Kat Eye Studio

by

Portland Bound

Time to head to Portland! I’ll be spending the weekend in this beautiful city with my sister and apparently everyone who is coming for the Portland marathon – it should be busy. I look forward to time hanging with my sis and, of course, visiting Powell’s books. Best bookstore in the world! (And yes, I expect the invariable comparison to the Tattered Cover from the Colorado contingent of blog readers…)

I’m also looking forward to the Photowalk on Sunday! Yes, this Sunday, October 10th. Everyone is welcome, bring your cameras – any kind – and meet up with some other photographers to explore part of the city. We’ll be meeting at 10am, at the Starbucks at NW 23rd and NW Overton in the Northwest District of Portland, two blocks from the 23rd and Marshall streetcar stop. Look for a bunch of people with cameras!  (Plan your travel route such that you avoid the Portland Marathon route.)

by

Exploring with a Camera: Photo Essays

In the last year I’ve explored a vast range of art and photography. Visiting galleries, taking online classes, searching out photography blogs, looking at Flickr. What I’ve found, in all of that, is that my enjoyment of art, and especially photography, significantly increases with understanding of the back story… either the story of the artist or the story of the subject. It gives such a wonderful insight into the artwork that has been created, it’s like an additional dimension to the art itself.

I think that’s why I blog the way I do, and I’m attracted to other blogs with wonderful imagery and words. I want the story behind the image, along with the image. I connect with it in a deeper way, and I want you to find that here as well.

So today for Exploring with a Camera I want to talk about Photo Essays – which are beyond even what I normally do on my blog.  Yesterday’s post Camaraderie of Beer on Oktoberfest is an example of a photo essay, or my earlier post The Story of the Rooftops on Dubrovnik. There are times that a story needs to be told, and it takes more than one photo and a few sentences to tell.

You might ask, isn’t just a regular blog post, with several photos and text, a photo essay? Maybe, maybe not. I’ve read a lot of blog posts, but only a small few that I would categorize as a photo essay.  Two that stand out in my mind are Kirstin’s post Where I Live on the Mortal Muses More Musing site, and Patty’s post The Down Side on her blog, Nomadic Notebook.
A photo essay takes a few photos, combined with words, to tell a specific story of a time, a place, an experience, a piece of history. It has impact. It is basically photojournalism, but with a personal twist, by my definition. While you want to convey the information, you also want to convey the feeling you might have had. Why the story or experience is important to you, why you felt it needed to be told. In a photo essay, you focus on a specific point with your photos and words. Every photo tells a piece of the story, every word needs to be there. It’s not just the best photos of the day, but the ones that are needed to support the story.

So, how do you go about creating a photo essay? Here are a few tips:
1. Decide the story you want to tell. Be specific for the best impact. For example, I didn’t want to try to tell whole the story of Oktoberfest – that’s too big for just a few photos, I would lose the impact. So I took one aspect I noticed, the camaraderie in the beer drinking, and focused on that.
2. Choose your supporting photos. In some cases, you might have the idea in your head as you take the photos, which is what I did for my Oktoberfest essay. In other cases the story might develop as you review past photos, which is what happened for my Dubrovnik essay. Go through your photos, pick all of the ones that seem to apply. And then narrow down. Narrow down again. Make sure that each photo is essential to the story you are telling – try to get it down to 3 to 5 photos if you can. As I mentioned above, pick the best photos for the story, not just the best photos of the day. If they don’t help tell the story, save them for something else.
3. Write the essay, inserting the photos. You might find that you have to switch them around from your original idea slightly or you need to choose a different photo for the story to flow. That’s ok!  It doesn’t have to be long, just get the main story written with the photos inserted.
4. Edit. Step back and read it, making edits. Read it again. Take out anything that doesn’t flow or support your point. It might be a great idea or photo or brilliantly written sentence, but it has to fit the story. Do with your words what you did with your photos – narrow down.
5. Publish! Share that photo essay with the world. The world needed to see it, or you wouldn’t have had the idea in your head. If you ever see or feel a story that needs to be told, follow that urge to conclusion and then see what comes back. You just never know!

