Kat Eye Studio

Archives for April 2012

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Meeting of the Minds

One of the best things about travel is meeting up with online friends! I was excited to connect with several friends from the San Francisco area during our Spring Break visit.

On this trip I was able to meet Cindy (La Princepessa Errante), Kim (Mosey Along) and Gina (Here and Now). People always ask me if it’s weird to meet up with people you don’t know like this, and my answer is absolutely not. I do know these women, even if we’ve never met in person. It’s like meeting old friends. You already know you have things in common, it’s just a matter of linking a real, 3D person to the 2D online persona.

Gina is one of my oldest online friends, we connected through Creative Every Day and found we had much in common between our photography and love of Italy. I was so excited to meet her in person! We were the early birds and I recognized her right away. She is the nicest person ever, just as you would think from reading her blog. Here she is, capturing a statue in the courtyard of the Hills Bros. Coffee Building.

Kim and I were muses together at Mortal Muses, and formed a strong connection early on. We both love the combination of photographs and words. It was lovely to meet her in person, and to “mosey along” with her for a while.

We both took photos of this warehouse and it will be fun to see how they are different! Me, of course, with my “straight on” view, while Kim goes for the angle.

And we were lucky to be joined by Cindy, a wealth of information on the art and architecture of San Francisco! I loved hearing her stories. She knows much of the history of the buildings and took us to some fantastic places as we walked around, like the Rincon Center.

I think we talked more than we photographed anything. That’s pretty normal with a meetup like this, in my experience. I joke we should call it a “photo talk” instead of a “photo walk.” Our love of photography brings us together but the connections always go beyond taking photographs.

We ended with a lovely lunch and then headed back to the Ferry Building where we parted ways. The weather was kind and held off with the rain until we were finishing up.

It is lovely to bring online friendships into the “real” world. Meeting Gina, Cindy and Kim was no exception. I am lucky to have so many wonderful online friends, made through blogging and classes. I hope to meet more of you in person some day!

It’s always fun to see the perspectives of different photographers. There is nothing like a meetup like this to show you that each photographer has a unique point of view. You can read about Gina’s experience here and Cindy’s experience here. Kim’s off on Spring Break so we’ll have to catch up with her experience later.

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You’re Invited

To an exhibition of my Market/Wheels series of photographs at The Arts Center in Corvallis, Oregon

The Arts Center Corrine Woodman Galleries
700 SW Madison Avenue
Corvallis, Oregon
Through May 3, 2012
Gallery Hours are 12-5pm Tuesday-Saturday

It was exciting to visit my exhibition yesterday! Ten prints from my Market/Wheels series are on display in a joint exhibition with another local photographer, Phil Coleman.

The Main Gallery of The Arts Center is showing “Extreme Clay” with works by Katie Swenson and Brad Mildrexler. Beautiful colors and textures! I hope you will stop by if you are in the area.

Brad Mildrexler

Katie Swenson

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Buddy and the Bay Bridge

Oh, the beauty of a big city with mild weather – scooter sightings galore! All around San Francisco, I noticed a new brand of scooter I hadn’t seen before. These “Buddy” brand scooters are very cute with classic styling and colors. How fun to find this one parked where I could get a reflection of the Bay Bridge in as well!

There are many more scooter sightings from San Francisco to come. I’ll try to not overwhelm you with them all at once, or you might think I have an obsession with scooters or something…

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Which way is up?

The trees know. The trees always know. It doesn’t matter how steep the slope, trees always know which way is up.

A new one for my Town Trees series, this one captures the hills of San Francisco along with the tree. There are lots of great trees lining the streets in San Francisco, but it’s hard to capture one without cars! I actually tried to eliminate the cars in this image, but realized that the cars add to it. It’s San Francisco through and through: the cars parked on a steep street along with the cable car lines. All I needed was a bay window in the building, but you can’t have everything, can you?

The March Photo-Heart Connection is still open and going strong! There are so many wonderful connections this month. It’s interesting to see the topics evolve as the year progresses. Earlier months had a very introspective feel, and as spring has blossomed there is a lightness and joy that is coming through in the heart connections. We are all connected to the cycle of life around us.

You can link in through tomorrow. I hope you will join us!

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Year Eleven

In this moment, eleven years ago, I was in labor with my son. I don’t remember much of that day, just flashes of images and feelings. I do remember it was a Thursday, like this year, because I remember watching Survivor in the evening while waiting to go in for a C-section after 21 or so hours of labor that didn’t progress. Isn’t it funny, that’s what I remember clearly? That’s about all you’ll get from me about the whole experience. While the birth experience seemed a big deal at the time, since then I’ve discovered it’s irrelevant in the whole. It’s the life experience that really matters for a child.

So here he is, eleven years old today. At times self-assured and confident in who he is, at times unsure and finding his way. On the verge of those teenage years, I see the mix of teen and child in him almost every day.

Brandon on the mosaic steps in San Francisco

He wants his independence but he still wants the comfort of his parents. He still asks me to snuggle before bed, enjoying the quiet time together. He will still grab our hand to hold when he’s not thinking about it. We don’t say anything when that happens, we just quietly enjoy it because sooner or later he will realize that he’s holding our hand and snatch it away. In his mind, he’s too old for that.

I see glimpses of who he is at his heart, and where he may struggle in life. There are some ways he is so similar to me or my husband, and we know how these traits have affected us. We know what we’ve had to overcome. How it affects him remains to be seen, I must remember. He is his own person.

Off on his own, reading while his parents enjoy the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

As I do every year on this day, I pause for a moment to reflect on what it means to be a parent. Parenting continues to be the most challenging and personal job I’ve experienced. It’s funny how it’s just assumed you will grow up, get married and have kids. As if it’s the easy path because most everyone does it. But it seems to me, being responsible for the growth of a young soul as a parent is possibly the most challenging path of all.

I want to do a good job, for my son. He deserves it.

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Abundance

Everywhere you look in Chinatown, the space is filled. There is little open space. Signs fill the streets, people fill the sidewalks, goods fill the shop windows and cram the shelves.

In some ways, it seems there is this amazing sense of abundance. There is so much of everything. I tried to capture it with my camera, filling the frame so that there was no beginning or end.

But in the end, the abundance rings hollow. It is not true abundance, the kind that fills your heart with lasting joy. It is only a lot of stuff, adding a momentary blip of gratification and then quickly forgotten.

Perhaps that’s why I like photographing places so much. I can create a memory of my experience in a place, with no “stuff” attached to fill my space. My photographs bring me lasting joy with a never-ending supply of new images to create. That’s true abundance.

My new class, A Sense of Place, starts this Sunday, April 8. Tomorrow is the last day to register. Visit here to learn more about the class and registration. I’d love to have you join me to discover your own Sense of Place.

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