Archives for September 2013

September 26, 2013 by Kat

Hard Work

Last week, I participated in the United Way Day of Caring with my group at my corporate job. Our task was to clean out and level horse stalls. It was messy, manual labor, quite different from our office jobs on computers and usual group interactions.

Along the way, this photo caught my eye, with it’s repeating lines. I edited it this morning to share with the group, not planning to share it here.

But between this photo and some conversations going on in the Find Your Eye: Journey of Fascination discussion group, I’ve been thinking about the value of hard work. I’m not going to go out on a limb to say something has to be hard to have value, but there is something to be said for working hard and getting through to the other side in a different place. For sticking to something and seeing it through, whether it’s cleaning horse stalls or creating art.

There may be times we wish for something easier: An easier task, an easier creative process, an easier life. But would we value our successes as much? Would we find pride in our progress? Would we celebrate our accomplishments in the same way? I don’t think so.

This photo and these thoughts fortify me as I look at a daunting list of things to accomplish over the next few weeks. It’s time to grab the wheelbarrow and do the hard work. It will be worth it on the other side.

Come visit me at Fall Festival this weekend! My art can be found in the PhotoArts Guild booth (#114), and I will be working in the booth Saturday and Sunday afternoons after 2pm. I will also have pieces in the Philomath Open Studios Tour booth (#130). I would love to meet you!

September 24, 2013 by Kat

Two Years, Two Months, Two Weeks, Two Days

Two years, two months, two weeks, two days. That’s how long we lived in Italy. As of last Monday, that’s how long we’ve been back from Italy. Ever since passing the two year anniversary of returning home this summer, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned since moving back from abroad. How I’ve grown and changed since then. What’s been easier, and what’s been harder. Today I will share a few thoughts with you… Two years, two months, two weeks and two days later.

First, I must talk about the time in Italy a little bit. You see, I went to Italy with a small personal goal: To figure out who I was. The year before my assignment started, there were several rounds of layoffs at my corporate job. That can be scary, but even more scary if it makes you realize how much of your identity you derive from your work. I started to realize that if I were laid off, it would be like the rug being pulled out from under me. Who would I be? How would I define myself? And I knew that was not a good situation to be in. I needed to figure out who I was, beyond external definitions. Who I was beyond being a mom, wife and engineer. I honestly didn’t know.

So I took lots of books with me to Italy and I made time to read and journal. Following my intuition and growing interests, I began to explore art. I started visiting art museums and exhibits, dabbling in painting, and taking my camera with me wherever I went. I wrote about what I was discovering in my journal and on my blog. And, lo and behold, I slowly uncovered an artist underneath all of the layers of self I had put on over time. I discovered within myself someone who could take observations of the world and re-form them into something new and different through words and photographs. And I began to understand who I really was, what mattered to me and what I struggled with, in unexpected ways through these expressions in words and photographs. It was wonderful. I felt powerful, and I knew, just knew, that I had found the key piece of who I was that would continue beyond the unique time and place of living in Italy.

I was right.

Monet’s Water Lilies at l’Orangerie, Paris

And I was wrong.

Because when I moved back here to Oregon, I began to have an identity crisis of a different sort. Who was I as an artist, without living in Italy? Would I still have words to write, photographs to take? I hadn’t realized, until returning home, what I was gathering up during that time in Italy was a different set of external definitions and expectations, wrapped around this new identity as an artist. I had tied myself up in thinking “what” I was photographing or writing about defined me as an artist the same that “what” I did as a career defined me as a person. Damn! Maybe I hadn’t made as much progress as I thought. I had traded one thing for another, and I still had lots of work to do. Personal work, artistic work, to discover who I was, independent of a place.

It was make or break time. Either I would come out the other side, still defining myself as an artist, or I would move on and look for something else. Because as you’ve undoubtedly noticed, Italy and Europe is no longer at my doorstep. I’m not a huge world traveler anymore, hopping to new countries every couple of months. I couldn’t rely on travel to fuel my artistic and personal growth any longer. As much as I love travel, I knew that always wishing to be “somewhere else” wasn’t how I wanted to live my life after moving back to Oregon.

