forest

February 4, 2013 by Kat

What are you apologizing for?

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
— Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

If you’ve heard at all about Brené Brown’s latest book, Daring Greatly, you’ve probably heard this quote. Ever since reading the book it’s been swimming around in my head. We enter the arena in so many different ways, each day. When we share our truest selves with someone else, or when we put our art into the world, we are daring greatly.

It’s easy to get hurt, when you make yourself vulnerable in some way. We protect our hearts by pre-rejecting ourselves, not stepping up to participate at times. I almost did that this weekend, for an exhibition submission that was out of my comfort zone. I took a deep breath and submitted anyway. We protect ourselves by apologizing in advance. In order to avoid the hurt of someone else criticize us, we apologize for the things we fear.

I see this all of the time in online sharing. “So sorry,” someone will write, “Just one more shot of fill-in-the-blank. I promise.” I hear that as fear. Fear of bothering other people with something we love. Maybe fear of abandonment. As if everyone will completely desert the artist for sharing just one more image of something he or she is passionate about. Apologizing gives an out. So if someone says, “Yeah, I was getting tired of seeing fill-in-the-blank,” we are armored up and ready to hear it. It confirmed our fears. That may not be why they write those words, but I identify with them, and see my own fear reflected. I see myself in them, wanting to apologize for sharing just one more image of trees, or scooters, or whatever I’m really excited about at the time.

But here’s the deal… The passion someone has for what they do is usually what draws us to them in the first place. We resonate and reflect that passion back. It inspires us. It’s fun to see.

I don’t think we should ever apologize for sharing something we are passionate about. I think we need to take a deep breath and stand tall and say, “Here I am and this is what I love. When I share this, I am sharing part of who I am.” It’s time to dare greatly, and stop apologizing, stop pre-rejecting ourselves and stop all of the other little things we do to keep ourselves safe. If someone stomps on that, after you’ve nursed your hurt a little bit, I encourage you to look very closely at where it came from. Treat the person who stomped on you with compassion: It’s probably their own issue; their own fears talking.

So what is it you would do or share, if you wiped away your fear? What is it that makes you feel like you are daring greatly, putting yourself out there? For me, it’s submitting to an exhibition outside of my comfort zone. Or agreeing to do something that puts me in the public eye. Or maybe, just maybe, sharing a tree image for the hundredth time.

But one thing I’m not going to do anymore… I’m not going to apologize for what I love to create and share.

One of my activities this weekend was to create a gift for the folks who worked on my team on big project I talked about last week. We had an intense and stress-filled few months, right up to the deadline last Thursday, and they gave it their all. I had shared the “daring greatly” quote with them a couple of months ago, and decided to make these framed prints as a gift to give them at our celebration lunch today. I had no idea I that the art I’ve been creating these last couple of months that would look so good with a quote on them! I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. These 8x8inch frames are available in a 4-pack at Michaels and were perfect for simply finishing the prints. This is another great example of why I love to be able to print my own work.

January 25, 2013 by Kat

A Serendipitous Mess

Ah, the joy of creating Artistic Blur in camera! Have you tried it yet for Exploring with a Camera this month? If not, you are missing out on lots of fun. There is something incredibly freeing about creating with in-camera blur effects. A lot of time it’s a complete mess but, ah, when it turns out! It can be perfection. Messy perfection.

I had a serendipitous find in my iPhone this week along the lines of in-camera blur and messy perfection. I went for a walk in the forest on Wednesday, hoping to capture the freezing fog we’ve been having. As I walked up the road, I took a couple of photographs and left my camera on as I held it in my hand, hanging down at my side. When I stopped to take my next photograph and pulled the camera up to get ready, I saw this on the screen:

Whoa! I didn’t intend to take that. It was captured by accident, as I was walking along, with the ProHDR app open. Let me explain on this app works… ProHDR takes two exposures of the same scene, one for the highlights and one for the shadows, and combines them to give an image greater dynamic range. To use the app, you frame up your photograph and then tap the screen to start the process. You have to hold still for a while (it seems like forever) while the camera analyzes the scene and then takes the two images of the scene. After that, it combines the two and allows you to save or cancel. I must have accidentally tapped the screen as I was walking along, and the app analyzed the scene and took the two shots, automatically combining them. So I got this cool double-exposure-plus-motion effect in the final combined image, and, the best part, I accidentally discovered I could use this app for in-camera artistic blur effects!

My goal of photographs of the freezing fog went out the window as I explored this new creative possibility. I tried all sorts of different things as I moved the camera between the first and second exposure on the app to see how it would combine them together. Like any of the artistic blur techniques, a lot of experimentation is needed to get anything that looks good. After all of my play, I was never able to recreate the twisting effect of that accidental shot. (I have no idea what I was doing to get that. I must have been seriously swinging my arms around!) I did learn a couple of things though: The best images were those with quite a bit of light area in each exposure, so that when the two exposures overlapped you can see detail of both, and the second image seemed to be more dominant in the final image, because of the way ProHDR exposes and combines the two images.

Here are my favorite ones:

I’ve shifted color on all of these final images through other app filters, because I liked how the different colors highlighted different parts of the image and enhanced the feel. I played with a lot of filters and color options to choose the final image. I’ll also note on the second image, I had to do some cropping. My finger got in the frame so I cropped that out along with some other distracting elements. I don’t think you can expect to get a perfectly framed final image out of these types of techniques, so cropping is going to be your friend. Here’s the original to compare the difference:

This was all so. much. fun. I was filled with excitement and joy after this photo session, and later too, when I had time to play with editing. That’s what photography is all about for me – the joy I get from the process!

