The Kat Eye View of the World - Kat Eye Studio

January 28, 2013 by Kat

The Influence of Place

I have been thinking about “Place” more lately. As I’ve found myself settling into place here in Oregon, I’ve mentioned how much I’ve seen things shift. Not the least of which has been in my art, with my recent ~~obsession with~~ inspiration from trees. It makes sense, in a way. I’m looking to be inspired by what’s here, right in front of me. And in Oregon, in my small town of Corvallis, there are plenty of trees. It’s quite amazing how much forest there is to explore just a few minutes from my home. The urban forest in our streets and parks, and the true forest with acres of trees and miles of paths.

McDonald Forest, Corvallis, Oregon

For a while now, I’ve considered myself a “Photographer of Place” and that hasn’t changed with this shift. I see, even more than before, how important place is to what we create. Place is what we see every day. Place is where we exist. As a photographer, unless you work exclusively in a studio, “place” is part of what you photograph. You might say, “No, no, I photograph nature.” That’s place. The plants that grow are indicative of place. So are the cars we drive and the streets we walk and the textures of the materials we build with. All place.

San Francisco, California

We can visit new places, and let that inspire us, or we can be inspired by the places we have access to everyday. What I’ve realized with my recent shift is that it can be a choice. I can say, “I’m only inspired when I’m exploring a new place.” And I can limit myself. I can be frustrated by what I don’t see every day. I can constantly wish to be elsewhere. Or I can say, “I’m going to find something that inspires me in this place.” And I can free myself to create. Anytime, anywhere.

Cinque Terre, Italy

I think that my finding joy in the place I am right now is going to play out with creating even strong images when I visit a new place. I don’t know why, but I know it for truth, from somewhere deep down inside. As if being able to truly see what is right in front of me in a familiar place will make me more receptive as I visit new places.

Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, UK

As I’ve been contemplating all of this, I find I am even more excited to teach A Sense of Place again this year. I think it will be a whole new experience for me, right along side all of you. Registration for the Las Vegas workshop in April is now open at Selah and registration for the 8-week eCourse, running April-May, will open soon.

What do you think… Want to join me in exploring place?

January 25, 2013 by Kat

A Serendipitous Mess

Ah, the joy of creating Artistic Blur in camera! Have you tried it yet for Exploring with a Camera this month? If not, you are missing out on lots of fun. There is something incredibly freeing about creating with in-camera blur effects. A lot of time it’s a complete mess but, ah, when it turns out! It can be perfection. Messy perfection.

I had a serendipitous find in my iPhone this week along the lines of in-camera blur and messy perfection. I went for a walk in the forest on Wednesday, hoping to capture the freezing fog we’ve been having. As I walked up the road, I took a couple of photographs and left my camera on as I held it in my hand, hanging down at my side. When I stopped to take my next photograph and pulled the camera up to get ready, I saw this on the screen:

Whoa! I didn’t intend to take that. It was captured by accident, as I was walking along, with the ProHDR app open. Let me explain on this app works… ProHDR takes two exposures of the same scene, one for the highlights and one for the shadows, and combines them to give an image greater dynamic range. To use the app, you frame up your photograph and then tap the screen to start the process. You have to hold still for a while (it seems like forever) while the camera analyzes the scene and then takes the two images of the scene. After that, it combines the two and allows you to save or cancel. I must have accidentally tapped the screen as I was walking along, and the app analyzed the scene and took the two shots, automatically combining them. So I got this cool double-exposure-plus-motion effect in the final combined image, and, the best part, I accidentally discovered I could use this app for in-camera artistic blur effects!

My goal of photographs of the freezing fog went out the window as I explored this new creative possibility. I tried all sorts of different things as I moved the camera between the first and second exposure on the app to see how it would combine them together. Like any of the artistic blur techniques, a lot of experimentation is needed to get anything that looks good. After all of my play, I was never able to recreate the twisting effect of that accidental shot. (I have no idea what I was doing to get that. I must have been seriously swinging my arms around!) I did learn a couple of things though: The best images were those with quite a bit of light area in each exposure, so that when the two exposures overlapped you can see detail of both, and the second image seemed to be more dominant in the final image, because of the way ProHDR exposes and combines the two images.