So returning to Oregon really just continued me on the journey I had started in Italy. The last two years haven’t felt as much like trial by fire, with the intensity of change I experienced in Italy, as trial by slow cooker. It’s taken me longer to figure things out, probably because the landscape of life is more familiar, the pace of new experiences is slower.

I’ve come out on the other side of this transition from Italy to Oregon, and yes, I am still an artist. I’m not the same artist I was when I left Italy, and that is a very good thing. I look back at that point in my life and that person I was fondly, but not with longing. “Italy Kat,” as I’ve called that version of myself, didn’t know what I know now. Even though she thought she had it all figured out, she wasn’t as balanced in her life or grounded in reality. She didn’t understand that she would continue to grow and change in ways beyond her wildest predictions, and that growth and change, continual reinvention, is an essential part of being an artist. She didn’t yet understand that you have to learn to be happy with who you are, no matter where you are, what you do, or who you are with. You have to find the grounded, centered confidence of who you are at your core, or external things – the place you live, the job you have, the relationships you are involved in – can define you. And all of those things are transient, they can go away, taking huge chunks of your identity with them. I’ve learned that I don’t want to always be looking to elsewhere for my identity, as an artist or otherwise. That gives up control of who I am, and my happiness, to others or to circumstances.

My Water Lilies, Oregon

To be honest, I know I have a long way to go before I really get to the independence of identity that I’m talking about. I may never really get there. But through this journey to Italy and back I’ve at least learned a bit more about myself, discovering myself as an artist and finding out where “place” fits in for me. I’ve learned I can let places, people and circumstances in my life influence and change me, without letting them define me. I can take them in, use them, and always, always come out with something new that is of my own making.

Because I am, at my core, an artist. And that’s what artists do.

September 19, 2013 by Kat

Upcoming Workshops and Events

With the start of school, it seems that activities pick up. Gone are the lazy weekends and free evenings. Things are in gear for fall! I have a number of upcoming workshops and events I want to share with you.

And a bit of new work to share with you… Just before going on the Eastern Oregon trip I made a visit to a water garden to photograph water lilies and, joy of all joys, bamboo! Here’s the first image from that excursion. More to come!

Workshops

I’ve created a short class to introduce the basics of getting great photographs with your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Offered through Corvallis Parks & Rec on November 9 and January 11, this class will be good way to get started with your mobile device. You always have your mobile device with you, right? Why not make it your primary camera. I have! In this half-day course, you’ll learn how to get the most out of your device’s camera along with the basics of editing, using the ProCamera and Snapseed apps. Whether you are a beginner or an established photographer, you’ll be creating photographs you are proud to share in no time. The cost of the 3-hour workshop is $32+apps, and you can register through Corvallis Parks & Rec.

It was so much fun, I’m doing it again! I am teaching the 1-day Smartphone Art workshop on November 16 in Hillsboro, Oregon at the wonderful Sequoia Gallery + Studios. If you want to learn how to create art with your mobile device, you can join me for a fun, hands-on day of instruction. We’ll begin by learning how to get great photographs using your mobile device, the first step to creating any type of smartphone art. From there, we’ll move into basic and creative edits using apps. By the end of the day, you’ll be combining apps and creating truly unique works of art using your device. You can find the full workshop description here. The cost for the 1-day workshop is $75+apps, and you can register through Sequoia Gallery + Studios.

Events

A group of us are creating an informal Mobile Photography Group here in Corvallis. Our first meeting will be September 24 at 7pm. We’ll share app reviews, demos and whatever the participants are interested in. At this first meeting we’ll discuss how we want to format and organize. I’m excited to develop a stronger community of mobile photographers in the local area. Contact me for details if you are interested in attending.

