Kat Eye Studio

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Evening Window

Evening comes slowly on, the light fading to a beautiful glow over the palm trees. The city, the sea, the trees.

We were back in our room at the hostel in Nice early on Saturday because Brandon wasn’t feeling well and wanted to nap. I was trying to capture the view and evening light from our window but couldn’t quite get the angle I wanted with the palm tree and cityscape and sea all in there. Until I noticed the reflection in the window, just perfect. With a window to frame it all and give it a sense of place.

Sometimes it takes a problem to come up with a creative solution. You don’t think you want the problem to begin with, until you see the solution and realize that you would never have gotten to that place any other way. That’s what I see in this image, a much more interesting story than if I could have lined up the palm tree just right with the city and sea. Lucky me!

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Night Scenes

Here is Bolzano, at night. It was an pretty town, but amazingly quiet as soon as the stores closed. Very few restaurants open past 8 or 8:30pm. It’s like it’s not even Italy! Things are barely getting starting in restaurants around Milan at that time. My colleagues told me that this region is “not really Italy” but I guess I had to live it myself to believe it. It also shows how much we’ve gotten used to “Italian time” and come to expect certain things to be a certain way. It was a little reminder that’s not true! That’s what travel does for you, keeps you from getting complacent in how you think the world “is” – you realize that things in the world are a lot more relative than you had come to believe.

I’ve gotten much more into night photography lately, as this photo attests. Part of it has been the time change, we are out a lot more at night. When we travel in the summer and the days are soooo long – we barely make it to dark and we’re done. We aren’t wandering at midnight with an 8 year old in tow. 🙂 So, in winter, I find that I’ve gotten to enjoy taking photos at night of more places. It’s cold, but it’s nothing some warm clothes and a periodic hot chocolate can’t solve.

The other part of the increase in night photography has been this wonderful new 35mm lens I got in December, which has an aperture of a whopping 1.4 and allows me to just get more light into the camera. It has extended the range of light I can use to take photos while still hand holding the camera. It’s enough that I tote around my big lenses (2 now!), I’m not interested in carrying a tripod and then setting it up, etc. So this lens does a fabulous job of extending my range at night while still keeping me mobile. It’s like a whole new world to photograph!

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Quiet Night

This photo is one of my favorites from our first trip to Venice. A quiet evening along the canal, the day wrapping up. The boat is parked and the family is all snug inside the house. The light is welcoming, the reflections bring a sense of calm and peace to the evening.

This evening shot appeals to me at the moment, with its inviting warmth. I would love to curl up and go to sleep under a lovely warm comforter with a purring cat, but it’s 9:30am and I have a normal day ahead of me. The adjustment back to Italy time has been rough this trip, I think it’s more difficult going this direction. Either that or I just don’t have as much craziness to keep me going all day long. But, about 12 hours from now, that comforter has my name written all over it…

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