Here are my favorite ones:

I’ve shifted color on all of these final images through other app filters, because I liked how the different colors highlighted different parts of the image and enhanced the feel. I played with a lot of filters and color options to choose the final image. I’ll also note on the second image, I had to do some cropping. My finger got in the frame so I cropped that out along with some other distracting elements. I don’t think you can expect to get a perfectly framed final image out of these types of techniques, so cropping is going to be your friend. Here’s the original to compare the difference:

This was all so. much. fun. I was filled with excitement and joy after this photo session, and later too, when I had time to play with editing. That’s what photography is all about for me – the joy I get from the process!

How is your exploration going with creating in-camera Artistic Blur? Have you tried it yet? If not, I encourage you to get out there and play! Find your own serendipitous mess. Kind of like fingerpainting, there is a joy to be found in the freedom of creating this way. Also, don’t miss the guest post from Jack Larson earlier in the week. He shared some other Artistic Blur effects and some wonderful images. You still have time, the link up is open through the end of the month.

January 24, 2013 by Kat

My Blank Canvas

Winters in Oregon can wear on you. Depending on the year, you can have weeks upon weeks without direct sunlight. It can wear on you after a while. Through my creative explorations I’ve discovered an amazing thing this winter, though. The flat, grey skies of Oregon winter are a wonderful blank canvas, when captured with my camera. I can paint any color I want onto them!

With that in mind, I’ll share with you how I created this week’s digital painting for Paint Party Friday:

Even in the winter, there is still light

It started with this photograph. It has interesting branches but is a bit underexposed. See what I mean about the flat, grey sky? Bleah.

Next into Snapseed, for some color shifting. I don’t even bother to try and adjust exposure before I start this process. I’ll do that later if needed. The final image out of snapseed was shifted to blue with a bit of a vignetting around the edges, creating a brighter region in the middle. Do you see it? I liked how the branches seemed to be framing this lighter spot.

Next into a new app I got this week, PhotoCopier. This app creates some interesting color shifts and textures based on famous works of art. I liked the added texture it gave to the image, along with some more color shift.

I wanted to add variation at this point. The sky was still too flat! I used Pixlr Express PLUS to add this inked frame. I was playing around with frames in the app earlier this week, which I almost never use, and discovered these cool watercolor-y frames. Perfect to add some more dimension here, along with a little bit of color as well.

Time to try some more texture, pulling it into Distressed FX. This is one of my go to texture apps. I love some of the effects! The two textures I liked best shifted the color to green. If all my paintings come out green these days, it’s this app’s fault! I need to play around with shifting the colors back. Here are the two textured ones I liked:

Looking at these I realized the Aquarell filter in Autopainter HD would go well. I like the watercolor effect of this app, it’s the best I’ve tried, but I don’t always like how it leaves such a wide unpainted border around the edges. In this case, because I had darkened the edges so much with the border, I thought it would blend really well.

Finally, it was time to blend it all up! Using Image Blender, I blended variations of the different images I’ve shown you. Here’s the part I can never quite remember… which images, blending modes and opacities I used to get the final place. It’s a lot of experimentation. Suffice it to say that I try out all sorts of blending modes and opacities with each of the layers I’m blending to get a look that I like.

Here’s the final painting, again:

Even in the winter, there is still light

While I’ve found a great use for the grey skies this winter, can I have some sun now, please?

January 23, 2013 by Kat

The Nature Mystic: A guest post by Jack Larson

Today’s post is by Jack Larson, a local photographer who shares my love of both trees and creating impressionistic images with his camera. He’s been sending me images and techniques via email since we started exploring Artistic Blur, so I asked him to write something to share with you all too. Jack’s enthusiasm always makes me smile. Enjoy!

