The Kat Eye View of the World - Kat Eye Studio

July 14, 2015 by Kat

Registration is open for Fall Workshops!

I know it’s the heat of summer, but fall will be here before you know it. (Don’t tell my son, he’s getting too much pleasure from sleeping in.) My fall mobile photography workshops will fill up before you know it, too! Registration is now open for my workshops from September to November. A workshop is the perfect thing to do while you wait for my book to arrive!

Mobile Photography 1: Introduction
Corvallis, Oregon
September 12, 2015 or October 10, 2015
1pm to 4pm

Learn to capture great photographs with your smartphone or tablet. You always have your mobile device with you, right? Why not make it your primary camera! In this half-day course, you’ll learn how to get the most out of your device’s camera along with the basics of creative photo editing. Whether you want to take nice photographs of your family and friends to share online or begin to create photographic art, you’ll be making photographs you are proud to share in no time! The class will be taught for both iOS and Android devices, and no prior photography experience is necessary.

Cost is $40+apps. Register here.

Mobile Photography 2: Artistic Alterations
Corvallis, Oregon
November 14, 2015
1pm to 4pm

Take your photographs into a whole new realm! Explore the possibilities of creating interesting and unique art by altering photographs on your iPhone or iPad. In this half-day workshop you will learn the secrets of sequencing and blending apps to create art with depth and interest from your photographs. By the end, you will be creating images as unique as you are! The class will be taught for iOS devices running the latest version of iOS.

Prerequisite: Mobile Photography 1, Intro to Mobile Photography or Intro to iPhoneography

Cost is $40+apps. Register here.

Will you be joining me this fall? I’d love to see you in class!

July 10, 2015 by Kat

Simplifying a Scene with Slow Shutter Cam (Mobile Tutorial)

Photography is about lines and light for me. I love a simple graphic image, uncluttered by unnecessary details or a complex background. That makes photographing in the dense Oregon forest a challenge for me! Lately I’ve found using Motion Blur mode in the Slow Shutter Cam app, I can get the simplicity of the light and lines I’m looking for in the complex forest environment. Plus, it’s just fun to play with intentional camera movement!

So how does Slow Shutter Cam work? It’s pretty straightforward. The app takes multiple images during the exposure period, and then blends them together. How blurred your final image will be depends on the settings you choose as well as the motion you use when you take the photograph. You have lots of options in both settings and motion to experiment with.

When you open the app, you frame your scene and set focus and exposure. Nicely, you can tap to set focus and exposure similarly to ProCamera. I’ve found that overexposing a little bit often works best for my images, but you will want to play around with exposure settings yourself.

To change your blur settings, you can tap the aperture/iris icon in the lower left and a pop-up menu appears on the screen. I use Motion Blur as my capture mode, and then play around with Blur Strength and Shutter Speed as I take different images. Tap anywhere on the screen to close the menu when you are done adjusting your settings.

To take the photograph, tap the camera icon in the bottom center. Start moving your phone to get the motion blur on a stationery scene. The window in the top left will show the scene unblurred, while the rest of the screen shows what the blurred image looks like as you create it.

The image you create will depend not only on the settings in the app, but on how much, how fast, and what motion you use as you move the camera. Experimenting with types of motion (up/down, wiggly, circular, etc.), start/stop points, exposure, blur strength, and shutter speed will result in very different images. Below is an example of six different images of one scene. I will often take many more than this, changing the app settings and my motion to get a different result in each one.

Those are the basics for Slow Shutter Cam! Pretty simple, huh? The secret lies in experimentation with the settings and movement in this case, rather than complexity in the app.

The rest of the fun with these images comes later, when I sit down to edit. I will look through all of the images I’ve created and see which ones have the most potential. I’m looking at the light, the lines, and the impression the movement gives to the overall scene. It’s easy to be too blurred, or not blurred enough. You want the image to look artistic, not like a mess or an accident.

Once I’ve selected the image, I follow my normal processes of basic adjustments, artistic edits, and then blending to get the final image. For the image at the beginning of this post, here is the starting photograph, as captured by Slow Shutter Cam:

I wanted to focus in on a certain part of the scene, so I cropped and did some basic adjustments in Snapseed:

From there, I edited with Tangled FX, Classic Vintage and XnView Photo FX to alter color and texture, and then used Image Blender to pull the final image together.