It’s Corvallis Fall Festival time! This is an amazing juried festival of artists which runs September 28 and 29. I’ll be there in the PhotoArts Guild booth, with my art for sale. I’ll be presenting a portfolio of my iPhone tree images from last winter, as framed and unframed prints and greeting cards. I don’t place my work for sale very often, so this is a unique opportunity to see my work in person (in my favorite format – printed!) and to purchase. I’ll be working in the booth on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, after 2pm. I would love to meet you if you are able to stop by!

The Philomath Open Studios Tour is an annual event that allows you into the studios of some amazing artists. Held the weekends of October 26/27 and November 2/3, you can visit the studios of the participating artists anytime between 12-5pm. I am excited to be a guest artist in the event this year, hosted by photographer David Paul Bayles in his gorgeous Kindred Wind Studio. I can’t wait to share and discuss my art with more people in this wonderful venue. I attended last year and it was fascinating to meet the artists, see their studios and discuss their work. I highly recommend you attend an even like this, even if you are not in my area. It’s great learning experience! Philomath Open Studios also has a booth at Fall Festival, and you’ll find me there in the morning of September 28.

So that’s it! It’s a busy fall, but it’s all doing things I love. I hope I get a chance to meet you at these different workshops and events.

September 17, 2013 by Kat

Chasing Lines and Light

We arrived home from Eastern Oregon on Thursday evening and I’ve had a few days now to process the trip. I’ve been processing in more ways than one: Both editing the photographs and thinking about what I discovered about myself and my photography.

This was the first time I had ever traveled with other photographers for multiple days, with the express purpose of finding photographs. Sure, I’ve gone out for a day with photographer-friends before, and I’ve photographed over multiple days on trips with family and friends. But the purpose of this trip was all photography, all the time. That’s new for me.

So what did I learn?

First, I really enjoy traveling with other photographers, or at least these photographers in the PhotoArts Guild. They are respectful of everyone’s creative process. If anyone saw something that they wanted to photograph, they’d stop the car (as soon as it’s safe, of course). After we’d stopped, everyone went their separate ways, wandering back to the car when done where they patiently waited until the last person was ready to go. I sensed it as an unspoken rule: You didn’t hurry anyone along. You respected the creative process of each individual. After a while I stopped worrying about making anyone wait and just went with the muse… If I was inspired, I continued to photograph. If not, I hung out at the car, editing on my iPhone or chatting with the others. This approach meant that we didn’t always get to the destination that was planned for the day. It meant that we might miss dinner. But that was ok, because we were all doing something we enjoyed and were (hopefully) creating amazing photographs.

I took only my iPhone, intent to continue learning how this little camera was going to work for me in new situations. It was a last minute decision to do it this way. I had my camera bag packed with dSLR + 3 lenses, along with my tripod, all laying by the door waiting to go. Then, the night before leaving I thought, who am I kidding? I haven’t been inspired to edit a dSLR photograph in months. Why not just take the iPhone? Why not just see if I felt limited or not? I’ve always thought the only way to really learn a new tool — camera, lens, whatever — is to use it exclusively for a while, and see where it works and it doesn’t. So I left the dSLR at home and brought only the iPhone and accessories.

I got some good-natured teasing from the rest of the crew, but as always, the iPhone worked wonderfully for me. The only times I felt limited were when I wanted to zoom in on something I just couldn’t get closer to, because it was too far or there was some obstacle in the way or it would change the angle too much. When that happened, I found I kept looking and discovered different things to photograph. Or I framed things differently. Or I discovered new ways to include the feature I might have zoomed in on, maybe with a foreground or some other feature included. It was a good challenge, and I found I wasn’t frustrated by the shots I couldn’t get. I was pleased with the ones I did get.