Kat asked me to do a guest blog on “Artistic Blur,” the theme of this month’s “Exploring with a Camera” series. I am drawn to artistic blur, or what I would call “artistic effects”, for two reasons. First of all, we are drowning in gorgeous photographs. For the Fine Art photographer, a fundamental question is, “How do I create a photograph that we all have not seen a hundred times before?” Part of the beauty of the techniques that Kat mentions in her essay, plus some other techniques, is that no matter what the quality of the results, these techniques create unique outcomes that even the creating photographer cannot repeat. I like that.

Secondly, Kat mentions being drawn to “Impressionistic” photographs. I am what one might call a “nature mystic.” When I am in the field, I feel pulled through the lens into a mystical union with whatever is in front of me. Impressionistic photographs are the best that I can come up with to express what I feel at the deepest level. And I am always way more concerned about what my heart and soul feel than what my eyes see. In this, a word about Zen. Although I am not a Zen practitioner, Zen is the spiritual tradition that lies at the foundation of my photography.

Oh yes, there is a final reason for being drawn to these techniques; they are fun. If you don’t like to play, and play without concern about particular results, this kind of photography probably is not for you. But if you do like to play, you are in for a ball. Astonishment and surprise are around every corner. Try to hang on (and enjoy the ride).

Click and Drag This is the classic technique to create an Impressionistic look. I came across it first in the work of William Neill (the outstanding Yosemite photographer). Most cameras will do this (I use a Nikon D700). Set your camera to its smallest aperture and to its lowest ISO. This will enable you to use a slow shutter speed. If you cannot get a slow enough shutter speed for the effect that you want, put on a polarizer, or better yet, a variable ND filter. Then, hand-held, click the shutter and after a fraction of a second (this fraction of a second will create some definition in your subject); drag the camera in the direction that you want the blur to go (in the two examples, I clicked, held, and then dragged up). Check your results in your LCD. When you start doing this, you probably will find that you need to drag either slower or faster. As with all of the techniques, this one involves developing skill. If you fail at first, so what; do it again, modifying your technique. You can play with dragging the camera in all sorts of directions. If you want a pure abstract, don’t hesitate once you click the shutter.

Zoom I rarely use this, but it is great for giving a sense of speed. I use a tripod because of the control that it gives me in stabilizing the camera and lens. The way that I do it requires a zoom lens. Use pretty much the same settings as for Click and Drag. You can start with either the wide end or the telephoto end of the lens. When you click the shutter, zoom the lens to the opposite end. Then try it the other direction. You need to have your focal point set to the center of the apex of the zoom effect. More often than not, I end up needing to crop the image in post processing. The skill is in how far to zoom, how fast to zoom, how much to not zoom during the exposure to give definition. The toughest part is in getting the apex of the zoom where you want it.

Dancing (or Heebie-Jeebies) There is a feature in many Nikon DSLR cameras that allow you to take multiple exposures (up to 10) that are blended together in the camera after the last exposure is taken. You do this hand-held. You go to the feature in the Shooting Menu and set the number of exposures that you want to blend. Take an exposure; move the camera slightly and take the second exposure; move the camera again and take the third exposure; and so on. After the last exposure, wait, and voila! magic. This technique takes a fair amount of skill to get the results that you want.

Pin-wheel This technique also requires a camera that blends multiple exposures. You also need a zoom lens with a lens collar (the collar is attached to your tripod; this allows the camera to turn freely while the lens is stable). The wider the range of the zoom, the more fun. You set the Multiple Exposures feature to 10 and the lens to its widest focal length. The focal point needs to be constant throughout; this creates the center of the pin-wheel effect. Take a shot; twist the camera slightly and zoom slightly further out and take a second shot; keep doing this so that when you take your 10th shot, the lens is zoomed as far out as it will go.

Shooting Through This technique is something that I rarely use. When it works, it is very cool. You want part of what is in the frame close to the lens, and the part that you want sharp some distance away. A large aperture works best. Like the other techniques, experience is invaluable.