The image is called “Awakening” and is one of my favorites so far in this forest series. I think the dramatic light and dark, along with the blur, work well to create a mood.

Your turn! Enjoy playing with Slow Shutter Cam and let me know how your experiments turn out.

July 7, 2015 by Kat

Art makes a House a Home

An interesting thing has happened as I’ve put my art out into the world… My home has started filling up with beautiful art from other artists.

It comes from seeing more art, meeting more artists, and fundamentally believing that art has value. The more art I see, the more I want to surround myself with pieces that have interest and meaning to me. The more artists I meet, the more I appreciate how much time and energy they spend to create something special. The more I get out there and share my own work, the more I am willing to spend real money to buy something that makes my heart sing, especially knowing it supports my fellow artists.

Maybe it’s a little bit of good karma, because this is what I want to happen to my art too. I want it to go to good homes where it will be loved and cherished. Where the owners understand it’s a little piece of my heart, hanging on their wall.

It didn’t come as an conscious thing, this idea of becoming an art collector myself. It came as a natural extension of participating in a world that appreciates handmade, local art. But it’s been a delightful and surprising experience which has helped me realize: A house is just walls and a roof, it’s the people, and what they bring into it, that make it a home. A home should be a space that protects and refreshes. A space that you love to be in. Adding art you’ve carefully chosen makes your space something truly special–a home.

I thought I would share some of my growing collection, and a little bit about the artists who made them.

The newest addition is this porcelain plate from Carol Lebreton, a ceramics artist in Portland. She had a booth across from me at the Lake Oswego fair a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t help but admire her work. I love her use of pattern and texture, and the green celadon glaze she uses is not only gorgeous, it’s the perfect match for one of the colors in my kitchen. Yay! Someday I would like a whole set of tableware from Carol, not just one showpiece in my kitchen.

This gorgeous piece is another recent addition, from glass artist Jerri Bartholomew. Jerri is one of my fellow Philomath Open Studios Tour artists and I loved being able to visit her studio to learn about her process. She’s also a microbiologist at Oregon State University, and her science comes through in her art. As someone who also has a technical background, I love seeing how other scientists blend their art with their science. And of course, I love that it’s a tree!!

This monotype by painter Mike Baggetta of Portland fulfills my cravings for abstract art. I discovered his work when I bought this piece at an art auction here in Corvallis, and I was excited to meet him when I visited the Art in the Pearl art fair last year. It was wonderful to learn more about his process, and how his monotypes influence his abstract paintings. I would love to have one of his large abstracts some day!

As you enter our home, the dining room wall is one of the first things you see. This area is one of my favorite spaces, a collage of art from various artists:

The centerpiece on the top is from Ron Dobrowski, a photographer from Springfield, Oregon who was my mentor for the Salem Art Fair & Festival last year. He does film photography and these gorgeous silver gelatin prints.
On the top left is a piece from Meri Walker, aka @iphoneartgirl, another iPhone photographer who lives in Oregon. I met Meri through the Expanding Vision exhibition I helped The Arts Center put on last year.
Top right is another photographer I met through the Expanding Vision show, Angie Lambert. She came all the way from West Virginia to attend the opening, how cool is that! I loved the simplicity and the mystery of this piece.
Bottom left on the wall is a small pastel by Kate McGee, another artist I’ve gotten to know through the Philomath Open Studios Tour. She does mostly color, scenic landscapes, but my heart lept when I saw this black and white, more abstract piece.
Bottom center is a photograph from a teenage artist, Emma Spakoski. This piece received an Honorable Mention in The Arts Center’s Howland Community Open show, and I just loved the composition and beautiful softness. I hope she will keep creating as she gets older! (Her Mom, Alexis Spakoski, is a local illustrator and ceramics artist, so she has a great example to follow.)
On the shelf is a wood-fired vase from local ceramics artist Eric Moran. The colors and textures in this vase are amazing, I wish you could feel it. Eric is another artist like me, who works a full-time corporate job, as well as creating and teaching his art. He’s a ceramics instructor at the OSU Craft Center.
Last but not least, the photograph on the shelf is from Lorraine Richey, a Portland photographer who I’ve gotten to know through the PhotoArts Guild. She also does quite a bit of wonderful iPhone work!

