I hope you all are having a wonderful day with family and friends! I’m having a great time at my sister’s house, slowly but surely getting my creativity back. Some time off helps!
Registration Opens with a Special Offer!
Yay! Today is the day! Registration opens for the January-February series of Find Your Eye today. Starting the Journey runs January 8 – 18, 2012 and Journey of Recognition follows from January 29 – February 24, 2012. I’ve got the gift-giving bug, so I’ve whipped up a special holiday offer too! Visit this page to register and learn more about the classes and the special offer.
I’m always excited when a new class starts, who will I meet? What will their journey be like? Each journey is unique to a person, just like our photographs. I love that!
If you’ve been considering taking the course, I hope you will join in this time. I’ll leave you with a few recent comments from Find Your Eye participants. Their words always speak much more eloquently than mine!
Kat has thought through the goals of the course, and each lesson contributes to moving the class along the journey of discovery and development. We can go at our own speed, learning through our own experience, and learning from our classmates, through their work and commentary. Kat creates an learning environment of encouragement, discovery and risk taking – so we can grow as photographers and artists. I love the sense of community that comes with doing this course in a group setting..That’s one of my favourite things.
This course made me think, made me look at what I am doing with my camera and why. I have a better understanding of why photography appeals to me because of this. I can honestly say that now when I carry my camera I’m more intentional about what I want to capture, rather than just taking a bunch of photos as fast as I can (which was kind of what I’ve been doing).
The process is very individual – meeting me where I was and moving me deeper. I like the sense of having the answers within and being guided to find them for myself. I appreciated the interaction among students and feedback received, especially from the instructor.
I learned so much from going through the same exercises with such a wide variety of photographers – women who all had different experiences, different photographic interests, different viewpoints.
These courses really helped me to figure out more about my style – likes and dislikes, how I shoot and why, etc. – and encouraged me to continue to look as I continue on my photographic journey. Thank you!
Buon Natale
I don’t have a lot of requirements for Christmas. I don’t need a lot of presents, and I have no attachment to the food once I get past Thanksgiving. All I need is a tree, and ornaments that mean something to me.
You see, I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas. I was 27 years old and 4 years married the first time I participated in this holiday; the first time I had a tree in my home. My husband and I made our sojourn to Hobby Lobby, buying a small tree and some coordinating ornaments. It was pretty, but it didn’t have any meaning to me, regardless of my beliefs about the holiday.
The next year my husband excitedly pulled out the Christmas decorations, and discovered I had no enthusiasm. He was a bit disappointed but didn’t let it phase him. He enjoyed setting everything up, adding lights as well. I helped, but only when prodded.
This went on for several years, until something magical happened. Patrick cajoled me into coming to help set up the tree one year. As we unwrapped the ornaments, I began to see the stories they held. One had been given to us by Patrick’s parents. Another had been purchased on a trip. They were no longer just pretty baubles, they began to have meaning to me. For the first time, I had an excitement about decorating for Christmas. I had an emotional connection, found in the history of the ornaments. I now had a tradition.
That tradition has continued, through the years. Our son was born and we added “Baby’s first year” ornaments. My husband completed a bicycle trip down the Oregon coast, and I made him an ornament to commemorate. We’ve picked up ornaments in places we’ve visited or they’ve been given to us as gifts from special people in our lives. Each one is a memory, something special to be revisited, as we set up the tree and admire them through the month of December. It is now a special family tradition the weekend after Thanksgiving, to turn on the Christmas music and set up the tree together. We carefully unwrap the ornaments, taking a walk down memory lane. My son loves it too.
So for me, all Christmas needs is a tree filled with ornaments that carry memories. The perfectly decorated and color coordinated trees can stay in the department stores, in my opinion. They are beautiful, I love to photograph them, but they hold no true meaning for me.
During our time in Italy, we’ve added quite a number of ornaments to our collection. In fact, we didn’t bring any Christmas decorations with us, having the goal of gathering new ornaments on our travels. We now have a tree full of memories to take home with us. Here we are, by our tree of European memories, wishing you a wonderful, happy Christmas. Or, in Italian…
Buon Natale!
Today’s 9 Muses Musing prompt is ORNAMENT. Today is my day to giveaway one of my favorite handmade glass ornaments from Murano. Please come by Mortal Muses and leave a comment or link in to enter the giveaway, I’d love to see it go to one of my faithful readers!
Paws-ing to Remember
“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care…”
I’ve never hung stockings by a chimney; I’ve never had one in my house. Not only that, but this year no Christmas stockings are hung because they are all in storage, back in the US. We decided to live without our Christmas decorations for a couple of years during our time in Italy. Maybe it was the picture chosen for today’s 9 Muses Musing prompt of STOCKING, but I couldn’t help think of those stockings in storage, and of the stocking that would be empty this year, for our sweet dog Tasha. She passed away this summer, at nearly 14 years old.
Since Brandon’s birth, we’ve always hung four stockings with care – one each for Patrick, Brandon and me, plus one “paw” stocking for Tasha. I dug in my archives to find a picture of it, this was the best I could do from Christmas 2006. You can see the paw stocking there, balancing out the odd three for the humans in the family to an even four.
We would always put a couple of Christmas morning treats in there for Tasha – maybe pig’s ears or a new toy. We had to be careful not to fill the stocking too early, or the smell of the treats hanging there would drive her crazy. Being the good dog she was though, she never tried to get at them. She would just sit there and stare at the stocking, like a kid stares at all of the presents under the tree. When Christmas morning arrived, Tasha would happily dig in to her treats as we opened our gifts. A Christmas tradition in our house.
So this year, the STOCKING prompt made me pause, remembering our sweet dog Tasha and Christmas stockings past. Give your furry family members a little extra hug for me, and maybe a treat on Christmas morning, in memory of Tasha.
Tomorrow’s 9 Muses Musing prompt is ORNAMENT. Tomorrow is my day to muse again, and I have a fabulous giveaway for you, from one of my favorite places in all of Italy. I know it’s Christmas Day tomorrow, but don’t forget to stop by Mortal Muses to enter.
And by the way, I’m feeling much, much better today – back to normal. Thanks for all of the well wishes yesterday. Enjoy your Christmas Eve!
Story in Glass
These are my absolute, hands down, favorite ornaments in the world. Every time I go to Murano now, I pick one up. Come see more of the story behind them in my Mortal Muses triptych post today.
Have a great day!
