Kat Eye Studio

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Come Visit!

I’m over at Shutter Sisters today, with a guest post sharing the Photo-Heart Connection. I’m excited to have the chance to guest post there, and to share this project with more photographers. I would love to have you come visit.

Have you been thinking about your Photo-Heart Connection more this month, since I announced the project? I have. I’m looking more closely, more critically at each photo. Not to see what is technically right or wrong, but to notice how I feel. That’s a very good thing.

Today’s photo is from our recent snowstorm. I don’t know what it is, but there is always something about a lone tree image that gets me, right in the heart.

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Unusual Weather

While some of you live in places where you get tired of the snow in winter, I don’t live in one of those places. In the Willamette Valley of Oregon we rarely get snow. It’s mostly rain, rain, rain.

But on Sunday morning, we woke up to snow on the ground and big, fat flakes falling. I could not miss this photo opportunity, so my son and I went out and put fresh tracks in the snow. In a short while the snow stopped and the sun came out as a break in the clouds moved through, creating some lovely photo opportunities, like the one below.

The snow came and went for a day or two and now we are back to rain. Serious rain. This is a good thing, since we have had a very dry winter so far. Dry and clear is nice for the humans here in the winter, but not so good for the land. I don’t mind the rain right now, it’s been a while and I like the sound of the rain outside while I’m safe and warm inside.

Somehow though, it’s not as exciting or as magical as waking up to the world covered with a quiet blanket of snow.

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Weekend Away: Powered by Orange

Since orange became my power color while living in Italy, I love the idea of being “Powered by Orange.” Here in Corvallis, home of Oregon State University, much of the town sports these “Powered by Orange” signs in support of the university whose colors are orange and black. A fun discovery upon moving back here!

And I just noticed, another window image! They are popping up everywhere for me these days.

For “Weekend Away,” I take a little blogging break and share random photos captured in my travels.

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The Call to Capture

Sometimes, when you go out to photograph, instead of you finding an image, an image finds you. Unexpected, unbidden, it calls for you to capture it with the camera. It begs you to pin it down, within the frame.

This is one of the things I love about photography. This is why I like to wander around, camera in hand. I never know what I will find. I never know what will jump out at me. The scene that originally caught my eye usually gets transformed into something different. I get to see the world in new ways. The world begs me to see it in new ways, to frame and reframe it.

I wasn’t looking for this image, but it needed to be captured when I found it. I wonder why?

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Changing Perspectives

OK, here it is, the window that started off last week’s rainy photowalk. I was drawn to those window frames of wonderfully peeling paint in contrast with the shiny smooth metal of the building. It was interesting to find that the metal wasn’t as shiny smooth as it seemed from the car driving by. It had it’s own texture of rust and even writing on it, as you got closer. I like the shapes and lines in this image, and the contrast of not only textures but the silver-blue building against the warmer yellow and brown found in the windows and doors and repeated in the color of the curb.

I’ve been noticing lately how “straight on” many of my images are. That seems to be a favorite perspective. It’s not intentional, I often take many different angles and perspectives of one scene but come back to the “straight on” one as my favorite. Maybe it’s a reflection of my personality, I’m pretty direct and straightforward.

But the angles often show something that the straight on perspective cannot, and that’s depth. This is the window on the left. You can’t tell the depth of the texture, borne out through the paint and screen and screws and nails, in the image above. To show that, it took moving around the angle of the camera, the depth of field, capturing the layers and the details. Of the two images today, this second one is my favorite. It has more depth, it reveals more. It says more to me.

It’s just a reminder to continue looking from all different perspectives, to see which one connects with you the most. You never know!

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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?