In the corner of the dining room there is also a shelf unit with several wonderful pieces:

The top print is an etching of the Duomo in Milan, one of the things we brought back from Italy with us. Unfortunately we never met the artist for this one, but I love the intricate details of this print, a reminder of our time in Italy.
The funky vase in the center is by Corvallis ceramics artist Cynthia Spencer. Cynthia is an amazing supporter of other artists in our area! I first met her when I took an Art Marketing class from her last year, and learned so much from her. She’s done the art fair circuit in the past, was the Director of the Corvallis Fall Festival art fair for many years and is currently the Director of The Arts Center. I love having a little piece of her fun personality in our home.
The bottom photograph is from another local photographer, Rosie Saraga, who passed away about a year and a half ago. She had an amazing eye for form, and I feel so privileged that I got to know her through the PhotoArts Guild. Her vision and love of the world is very much missed.

Now, if only my dining room furniture were as pretty as the art! A local-made dining room set is currently on my wish list.

There are so many other amazing artists I’ve met and work I’ve seen, there is so much more art I would love to own. I’m afraid I’m going to need a bigger house! It’s gotten to the point I tell my husband that I don’t want gifts for birthdays, anniversaries or other holidays. I just want to buy art when something strikes me. As our home fills up with beautiful art, he’s finally to the point he believes me. And, he’s getting in on the action and helping to select the pieces more often, too.

Do you have art from local artists in your house? If not, I bet there are an amazing number of artists in your area, who would be happy to provide some of their art a new home. Keep your eye out!

July 4, 2015 by Kat

What Living Abroad Taught Me About Being an American

In the USA, today is a day of food, fireworks and friends. It’s a celebration of the birth of our country. It’s a uniquely American experience, one that we missed greatly when we were living in Italy years ago. You see, when you live in another country, you don’t just learn about other cultural traditions, you also learn about your own. You learn how your cultural traditions and beliefs, ones you may not even realize you have, affect you and shape you, and make you who you are.

I truly learned what it meant to be an American, a citizen of the United States of America, by living abroad.

I didn’t fully realize how much country and culture shaped me until I lived in a different one. When you have to navigate everyday life in another country, you discover how deeply rooted cultural norms and expectations are. It shows up in simple things, such as paying bills or grocery shopping, and more complex things, like navigating government processes or building friendships. There are certain ways you expect things to be done; certain procedures you expect things to follow; certain behaviors you expect people to exhibit. And when you live in another country, you realize how much those rules and expectations are based on a cultural understanding.

You realize that a shared culture is the foundation for all of our interactions.

Culture affects everything. And when you step away from the culture of your home country, you step away from that foundation onto what, for you, is shaky ground. It’s scary and it’s exhilarating. You realize that there are more ways of doing things than you ever imagined. You realize that the “right” way is relative to the culture you come from. And you might realize, as I did, that being “American” is fundamental to who you are.

As Americans, we have this shared basis of how things work, why we do the things we do, and what possibilities are available to us. Sure, it might vary based on geographic region, religion or socio-economic background, but underpinning it all are similar values and expectations. Really similar. In fact, I would say that we are more alike than we are different, here in the United States of America.

That might be hard to recognize when so much of what we hear around us is categorized as “us vs. them.” Look at the news media, always focusing on controversial issues. Of course they do… Conflict sells. It’s not exciting to talk about the things we all share in common, or the greater cultural foundation that underpins us all. But it’s there. I know it, because I had to live without it for two years. I learned and grew from the experience, but there is nothing so comfortable as coming back to that foundation, to live in a place where you feel at home.

My experience living abroad gave me a greater understanding of what it means to be an American. It gave me a deeper appreciation of our history, and how that has shaped our shared values and norms. It helped me understand how important my country is, to my history and my identity.

My experience living abroad also helped me see how we can’t expect every other country or culture to behave as we would. The USA is but one country on the earth. And each country has a unique history and culture, many of which transcend lines on a map. They go back much longer and are held more deeply than most Americans can comprehend, with our short 200+ year existence on the global scene. We all need to take the time to understand and respect that history, as much as we do our own. It helps to step outside of your cultural foundation, once in a while, and see the yourself and the rest of the world with a different perspective.

