Kat Eye Studio

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Crepes, Anyone?

I’m embarking on a new adventure in my photography… I have an exhibition at our local Arts Center coming up in April. It will be a joint exhibition with another photographer in a small gallery space they reserve for local artists. I’m excited and nervous!

I’ll be showing images from my Market/Wheels series. Since I discovered this series in the last six months I was living in Italy, I had always planned to go back through my archive from Europe and find more images to fit. I knew there were more there for the series, just waiting for me to re-discover them. The upcoming exhibition gave me the motivation to get this project done.

The problem now… I have too many images for this small exhibition! I’ll have to carefully choose which I want to display. I thought I would share the new images here over the next few days, and at the end add them to my Market/Wheels portfolio and get your opinion on which you like best. I have my favorites already, but this will be a fun, interactive exercise to provide more feedback as I get ready to decide and order prints.

This first one I’m sharing is from Taormina, Sicily. I love how the shape of the crepe cart echoes the shape of the doorway behind, and how the vendor situated the cart so perfectly in the opening. I wonder where the vendor disappeared to? It doesn’t really matter, since no one seems to be interested buying crepes at this time of night. Poor lonely, little crepe cart.

Anyone interested in crepes today? I find I wouldn’t mind one for breakfast, right now!

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Photo-Heart Connection: January

Be strong, this image first whispered to me. You are strong, I felt inside as I looked at it. My heart resonated with the message. These letters have weathered a lot. You can tell, by the scuffed paint and the textured brick. But they have been carefully preserved, too. Notice the bricks around them, how they’ve been scrubbed clean but the letters have been saved. A message for those that come after. A message for my heart.

As I’ve grown older, I look less and less to external validation. The insecurities of my youth have been replaced with a quiet confidence. Confidence in my strength, and also my vulnerabilities. I’ve learned that admitting vulnerabilities and imperfections doesn’t make us less of a person. It makes us human. Accepting ourselves as we are makes us stronger.

I want this kind of strength, to weather what life brings and to share my purpose and passion regardless of the imperfections.

I have this kind of strength within me already.

That is the message of my Photo-Heart Connection this month. A message of strength, confidence, and empowerment. As I mentioned yesterday, I was surprised that this photo, of all of them, had the strongest heart connection. It seemed like it was bashing me over the head in some ways, being so obvious. But as I went with my feelings and wrote about my connection today, I can see why this photo connects with my heart so deeply. This was the message I needed to uncover.

What did you discover in your Photo-Heart Connection this month? I look forward to visiting you, and reading about your heart connection as you link in.

If you would like to learn more about what I mean by a “photo-heart connection” and how I chose my photo for this month, visit yesterday’s post. You can also find the guidelines for participating here. The link up will be open through February 7th.



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The Also-Rans: Getting Ready for the Photo-Heart Connection

As we approach the first Photo-Heart Connection link up tomorrow, I’ve been getting ready. I’ve been going through my photos from the month, looking for the one I feel the strongest heart connection. I thought I would share my process with you today, as prep for the link up that opens tomorrow.

When we get down to it, what is a photo-heart connection? A heart connection is, for me, a reaction that bypasses my brain. It’s not about what I think of the image, or how technically good it is. It is not about how others will react to it. It is how the image makes me feel. When I have a heart connection, I feel it in my body. There is a little jolt, that tells me of a strong connection. Have you ever noticed how we feel emotions in our body first? Even though we will have thoughts that accompany emotions, they arrive split seconds later. I want to tap into the signals from my body, before my brain starts to filter, and then explore what I find through this process.

Here’s how I prepped to find my photo-heart connection this month:

  • Throughout the month, I saved a low-res copy of the files I worked with into a specific folder. This way, I had all of my January photos in one place to start the process. I didn’t save every picture I took in January here, just the strongest ones. The ones I cared enough to share on my blog. I will always want to share photos with a heart connection. I also included images from my archive I worked with this month. I don’t care what year they are from, I want to learn by this process without putting too many rules on it.
  • I found a time with no distractions to start the process of review. It is important to be focused and without distractions – if you hurry through this process with limited time, or have interruptions, you are not going to be able to notice the reactions in your body that tell you of the heart connection.
  • There were 44 photos in my file for the month, and I went through and viewed the photos one by one. I noticed my reaction for each. It was pretty clear in this first round, which were at the bottom with no reaction and which I felt something for. From this, I created sub-file with the one I felt any sort of reaction. I was down to ~12 photos.
  • The next round was a little harder. I had to spend more time noticing how I felt in my body with that image, what emotions came through. Even though I cycled through the images several times, this round still wasn’t too hard. I got it down to a final four photos that created the strongest heart connection for me.
  • Finally, I went through the final four very slowly. I let each one sit on the screen, alone, for a while. I first noticed how I felt, then I asked myself what this image was telling me. This was where I let my brain come into the process a bit more, I wanted to understand why the heart connection was there. As I did this, I noticed that there were two that felt stronger to me. As I slowly considered both, it became clear to me which image was my top photo-heart connection for January.

I thought I would share the 3 runner-up images of my top 4 today along with the process. These images are from different times, of very different subjects, evoking different responses within me. Two were taken this month and one in June 2011, so it’s clear that time of capture is not a factor here. The message I read from the heart connection with each was very different. All of these are great images, some of my recent favorites in fact, but they weren’t my strongest heart connection.

I wanted to share these today to remind you it’s not the strength of the image, in purely aesthetic terms, that matters in this process. It’s the not the date of capture, it’s not the composition, it’s not technical perfection. It’s the strength of the heart connection. It’s what you can learn about yourself, through the photos that speak to you.

I was surprised with the photo that had the strongest photo-heart connection for me this month. I can’t wait to share the image with you, and what I learned from it, tomorrow.

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Where I Am

Whoever you are
whatever you are
start with that,
whether salt
of the earth
or only
white sugar.
— Alice Walker

I picked up a sort-of new book this morning, Open Mind: Women’s Daily Inspiration for Becoming Mindful. After finishing Sarah Ban Breathnach’s Simple Abundance in 2010 I have been searching for another “daily meditation” type of book that would inspire me through the year. I’m terrible at reading these types of books daily, actually. I tend to pick them up every so often and read a week’s worth of entries, if they capture my attention. Some never stick with me at all. So I started this new book in early January but hadn’t kept up with it.

I found myself reaching for it this morning, and the quote above is where I started. Appropriate, no? It was as if the book was saying, “I forgive you, don’t worry about reading me daily, you’ll get what you need.”

I took today’s message to heart. Start wherever you are, with who you are, and move forward. We can all change from there. If we don’t acknowledge our starting point, accept where and who we are in this moment, are we really able to make fundamental changes in our lives? Will we see the good of ourselves in the future, after the change, if we don’t see the good in ourselves today?

We may not yet be where we want to be, the “salt of the earth” as Ms. Walker calls it, but there is value, still, in where we are, even as “white sugar.”

Whether it’s in your photography or your life, start today by accepting where you are. Spend a moment to appreciate who you are, right here and right now. Acknowledge the value that already resides within you.

That’s what I’m doing this morning. Maybe tomorrow I’ll work my way onward and outward. Today appreciating myself for where I am, with all of my quirks and imperfections, is enough.

PS – Only two days to the first Photo-Heart Connection link up! Are you getting ready?

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It’s Almost Time!

It’s almost time to get started with the Photo-Heart Connection! The first link up, covering your January photo with the strongest connection, will be open February 1 through 7. Only 4 days away! I can’t wait!

Not sure if you are participating? Want to hear where the idea came from and learn more? Take a listen to this interview.

PS – Don’t assume from the images in the video that you have to use photos with hearts in them to participate. We just used my recent Evidence of Love portfolio along with the interview.

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Wrapping up Windows

Today we wrap up Exploring with a Camera: Windows. It’s been great to see all of the wonderful windows you have captured! I think that windows must be as unique as people. I will never get tired of photographing them!

I thought I would share this triptych of Burano windows, to close out this exploration. A triptych is a fun way to tell a story, or in this case, create repetition with a variation on a theme. I love how the shapes of the windows repeat, as the colors and textures vary.

You can still link in your window photos today. Be sure to visit the links too – lots of inspiration to be found in this group!



One final note - Exploring with a Camera will now be posted monthly, in the middle of the month. Next up: Photo-Heart Connection on February 1!