Filters and White Balance settings Although this does not all fit under the category of artistic “blur”, it is something that you can do in-camera to create an artistic effect. There are various filters that you can put on your lens: infrared, blur (not only blur filters, but you can smear vaseline on the front of the lens); etc., etc. You also can set your White Balance to create effect (in daylight conditions, a Tungsten setting will create a blue caste).

Singh Ray Gold-N-Blue filter

Tungsten White Balance

There are all sorts of other things that you can do to be creative in the capture phase of photography. These are simply the ones that I use. I would recommend checking out Tony Sweet’s books or tutorials.

Next month, you will be looking at creating artistic effects in post-processing. All of the above effects can be created in post-processing. I am not one who thinks that we need to do everything in-camera. Post-processing is as much a part of my creative work as it was for those who worked in a wet darkroom (such as Ansel Adams). Remember, play, play, play; and have fun!!

January 22, 2013 by Kat

Quiet Power

Do you know, are you an introvert or extrovert? Do you get energy from being alone, or being with other people? I am on the introvert side, definitely. I need my quiet time and my space. I thrive with a good amount of solitude, and time to think. I will always choose small group interaction versus a big party. Add to that a serious case of shyness when I was younger, and I always felt I didn’t fit. I felt that there was something wrong with me, because I didn’t quite meet up to the social expectations around me. I remember as a teenager, being parts of a group activity or mixer, and discovering later no one remembered I was there. I felt invisible. But I knew, deep down, there was more to me, if someone would just take the time to look.

This feeling extended on into college and the working world. Thankfully, I chose to go to a private university with small classes in general and a tiny, fledgling engineering program. I got to know my fellow engineering majors well, because there were so few of us and we spent so much time together. One of my friends from college described me in this way: “You’re like a red hot chili pepper in a cool green salad,” he said, “You think you know what you are going to get and then OUCH! You take a bite.” I loved that description, because it was as if someone had finally seen me. The real me, hidden inside the quiet, calm exterior.

But in each new situation I had to start again. I don’t think I said a word in a meeting my first year in the working world. Not one word. It’s amazing they kept me there! Slowly, slowly I learned to fit into this extroverted world I was living in. I gained experience, I gained confidence, and I gained a thicker skin. I learned to balance my alone time with social time, but I always felt a tension because I had the need for quiet time to think and recuperate. As if I was somehow less, for the need of it. I kept wishing that I could be the life of the party.

All of this comes up because I watched this TEDtalk from Susan Cain last week on the Power of Introverts:

I was in tears by the end of it. It felt as if she had finally validated who I was. That I was ok. That the quiet teenager and young adult I had been, the introvert I still am, is just a different kind of normal. That there is a benefit in being an introvert, not just a downside. There is a benefit to the time I need to think and explore. I can see that in my art, and here too, in my writing. I can see the time I spend in my head, the time I spend alone creating… that time helps my ideas come together into something bigger than myself. Something I can share with others.

Susan Cain gave this message to introverts in her talk, “The world needs you and it needs the things you carry.” I felt as if she were talking directly to me. Maybe the world doesn’t always need the life of the party. Maybe the world sometimes needs what comes out of the quiet power of deep thought. Maybe the world needs what I have to offer. As me, the introvert. I only needed to find a way to comfortably allow these ideas to come out. Which I have, through this blog. It allows me, bit by bit, day by day, to reveal the red hot chili pepper that resides within the cool green salad, which I’d never feel comfortable doing all at once with a big “ta-da!” There is a reason you don’t see me in video here or in my classes. It’s not just because I feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, although there is a little bit of that, it’s mostly because I love the time and space of writing and how it helps my ideas to form. It’s my medium, as much as photography. Both allow me to think and to process before I share.

Regardless of whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, I encourage you to watch the video. And think about how things play out in your life, your environment, your culture. In this age of bold personality, see if you can help encourage someone who doesn’t fit that mold to explore their quiet power. That someone may even be you.

