Kat Eye Studio

Archives for January 2012

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Scooter Sightings: Pink 50 Special

This scooter sighting digs back into my archives, from a little town of Vigevano, outside of Milan. I think this may be the only pink scooter I captured during my time in Italy! Isn’t it a great color?

As I was looking at it with my son yesterday morning, we remembered another story that involved pink from Vigevano. After exploring the town, we stopped for gelato on our walk back to the car. Patrick was enticed by the delightful pink color of a certain gelato, Pompelmo Rosa. Not knowing much Italian at the time, we had no idea that “pompelmo rosa” means “pink grapefruit.” It was the most horrible tasting gelato ever. We all had to try it, just to see what he was complaining about. He learned his lesson – you don’t pick gelato by color alone!

Picking scooters by color, however, is an entirely different story.

Here’s another scooter sighting, shared with me from Kim in Australia. She saw this cute Vespa in a store in Akaora, New Zealand, and thought of me. Thanks Kim!!

If you have a scooter sighting, take a pic and email it to me! I’d love to share your scooter sighting here.

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Putting Myself In The Picture

While I love capturing the world around me, I hate being in front of the camera. Hate it. That’s why it’s with some tredipation and fear that I join in with Urban Muser’s In The Picture project this year, gently exploring self portraiture.

I have noticed I carry a lot of biases about self-portraiture. I could list many reasons that I have kept myself out of the picture in the past. But they are all just a protective facade, designed to keep me safely away from images of myself. What am I trying to avoid?

I guess this year, I’ll find out. One image at a time.

A self-portrait opportunity presented itself to me on Saturday, while at the Portland Art Museum. I was in the Contemporary Art Gallery when I noticed the light. The sun had come out, after a rainy morning, and I loved the interplay between the light and the art. I started to capture this painting, Green One by Pat Steir, when I realized the gallery was empty, and there was plenty of space to work. I set up my camera, grabbed my remote and captured a few frames.

It’s a safe start, I must admit. I’m abstracted, a silhouette. To an outside observer, the image is not about me as much as it is about a person interacting with art, with the light. I could have taken this of anyone.

But it is about me, to me. About my love of art and painting, about being in an environment that allows me to enjoy it. The image becomes more personal, more meaningful.

Maybe that’s the point of self-portraiture? I’m not sure. It’s going to take a while to work through my biases and figure out this whole genre of photography, and how it fits for me. This is the start.

In The Picture

PS – A word about this gorgeous painting! It was so full of texture and subtle color, it is no wonder it caught my eye in the light. You can find out more about Pat Steir and her work here.

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Boy in the Morning

My boy, early in the morning.

As we snuggled on the couch this morning to keep warm, the soft light and shadows inspired me to grab my camera and convince him to sit still for a moment or two. This doesn’t happen often these days. When he was little, he was my main subject but at some point he got tired of the mamarazzi and put his foot down. He was done having his picture taken. That’s when I began to explore other subjects to improve my photography skills, opening up a new and different world. The world you see most of the time around here.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want to capture him. His growth, who he is. He’s at the cusp of teenager-hood, making his own choices. Listening obsessively to pop music, growing his hair out (my one condition: he must keep it clean) and playing computer games.

But… he’s still my boy, for this brief moment, early in the morning.

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Come Visit!

I’m over at Shutter Sisters today, with a guest post sharing the Photo-Heart Connection. I’m excited to have the chance to guest post there, and to share this project with more photographers. I would love to have you come visit.

Have you been thinking about your Photo-Heart Connection more this month, since I announced the project? I have. I’m looking more closely, more critically at each photo. Not to see what is technically right or wrong, but to notice how I feel. That’s a very good thing.

Today’s photo is from our recent snowstorm. I don’t know what it is, but there is always something about a lone tree image that gets me, right in the heart.

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Anchored Walls

We are still studying windows in Exploring with a Camera, and this week I realized I neglected to mention one important way I use windows in my photos: As an anchor.

I love the texture of walls, but having an image of a textured wall without any other context is not so interesting. Including a piece of a window, door or some other architectural element helps provide context. The corner of the window in the image below “anchors” the wall in reality, so you know what you are looking at.

I’ve enjoyed seeing the windows shared so far! Have you had a chance to explore windows yet? You have another week to join in!


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Trust and Belief: The Lessons of a Twitter Hacking

A few days ago, I had my Twitter account hacked. I could have kicked myself, because after the fact I realized that I was a willing participant to the hacking. After living in a world of internet spam, with all of the suspicious emails, tweets and blog comments I see all the time, I finally fell for one. Ouch. A blow to the pride for sure, but it taught me a thing or two about myself. About trust and belief.

So, how did this happen? First, I got a direct message from someone I know. I don’t follow a huge number of people on twitter, and while some of them are big names who don’t know me from the next person, many of them are people I’ve interacted with online or in person. This message came from someone I know, have met in person and exchanged emails with. A friend. So the first step in my downfall was receiving the message from someone I trust. It gave it a credibility it otherwise wouldn’t.

The second, and more insidious piece, is how I believed the message. I’ve never fallen for wiring money to Africa, or making thousands of dollars working from home, or the latest pharmaceutical scam. But this message preyed upon my vulnerability, saying, “You seen what this person is saying about you? {Link} terrible things.” I believed it. I clicked the link, “logged in” to twitter and willingly gave up my password. Why? Because I’ve always had this underlying fear that sometime, somewhere, someone was going to say terrible things about me on the Internet. It has to just be a matter of time, when you put yourself out there publicly like this, right? I realize now this wasn’t just a fear they preyed upon, I carried it around so long it became a belief. I have been sure that it would happen. Steeling myself against the day when it would come. So in my head I said, “Yep, it’s finally happened.” And I clicked the link.

I have to admit the smarts of these hackers, preying on our trust and belief like this. I have to admit chagrin, that I’m not as savvy against hackers as I thought. The hackers only took advantage so far. My own belief helped them the rest of the way.

I apologize if you got the same twitter message from me this week, I hope you saw it for what it was and didn’t click the link. I hate to think that I might have lost the trust of others in this way. But I did learn one important lesson out of all of this. I’ve been carrying around a belief that needs to go. No one has said terrible things about me yet. Maybe someone will someday, maybe they won’t. There is no point in believing it will happen. That just makes me vulnerable, to my own insecurities and hackers alike.

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