Kat Eye Studio

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Art with an iPhone Second Edition Available for Preorder!

It’s coming! The second edition of Art with an iPhone is now available for preorder on Amazon. Pop right over here to Amazon and preorder your copy today. The publication date is December 15, 2017 so it will be shipping in time for Christmas. Yay!

I’m so excited to get this second edition out in the world. Not only is it updated for app and technology changes, it includes lots of new art plus new techniques as well. My art has evolved since the first edition, so the book needed to evolve too. Even if you have the original book, there will be new things in the second edition for you.

Thanks in advance for your preorders! They really help the success of the book.

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iPhone Book is one step closer! (+ app review)

I heard from my editor yesterday… I should be seeing the galley proofs of my iPhone photography book in a couple of weeks. Yay!! I cannot wait to see those proofs, and I’ll be sure to give you a sneak peek when I do. It’s such a long process, I almost forgot I wrote a book over the last few months. (Well, not really, but I tried not to worry and obsess about it too much.)

With this reminder that a real book is in the works, don’t forget you can preorder it right now on Amazon, and it will show up in your mailbox in January when it ships. Preorders are hugely important to its success, so I appreciate each and every one! Thank you!

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On another note, today’s image is edited with the Formulas app, which is from the same creators as Stackables, one of my favorite apps. The Formulas app is a simpler version, with a list of preset formulas you can apply which include layers from the Stackables app.

The good is that it is very simple to use: Select a formula, adjust the intensity (0 to 100), and then either save or apply another formula on top. You can also add a frame in a similar tone. Super easy. Today’s image was edited with the Glazed formula at 100% followed by the Orange Zest formula, at a lower intensity.

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The bad is that you have no other adjustability. You can’t rotate the formula or change blend modes, either for a single formula or more than one applied.  Super frustrating, if you like a little control.

The formulas are very much monochromatic and highly textured, so if that’s your style this is a great app to add to your arsenal.

If you like a little bit of flexibility and control, as I do, then it’s probably not a great app for you. I’ll stick with Stackables, where I can experiment and adjust the layers to my heart’s content. 

That’s the beauty of mobile photography, there is something for everyone. You just have to find the right apps!

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My iPhone Photography Book is Available for Preorder!

Pond Lily Pad Green Painting Photography Kat Sloma iPhone Photography Singapore

“Lily Pond,” Featured on the Cover

No matter how far you are going on any journey, there are points where you have to pause and take in the view. This is definitely one of them for me: My book, Art with an iPhone: A Photographer’s Guide to Creating Altered Realities, is now available for preorder on Amazon!

Is that not the coolest thing? Let’s just pause and absorb that a little bit. I wrote a book. A book that is on Amazon.

I know I’ve talked about it for a good long while. I know I spent hours developing the material, organizing it, and sitting at the computer writing it. I know that I sent the manuscript off to meet the deadline several months ago… Even so, this makes it all the more real!

There is still a lot of work to do. There is editing and layout and distribution and marketing. The release date is not until January 2016. It seems so far away, but when I look at it objectively, it’s less time to go than it’s been since I started this whole adventure. And at the end there will be a real, printed book filled with my art and words I can hold in my hands. That you can hold in your hands.

Awesome!

And now, here’s where you come in… Run on over to Amazon and preorder it now, pretty please! That will help its search rankings which will help more people find it which will help me spread the love for this wonderful art form.

We all have the capability of creating art. I want to show you how with the phone in your pocket.

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Stick a Fork in Me…

…I’m done! My iPhone photography manuscript is complete, packaged and ready to send. It will be in the mail today, heading to Amherst Media and the next phase of production.

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Whew, what a project. 24034 words and 270 photo examples and diagrams. And that’s for a small book… It’s only planned to be 128 pages. I can now imagine the work that went into creating some of these larger photography tomes on my bookshelf. I’m glad my project was not that big!

I should feel excited, right? I guess I do. But what I mostly feel is relieved that I made the deadline with a week to spare, and a little bit empty. Every spare moment the last couple of months has been about finishing the book, so having all of that time and mental space freed up at once is somewhat unnerving.