January 21, 2013 by Kat

The Beauty of Window Light

You might think, from my photographs, I live a solitary existence since people rarely show up in them. Not so. I just don’t turn my camera to people as a subject very often. Long, long ago, as I was beginning in photography, people were mostly what I photographed. That lasted until my son told me he didn’t want to be photographed anymore (he was maybe 6 or 7?) and it was hard to find other subjects to practice with. I discovered stationary objects could provide a perfectly interesting subject, and they didn’t whine, either! I very quickly shifted away from photographing people to other things, and never looked back.

So I was a bit out of my comfort zone this weekend as I took a two-day class from photographer David Paul Bayles in “Creating Expressive Portraits with Window Light.” All learning is good, right? That’s what I thought as I signed up for it last November. I wasn’t quite so excited for the class as I ended the day Friday, tired after a low energy week, and just wanted to spend the weekend being lazy. But I had paid and my friends were going, so I wasn’t going to bail out. It turned out to be a fantastic weekend! I learned so much. There is a ton of new information floating around in my brain this morning… key light, lighting patterns, light modifiers. New words like gobo, scrim, flag. Thoughts on posing and positioning and engaging the subject. It’s amazing how much has to come together for a good portrait. I have soooo much more appreciation for portraiture after this weekend! I will be looking at every portrait I see very closely to understand how it was created.

I also have more appreciation for those who find themselves on the other side of the camera lens. All of us students had to take turns being the model for the other photographers in the class. It’s ironic that two weekends in a row I found myself staring into the lens, when I so studiously avoid it in normal situations. But it is good to be on that side of the lens too, understanding how it feels. As the one being photographed, you really want direction and to know the photographer is working to make you look your best. You want them to be confident and engaging, so you are comfortable. You don’t want them to be fiddling around or seem unsure of what they are doing. As the photographer, you have to do all of this while getting the technical settings and artistic elements right. Whew.

Here are a few of my favorite photographs of the weekend, posted with permission of the models, my fellow photographers and teacher in the class. These are pretty much straight out of the camera, just cropping on a couple of them. All of these were taken with window light, and in some cases a light modifier of some sort.

In this assignment, we were working on lighting patterns. Meet Helen, with a Rembrandt lighting pattern (almost) in low key. Isn’t she gorgeous? This was really beautiful light for her. This was a dark room with only one light source, a full-length glass door. Several feet behind her was some purple fabric on the wall. An assistant (the instructor) was holding a flag to block the light on her chest so the focus was on her face.

Here we have my friend Jeannette, in a “open” assignment where we weren’t looking for anything specific, just a good portrait in good light. My goal was to create a portrait that focused on her amazing blue eyes. She is sitting on the floor facing a large bank of windows (above her), with other windows on either side of the room. The background was carpet.

For our assignment on incorporating hands into a portrait, I worked with the instructor, David. I loved his hand gesture on the face, and how the light was just perfect through his fingers to keep a catchlight in his far eye. He is sitting angled toward some very large two-story picture windows in his studio, and several feet in front of a plain black cloth background. This is my favorite portrait of those I took over the weekend.

Our final assignment was to create a self-portrait. With dark hair, I’ve never been able to get a good self-portrait with a dark background, so that’s what I wanted to work on. In this one, I’m using the same full length door in front of the purple fabric from Helen’s portrait earlier, but I also reflected some of the light from the door onto the background to give better separation of my hair from the background. I did this by propping a reflector up against a folding chair off camera, to the left of where I was sitting. Kind of fun to be able to figure this all out! I still have more to work on, David pointed out a few things that I could do to improve it, but I couldn’t have created anything like this on Saturday morning before the class started. I’d say that means it was a successful class!

I still have much work to do to get this all down to the point where I’m not the fiddling photographer making the subject uncomfortable. But at least now I have a much better idea of where to start. I do need practice though. Anyone want to come model? 🙂

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