Kat Eye Studio

Archives for November 2010

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Colorful Expressions

While it is wonderful to travel to new places, it is also nice to go back to places you love. Places that inspire you in some way, that sing to your soul. I have been so lucky to be able to visit the Venetian lagoon so many times. It is a place like that for me. And every time, I seem to find a different focus for my photography. I am in a different place in my life, my creative development, and I see different things.

This time, in Burano, it was all about color and form. Color for color’s sake, how color and shape and light come together to make a beautiful composition. The primary colors of the interior of this boat, are just one example. I could see beyond the colorful canal vistas of the houses lined up in a row, the lace shops, the bussolai (which are the yummiest cookies ever!), to see some of the most wonderful details of colorful expression to be found.

Think about that… if you are always traveling to new places, you don’t get to uncover the layers of the places you love. A trade-off that must be made, one of the hardest, I think!

By the way, the postcards arrived yesterday! Yay! You still have time to go comment on yesterday’s post and enter to win them. I’ll pick and announce the winner tomorrow, and tell you all about what’s new around my little world here.

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What’s new? (Giveaway time!)

Yesterday was the first really foggy morning in Parco di Monza of the season. I love fog, how it blankets everything and slowly reveals more as you move through it. I like this photo, which gives a hint of what the day is going to become, all sun and blue sky, while still showing the deep fog that exists down below. Maybe it’s an analogy for the direction in our lives, when we are having trouble seeing where we might be going. Instead of looking forward, try looking up.

I’m inviting you to take another look today too. I know many folks use blog readers – I do! – and don’t visit my actual site that often. I’ve made a number of changes lately, and so I’m inviting you to come by and take a look!

To motivate you, I’m going to have a little contest too… Come explore the site a little bit, then leave a comment with what “new” thing you specifically like on my blog, to enter to win. Contest will end on Sunday morning, 7am my time, and I’ll randomly select a winner from all of the comments that include something specific. If you are new to my blog, just comment on what you liked the first time you visited! I would love to hear your thoughts.

What will you win? Hopefully, a set of postcards, either those pictured below or one of my new sets, if they arrive soon! I ordered more postcards in September (I still owe some to a few of you, I haven’t forgotten) and they have been lost in the mail twice. I know, I wouldn’t believe it either if it hadn’t happened to me. So they should be reprinted and mailed this next week and I’ll be able to get them out to you. If they don’t arrive in a timely manner, I’ll find some other interesting Italian thing to give away to you. I have some ideas brewing!

So it’s kind of like a mystery giveaway – either the postcards or something behind door number two!

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Share Your View: Frame within a Frame

This perfect frame within a frame image presented itself to me last weekend in Burano. Have you been seeing frames all week too? Now’s the time to Share Your View! Link up to your image, recent or archive, using the link tool below. Then we can hop around and enjoy all of the marvelous frames that the world has to offer. I’m looking forward to seeing through your eyes this week!

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Miracles

“There are only two ways to live your life.
One as though nothing is a miracle. The other as though everything is a miracle.”
– Albert Einstein
This quote has popped up in more than one place for me lately, so it gave me pause as I read it again this morning. I like the idea of the second way – that everything is a miracle. Look at the beauty that is around us, all day, every day, when we stop to look. The beauty that can be found in a rotting door, peeling paint, corroding metal. I love it.
I think that artists in particular must live in this way – that everything is miracle. How else would you be able to create, if you could not first see the world around us with a sense of amazement? That each thing is a gift – the bird’s song, the turn of phrase, the peeling paint, the situations we find ourselves in. How can we choose to use that gift? Easier to think about when it’s taking a photo of a door like this in Murano, harder when we find ourselves in a difficult situation with another person. 
I don’t know the answer to that yet, but I like the idea of miracles much better than the alternative.

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Can I Resist?

I’m having a heck of time this month. You see, I’m a joiner. And there are all of these things to join in November, just calling to me! But I’m trying to resist, because I have a busy month that includes a lot of personal projects I want to do, instead of joining something that doesn’t get me closer to my goals and dreams.

It started with Art Every Day Month, which looks so fun. I mean, I create most every day anyway in some way, this is right up my alley. But I’m resisting, because I don’t want to focus my creative inspiration and efforts just to meet a self-imposed deadline every day when I have so much else going on.

Then there is NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, which inspires you to write a post every day on your blog for the month of November. Hey, I do that most of the time anyway! But not committing this month, which includes visitors and travel and the busiest, longest work week of my entire year.

Along the way I ran into 30 Days of Gratitude. What a wonderful way to uplift and celebrate the month of November, than to be grateful, for 30 days? But then that focuses me on one specific topic… and again a whole 30 days of commitment to it. Can’t do it.

On my internet wanderings I bumped into Digital Detox, which sounds like a wonderful week long little way to simplify your life if you want to participate, and then November in Black and White. Hey, I love black and white photography. But wait, that would commit me to a whole month of it. Right now, when I have other things I’m focusing on. OK, so no.

Thank goodness I don’t have any idead for a novel, or NaNoWriMo would be calling to me too.

I hadn’t realized that I was such a joiner until I find myself struggling to resist joining in to all of these things. The communities they create are so fun. The things you gain by doing these activities is so worthy. As I read some of my favorite blogs I feel like I’m looking longingly into the windows of people at a party and I’m outside in the cold. But I remind myself, no, I can’t put myself through this right now. Because for me, what’s worse than being outside looking in? Joining something and then not being able to follow through. I beat myself up, because I committed to something, darn it, I should follow through. Instead, I’m choosing to stay sane this month, without adding extra pressure.

So to satisfy those urges to join, I’ve decided to create KaNoJoMo – doesn’t that sound fabulous? It stands for Kat’s Non-Joining Month. This month, I am not going to join or commit to anything that is not on my personal priority list. I am going to resist, walk away, focus on my own stuff in the limited time I have available. I’ll just wave at everyone else through the window as I walk by, give them a thumbs up to let them know I support what they are doing.

Want to join me? Haha – I tricked you! You can’t join me! That’s the idea, no joining. It’s a personal decision, one you can make too. No monthly or weekly or daily challenges or commitments to other projects if that is not right for you. Only commitments you make to yourself. You don’t need to announce it to the world (as, ironically, I am doing), you just have to make a personal choice.  You don’t need permission from anyone else but you, and you don’t have to apologize to anyone for not joining.

Week 1 of KaNoJoMo is already over, and I survived without joining anything. Whew. Only 3 more weeks to go…

Today’s photo is from Saturday evening in Venice. *Sigh* I love Venice. Still.

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