of these types of techniques, so cropping is going to be your friend. Here’s the original to compare the difference:

This was all so. much. fun. I was filled with excitement and joy after this photo session, and later too, when I had time to play with editing. That’s what photography is all about for me – the joy I get from the process!

How is your exploration going with creating in-camera Artistic Blur? Have you tried it yet? If not, I encourage you to get out there and play! Find your own serendipitous mess. Kind of like fingerpainting, there is a joy to be found in the freedom of creating this way. Also, don’t miss the guest post from Jack Larson earlier in the week. He shared some other Artistic Blur effects and some wonderful images. You still have time, the link up is open through the end of the month.