Not so many photos today, but I hope that this post has inspired you to look at how you can combine your images with words to great effect, or to notice how others create an impact using the photo essay. Come back next Thursday to share your view and link in to any photo essays of your own, past or present. Or link in to ones that you have found on the web, that have impacted you in some way. You can post your photo essay images to the Flickr pool too – I’ll be watching for them there!

Note: This post is part of the Exploring with a Camera series, published every two weeks. See all past exploration topics here.

by

Camaraderie of Beer

Our Oktoberfest trip would not have been complete without a visit to one of the beer tents run by the major beer companies of Munich. We randomly chose the Spaten tent upon arrival Sunday morning, and were lucky to find a spot among the already crowded tables. These tents are giant. There are thousands of people inside, sitting on benches back to back, squeezed in with as many people as possible at your table.

That may seem uncomfortable, it if it weren’t for the camaraderie of beer that prevails here. If you are drinking beer, you are friends with everyone else. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, tourist or local, you are an integral part of this festival just by sitting on the bench and ordering a liter. That was a surprising and enjoyable aspect of Oktoberfest for us.

And just wait until the band starts up! An entire tent of people raising their voice in song and their liters of beer for a joyous toast. “Ein prosit, ein prosit, der gemutlichkeit,” the crowd choruses together, followed by a cheer and a big drink of beer. You can’t help but smile! I surprised myself by joining in, apparently I had learned Oktoberfest songs in high school German class all unknowingly.

Oktoberfest is a happy festival. A time of gathering, with old and new friends. Everywhere you looked there were knots of people toasting, singing, eating, cheering, laughing. Calling back and forth across tables to each other. You can sit and talk and happily drink your beer all day long. And when you finish one liter, the empties are cleared away…
…and before you know it, a new round makes it’s way to you, to start all over again.
If you ever have the chance to go to Oktoberfest, don’t hesitate, just go. Enjoy a few liters, with thousands of your new best friends, in the camaraderie of beer. Pros’t!

by

Motion and Movement

I am musing on motion and movement over on Mortal Muses today. I thought I would share an extra bonus motion shot here along the same theme – of what else – Venice at night! I just can’t get enough. I hope you all aren’t bored. 🙂

Oh wait, it’s my blog, so I can post what I love as much as I want to! Sometimes, in my desire to make other people happy or live up to other’s expectations, I forget that important little point…

by

Visiting Home

Today I am heading to Oregon for a two week business trip, probably my last one before we move back next summer. I am soooo looking forward to some good Mexican food and visits with friends. It is always a whirlwind trip of work and socializing and shopping, since I’m there for such a short time. I’ll be here on the blog off and on, a few scheduled posts, a few live posts, whatever I can squeeze into my frantic schedule.

Today’s photo is of the wreck of the Peter Iredale, on the northern Oregon coast near Astoria, taken in early 2008 before there was any inkling we would ever have the opportunity to move to Italy. For all that I love the travel and the unique places we have visited in Europe, along with the photographic inspiration that it has given me, this image is a reminder that beauty is everywhere around us. No matter where we live, we just have to seek it. It is there for us to find.

I have sometimes thought that I “found my eye” here in Italy, but when I look back at a photo like this I realize that’s just not true. I already had the vision and the passion, long before this move. What has happened during my time in Italy, is that I have recognized it as my own. I have learned to see myself as the artist I am. The artist I have been, unknowingly, for quite some time.

by

Leaf Me Alone

A single leaf, the first colorful leaf of autumn, captured for Picture Fall. Most of the trees around here still have green leaves, firmly attached to their branches. The leaves that are on the ground are dead, brown, dull. This one little leaf was the exception – full of color and vibrancy and personality. A leaf ahead of its season.

I enjoyed photographing this one little leaf – capturing the light, the interesting shadows, the contrast of the lines of green moss in between the stones. You should have seen me, down on the ground on the path in the park. Brandon, who is now 9 years old, was quite embarrassed by my behavior. “Get up Mom,” he said, “You look weird.”

I find it ironic, that as I finally get to a place in my self that I don’t care what other people think, that I’m willing to lay down on the pavement in public for the sake of my art, that my son starts to care. Apparently, we are changing seasons in more than one way around here. This single leaf, a harbinger of fall, also has brought the realization that the teen years are, eventually, on their way for my son. Life is nothing, if not interesting, that’s for sure.