Kat Eye Studio

by

Tiny Clues

What is it about windows that attracts me? Maybe it’s because I just like to wander around places, outside with my camera, and they are what I see from the street. Maybe it is the perfect frame within a frame opportunity. Maybe it’s the glimpse I see of the lives that go on inside.

Whatever the attraction, I’ve been capturing them a lot lately. This one is from one of the buildings I was scoping at Oregon State University the other day. I think it was one of the shop or maintenance buildings, there was just enough to see in the windows to make me curious as to what was inside. The books only offer a tiny clue.

What’s attracting you these days?

by

Variations on a Theme

Today I’m sharing an image I captured from the recent Christmas Parlour Tour I was privileged to photograph. I had fun capturing this image of a phonograph, with it’s interesting circles and lines. I had even more fun playing with the processing of it in Lightroom, and I couldn’t decide which version I liked more.

The warmer tones…

…or the dreamy black and white.

They each have a different feel. What’s your preference?

I’m off to the Portland Art Museum today, visiting their photography exhibition: Through the Looking Glass: Photography’s use of Windows, Doorways and Mirrors. It sounds perfect for me, does it not? I can’t wait!

by

Seeing the Light

The difficulties are always the most important ingredients in the total picture of a creative experience.
— Shaun McNiff in Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go


I started a new book for my “morning practice reading” in the last few days, Trust the Process: An Artist’s Guide to Letting Go by Shaun McNiff. This book has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time, probably back to 2009 or early 2010. As in anything, my reading goes in cycles and I found interest in going back to the basics of the creative process. How nice to have this great book waiting for me, with gems like the quote above sprinkled liberally throughout the first chapter alone. It resonated with where I am right now. Here’s another:

Creativity cannot flourish and reach its deepest potential without the participation of its demons as well as its angels.
In other words, there is no such thing as a free lunch. We don’t get the good stuff without some bad stuff thrown in. Some challenge, some struggle is needed for the creative process. That’s what helps us find new ways of doing things.

These statements struck home, after my struggles with the “down” part of the creative cycle this month. As I come out of it and see my creativity picking up, as I see my inspiration begin to flow as it usually does, I see what the down time has been giving me. A respite, a time to go within. A time to revisit the process, with all of its ups and downs.

I’m off from my corporate job this week, a planned holiday shutdown. I have been frustrated about the inflexibility of forced time off at work because I don’t have any vacation time left this year, but I find that I’m enjoying the space to focus on my creative pursuits. Not to mention hanging out with my family, doing things like learning to fly an RC helicopter from my son and getting addicted to Glee on Netflix with my husband.

But under it all, after coming through the down cycle, I find that new stuff is brewing and I have some space to create. It should be interesting around here!

by

Wintering

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.
~Pietro Aretino

It seems that many of us are feeling the same this winter, slowing down, hibernating and allowing what comes next. My dear friend Tara Leaver, whom I connected with at the Do What You Love retreat last spring, has a beautiful guest post today on “Wintering” at Creative Every Day. She reminds me that I am not alone in my feelings, being in the down part of the creative cycle. She tells me it’s ok to watch seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or, I will translate that into watching Battlestar Galactica and devouring some novels). Thanks for the permission Tara! Do check out her post if you have time today.

A couple of unrelated notes:

Don’t miss Many Muses Musing today! I am giving away a spot in the full January-February series of Find Your Eye. If you’ve wanted to take the class, today is your lucky day! You get an entry for a comment AND for a link in, so get yourself musing on today’s prompt GREETINGS and head over to link in.

Did you catch my post on Help-Portrait on Sunday? If not, you can read about my amazing experience here. Jones Oliver, our wonderful organizer, also blogged about it here. Visit his post to see more amazing images, including one with a snake!

by

Learning Black and White in Lightroom

Another Lightroom progress update today, I continue to be incredibly happy with this software! I’m still editing my photos from our Thanksgiving weekend southern Oregon trip and learning more about Lightroom along the way. Yesterday I did my first black and white conversions, with the help of Scott Kelby’s Lightroom 3 Book for Digital Photographers. I loved the texture of this old building in Jacksonville, and thought it would be cool in black and white. What do you think? Do the little Christmas lights get lost? I kind of like them as a surprise you find when you look closer.

Yesterday I also discovered the power of the search function in the Lightroom Library module. Can I just say – WOW. I now have my 85,000+ images in my Lightroom catalog (I know, it’s insane, tell me about it). While I don’t have them keyworded, I can search on filenames in Lightroom which makes finding a photo from my Inspiration File in the catalog a complete and total snap. Prior to this, the only search function was me looking around, since Windows search didn’t work very well on my computer. I organize my photos by date and have a good chronological memory so me sorting through the directories has, amazingly, worked up to now, but the more photos I take the harder it has become to find them. And when I did finally find them, then I had to load them into the software for editing. A future project is to keyword at least location for all of my files, but now being able to look by filename and move directly into editing is already two steps easier.

I still have so much to learn about Lightroom, but I can tell you thus far – this software is made for photographers. Especially photographers like me who take a LOT of images and need to be able to organize, sort and edit them. I’m figuring out how to adjust my workflow to take advantage of all of the Lightroom features, but overall it is very intuitive. While it’s sold as being for professional photographers who need to manage client shoots, I believe any photographer can get a lot out of this software.

Do I sound like an ad? Sorry. I’m just really excited about Lightroom! The more I use it, the better it gets for me. I’m off to edit more photos…