I also had the chance to really work with the Photojojo lenses I bought a few months ago. I discovered that I don’t like them. Not because I didn’t like having other lenses to use, because I did like that. I just didn’t like these lenses. I didn’t like the sticky ring that you have to put on your camera; it fell off at one point and I had to apply a new one. I didn’t like the way the lenses have all of these pieces and parts you have to undo to put the lens onto the camera. I didn’t like the optical quality of the lenses. They are all fuzzy at the edges, and you have to focus in the center – which is not usually my composition style. I also managed to lose the wide angle lens, which screws onto the macro lens. That actually turned out to be a good thing – because it made it easier to use the macro lens and that’s the one lens I actually liked of the bunch. After playing with these I’ve decided I’m going to try the Olloclip instead. Fewer pieces and parts, no sticky magnetic ring and hopefully better optical quality. I’ll let you know how it goes in the future.

I discovered that while I’m getting better at capturing landscapes and the wide angle view…

…it’s still not my favorite perspective to photograph.

I prefer to get closer, and share a more intimate view of things. I find having parts of things included in my photos more intriguing than the whole. Photographing this boat one morning, one of the other photographers on the trip joked that I could stop taking pictures, he had already photographed the scene. I held up my iPhone and asked him, “But did you take THIS photograph?” He quipped back, “No, I managed to get the whole thing in.” We laughed, and went on. But the comment made me think. You see, I don’t WANT to get the whole thing in. The image I created with part of the boat is more compelling to me than the ones I created with the whole boat. That held true for most of the photographs I liked from the trip. They weren’t the big picture view; they were the small scenes and details.

At first I attributed it to the iPhone, thinking that’s just the type of image it is well-suited for: Getting up close and intimate, since it’s doesn’t have a zoom. Then I realized focusing on the small scenes and details really comes from within me. It is my eye; my view of the world. Small scenes and details are what I have ALWAYS been drawn to, regardless of the camera I carry. So saying that the iPhone is well-suited to this type of photograph means that the iPhone is well-suited to my style of photography. Which must be why I don’t feel limited with this little camera in my pocket. In fact, I’m liberated, because it is always with me.

I wasn’t sure I would find anything to photograph on this trip. I have to be honest, going to Eastern Oregon was not my first choice of places to go to photograph. If you asked me to make a list of places I want to photograph, this area wouldn’t have even appeared on my list. But these guys were going, and they said, “Want to come?” I had the vacation time, the family was busy with work and school, so I thought, Why not? Not only did it appeal to me to just go off and photograph for a few days, I wanted to get to know the other Guild members better and I held a bit of curiosity about the place that draws so many of them back year after year.

And while it wasn’t my usual subject matter, it grew on me. I discovered the sand dunes and the aspens and way of life that is completely different from mine in Corvallis. It showed me that there is so much to Oregon that I haven’t explored yet. So many places to go, so many things to photograph.

In the end, I discovered that no matter where I go, or what camera I have with me, I will always find things to photograph and find ways to make interesting images. I am, at my core, a photographer. It’s just how I see the world: I’m always chasing lines and light.

September 12, 2013 by Kat

Shimmer and Shake

We are heading home from Eastern Oregon today. A long, hot drive across the state to home, but it has been a fun trip. Even though this is not my usual subject matter it’s stretched me and I have a number of photos that I will have fun editing.

One great discovery: There are aspens in Oregon. Growing up in Colorado, these beautiful trees have a special place in my heart. It made me feel good just to be among them. I hope these photos make you feel the same. I was even inspired to capture a little video, to capture the shimmer and sound of the leaves.

September 10, 2013 by Kat

Something a Little Different

I’m off in Eastern Oregon this week, for a photography excursion with some members of the PhotoArts Guild. Eastern Oregon is quite a bit different than western Oregon, you’ll note as I share photos. You drive over the Cascades and enter the “high desert” – quite an arid place.

This one of the dunes is my favorite from yesterday, edited on the fly in the car. We completely missed a restaurant dinner, we were so entranced with the evening light on the dunes. Good thing I packed peanut butter and jelly! We all agreed, though: It was totally worth it.

Archives for September 2013

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