I’ve been keeping a list of projects I need to do “when the book is done.” I guess that starts now.

But first, I think I’m going to go for a hike. The forest is calling me. We’ve had some beautiful weather, and I haven’t had the time to go out hiking until now.

Next, I’ll clean my studio. As you can see, it’s a bit of a mess. Some things just fall by the wayside when a deadline looms near.

And then? It’s like a blank page, waiting for me to fill. I think I might keep it that way, at least for a little while.

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A Message

We must walk into the arena, whatever it may be – a new relationship, an important meeting, our creative process, or a difficult family conversation – with courage and the willingness to engage. Rather than sitting on the sidelines and hurling judgment and advice, we must dare to show up and let ourselves be seen. This is vulnerability. This is daring greatly.
— Brené Brown in Daring Greatly

I have a message today. A message from the universe. It’s not for you, it’s for me, but I’m sharing it with you too.

This morning I sat down and started reading Brené Brown’s new book, Daring Greatly. I’ve mentioned before, I have read and like her previous books, so I wanted to read this one right away. As I read the first couple of chapters, I found myself thinking, I really should watch that TED talk she mentions. I’ve heard about it but never seen it.

A little while later I stopped my morning reading and got on the computer to check my email. I open an email newsletter from a friend, and in it she is sharing Brené Brown’s TED talk. Whoa.

OK, universe. Message received. I stopped what I was doing and watched the talk, and I’m sharing it with you here today so you can watch it if you haven’t before. Or rewatch it if you have.

Her message is so important. It reminds us that to have connection and love, we have to believe we are worthy of connection and love. To truly connect or create, we have to make ourselves vulnerable. We have to put ourselves out there. We have to be willing to be ourselves and to live true to our hearts. We have to ignore the critics. We have to avoid being the critic, providing commentary from the sidelines.

I’m thinking on these messages today, since they were sent to me in such an obvious way. Do they connect with you too?

PS – I mentioned previously that Brené is doing a read along of her new book on her blog started next week. You can find out more here.

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Brain Power

The brain is an amazing thing. Our bodies, our cells, our neurons, the way it all works together is amazing. Over the weekend I read a fascinating book that made me aware of all of this, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD.

It’s a short read, but an amazing story of the author’s personal journey through a stroke at age 37 and her recovery. As an accomplished brain scientist, she has a very unique point of view. There is much important information in her book, about understanding and helping those who have suffered strokes; about the plasticity and flexibility of our brains to adapt. But what she learned about how our thoughts work as her brain came back “online” is the most important, I think.

We have a choice in our thoughts. We have a choice to engage in the negative patterns of our brain and react to the emotions we feel in our body, or not. We can “step to the right” as she calls it, out of our left-brain, rigid thinking into the wholeness and peacefulness of our “right” mind.

Her stroke of insight: “peace is only a thought away, and all we have to do to access it is silence the voice of our dominating left mind.” Later in the book she discusses the different “characters” that come from the two sides of our brain, and how “we can take a more balanced-brain approach to how we lead our lives.”

I so resonate with her message.

It’s as if she experienced from the inside out what I’ve been struggling with the last few years. This idea of balancing the “doing” and the “being.” Balancing the coexistence of the logical, goal-oriented left-brain me with the creative, spiritual right-brain me. There are both there. They both have their place in creating a whole life.

Photography and writing are the things that help me “step to the right” as she puts it. For many of us, I’m sure that’s true. While I’ve known the benefits of a creative practice for a while now, reading this book helped to put it in a new frame of reference with the physiology of our bodies and our brains. Why we might do the things we do and think the thoughts we think, but also the choice we continually have to change our thoughts and subsequently change our whole perspective on life.

Today I’m honoring my body and my brain. Thanking them for the work they do all of the time. Dr. Taylor has made me very aware of how amazing our physiology is, and, more importantly, my role as the consciousness in this body. I get to choose.

I chose this image from San Francisco for today because of the optical illusion I perceive in it. I love how it looks flat! I composed it to look that way and processed it to enhance that perception. Even though our left brain may understand the reality of what we are looking at, we can move ourselves into the right brain and alter that reality by how we frame the world through our cameras. Fun, huh?

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