Now that we are back home, I greatly appreciate celebrating Independence Day. It’s not just a day of food, friends and fireworks. It is a celebration of the beginning of my country and the shared ideals and history that have shaped me and my fellow citizens.

I hope that on this day, more than any other, we can celebrate the common foundation we all stand on. Happy Independence Day!

July 1, 2015 by Kat

The Influence of the Camera

I like to say that the photographer makes the photograph, not the camera. A camera is just a tool.

That is absolutely true. Cameras don’t create photographs by themselves. The photographer chooses what to point the camera at, the framing, the settings.

It’s also true that the camera influences the photographs you make. It’s not possible to make the same photographs with every camera out there. A pinhole camera is going to create a different photograph than a dSLR. An iPhone is going to create a different photograph than a large format film camera. Each camera has differences.

So the photographer makes the photograph, but only within the range of parameters available from the camera.

When I choose my tool, the iPhone right now, I am choosing a range to work within. I am choosing both the limitations and the options, the advantages and disadvantages, of the specific camera system. That in turn influences the images I create.

I tell people the iPhone changed my art. It changed how and when I take photographs, it changed what I take photographs of, it changed what I do with them. All this fundamental change, because of the tool I use.

The camera I am using influences me as much as I influence the images coming from the camera. It’s a give and take.

As much as photographers might get frustrated with the ever-present gear obsession and the question, “What camera do you use?” As much as we might want to say the camera doesn’t matter, it’s the photographer…

The reality is, the camera we use does matter. How could it not? It’s the fundamental tool we use to create our art.

Your turn: How does your camera influence you?

June 26, 2015 by Kat

Going to Market

Do you feel uncomfortable with the idea of marketing and selling your art? If so, you are not alone. For a long time I was uncomfortable with everything around marketing and selling my art. In my mind, “marketing” was equated with someone who wouldn’t stop talking about what they were selling, and “sales” equated with a pushy salesperson who just won’t take no for an answer. But you know what? There are lots of other ways to market and sell, and there is nothing inherently wrong with selling your art.

In fact, there are a lot of wonderful things about selling your art… You connect with other people. You make them happy. You learn and grow. The beauty of selling art is that no one buys art because they HAVE to; they buy it because it makes them feel good. So when you get to the right people for your art, you have this fantastic connection that you and they wouldn’t have had otherwise, and you don’t have to push anyone to buy. They just do, because they want the feeling the art brings them.

It’s taken time, but I no longer feel “icky” about marketing and selling my art. I’ve found ways to share what I do that work for me. One of those ways is to take my art to places people are looking for it: Art Fairs and now, a shop on Etsy.

I’ll be at an art fair this weekend, Lake Oswego Art in the Park, from Friday through Sunday. I love the interaction that art fairs bring. What other way can you get a whole bunch of your work in front of a whole bunch of people, and then be there to talk with them in person about it? I’m learning to talk about my art, how I do it, what I love about it. I’m learning to engage people and ask them what they like about it, what connects for them. I learn more about them, and I learn more about myself. And, along the way, I sell some art! People hang it on the wall, they send a card with my art on it to connect with someone else, it’s all good.

And if people don’t like my art? They can walk on by. There are no hard feelings from me.

Last weekend I also opened an Etsy shop, you can find me here. I chose Etsy because I want to be where people are looking for art. Sure, I’ll have to do marketing of my shop personally, as well as learn how to best utilize the Etsy platform, but at least I’m out there where the people are looking. I have the chance to connect with people, and maybe make someone happy to have a piece of my art on their wall. If you have time… Stop by, check out the shop and become a follower. I’ll be adding new items regularly, once I get into a groove.

If I love creating my art and I love sharing my art, why in the world shouldn’t I sell my art? There is nothing wrong with making money from something you love doing, especially when you make other people happy along the way.

I’ll see you at the market!

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Mobile Photography 1: Introduction Corvallis, Oregon September 12, 2015 or October 10, 2015 1pm to 4pm

Mobile Photography 2: Artistic Alterations Corvallis, Oregon November 14, 2015 1pm to 4pm

Mobile Photography 1: Introduction
Corvallis, Oregon
September 12, 2015 or October 10, 2015
1pm to 4pm

Mobile Photography 2: Artistic Alterations
Corvallis, Oregon
November 14, 2015
1pm to 4pm