Kat Eye Studio

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Hangin’ with the Crew

To me, scooters have personality. You’ve got your cute scooters, your functional scooters, and then there are the eccentric scooters. We ran across a whole store just for scooters in San Francisco, how cool is that?

This crew was parked outside on the street, waiting for new owners. These guys definitely have personality. They’ve lived interesting lives, scootered in interesting places, had interesting owners. They might be a bit beat up, but that’s what gives them personality, just like humans. They are just hanging out for now, waiting for the next adventure to start. And you know there will be adventures, because any scooter with personality like this isn’t going to end up with the “average” owner. Any predictions on their futures?

Tomorrow is a new Exploring with a Camera! Be sure to stop by and see what we’ll be exploring this month. It will be dynamic and fun!

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The Color Yellow

Yellow is such a happy color, don’t you think? Evoking sunshine and flowers, it’s hard to frown at yellow. And a yellow scooter? Now that is something that should make anyone smile!

Today I share another scooter sighting from San Francisco, this one so nicely parked so I could capture the street and architecture behind it. Sighting scooters in San Francisco was much easier than getting a good picture of them. It’s often hard to create a good composition when the scooters are wedged in between cars, or I would need to stand in traffic to photograph them. I guess that’s what makes getting a good scooter sighting photo so much fun. It’s a challenge!

What do you think, is yellow a good color for a Vespa? As cute as this one is, I don’t think I’ll switch my dream Vespa from red just yet…

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Under the Weather

What do you do when it rains? You get creative with your photography! We generally had nice weather in our week in San Francisco, but one afternoon we had some serious rain. We visited a couple of indoor places and then found a fun outdoor-ish activity – we rode the cable cars around. We waited for seats in the right location (outside bench, on the downwind side of the car) and then rode around the city. The photography challenge I gave myself was to quickly compose interesting scenes from the streets – I called it “umbrella spotting.”

It turned out to be quite fun! It wasn’t about getting a clear photo – that was nearly impossible in a moving cable car in the rain – but about prediction and timing. Here are my favorites from that rainy day. Which do you like best?

Colorful!!

All Blue

The tourists of Lombard Street

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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…