How is your exploration going with creating in-camera Artistic Blur? Have you tried it yet? If not, I encourage you to get out there and play! Find your own serendipitous mess. Kind of like fingerpainting, there is a joy to be found in the freedom of creating this way. Also, don’t miss the guest post from Jack Larson earlier in the week. He shared some other Artistic Blur effects and some wonderful images. You still have time, the link up is open through the end of the month.

January 7, 2013 by Kat

Creating with Ease

I’m rolling into the new week after a wonderful weekend. I didn’t have any big plans. I didn’t rush around on errands.

I did simple things, like go on a hike with my son. Enjoy a bagel and chai at the local coffee shop. Read a book or two. Print some images. Create some new ones, like this one I call “Twizzly Trees.”

Everything is flowing right now. I’m creating with ease. There is no pushing through, no trying to pull something out that doesn’t want to come.

It’s been like this for the last few weeks. When I sit down to write, the words just come. When I want to work on images, things come together nicely. And if they don’t, I just stop. There will be another moment, tomorrow or the day after, that I can come back to it if I need to.

Part of me holds back, nervous for this ease. Looking to the future, thinking, When is it going to end? But there is a part of me that knows. It doesn’t have to end. This is what happens when you align with your heart. When you stop worrying about rules or external expectations, and follow your joy.

How about you? Are you creating with ease?

Today is the last day to link in to the Photo-Heart Connection for this month! I am so amazed by this month’s connections. It seems this practice is really deepening for many of you, as it is for me. I’ll draw for the winner of the “Windblown” print tomorrow morning from all of you who participated this month. I printed it yesterday and it came out awesome. I’m so excited to send it out into the world to one of you!

October 14, 2012 by Kat

Garden of Gentle Breeze

Close your eyes. Imagine a place where the world is peaceful and calm. What do you see in your mind’s eye? Is it something of nature? What do you hear?

If you are having trouble find a place of peace and calm, I can take you there. A place with tall trees whose leaves are beginning to fall. A place with gently running water over stones. A place where you can walk and see something beautiful every way you turn.

The place I will take you is the Garden of Gentle Breeze, which I visited yesterday as part of the Kelby Worldwide Photowalk. This garden was created, is still being created, by homeowner Jay Gray in the forested hills near Corvallis. We arrived in the morning and started our visit with Jay explaining a bit about the philosophy of the two different types of gardens he has, the Zen or Tea Garden and the Strolling Garden. Everything is symbolic in the gardens, he says, with analogies for life. He also mentioned that the strolling garden is “edited” from it’s natural state, adding and subtracting elements to create the garden. That idea captivated me, as we do the same in our photographs.

While wandering the gardens I felt a sense of peace and calm. I had made a choice for simplicity this rainy morning, bringing only my 35mm lens, to see what I could see from that single field of view. I enjoyed both the wider scenes and the close up views.

I was fascinated at the artistry and interaction of the built elements with the plant elements. All are so intentionally chosen. They are a work of art.

Even the potted plants on the deck are arranged intentionally, with beautiful symmetry yet interesting contrast.

I was especially drawn to the lanterns, so I asked Jay about them. He said that when they are lit, they throw light in distinct directions. They are often at a stairway or a fork in the path, reminding you that you are making a choice. They are symbolic of the choices we have to make in life, making them obvious and intentional.

Partway through my visit, I started to play with my images. I wanted to create something that captured the impressions of the garden, rather than a literal photograph. I set the camera to longer shutter speeds and experimented with motion during exposure. I got a lot of terrible images, they just look blurry or are unintelligible. But I also got two that I loved, that really captured the feeling of the natural beauty of the garden in a powerful way.

This is my favorite photograph from the day. It feels like a painting, and just seems to captured the delicate beauty of the place in a way the other photographs did not. This was created in camera, with only minor edits in Lightroom.

Everything seems to draw me back to intention, which I also mentioned in Friday’s Exploring with a Camera post. We have choices in how we create our photographs. We have choices in how we live our lives. Whether it’s a beautiful garden or an artful photograph, when we are intentional about what we create, amazing things result.

June 18, 2012 by Kat

The Path of Confidence

I’ve been thinking about confidence lately. What is it? How do I get it, and keep it? I can imagine confidence as a path along a ledge. If you move to much to one side, you fall of the ledge into insecurity. If you move too much to the other, you fall off into arrogance. How do you stay the middle road of confidence? That’s what I’m wondering.

For some reason, I also think of confidence as a physical stance. Feet apart, body strong, looking straight ahead, making eye contact with the future. The stance is grounded, solid. It takes more than a wisp of wind to break a confident stance. Compare this to insecurity, which I imagine as curled into a ball, trying to present the minimum amount of surface to the world. Hiding the face, protecting as much as possible. And then arrogance, which is similar to confidence in stance but not as strong. Looking up, maybe, or eyes closed, and not able to see what is coming down the path. The stance of either insecurity or arrogance is not as stable. Things you can’t see can hit you and knock you over.

So really, mixing all of my metaphors together, what I want is a strong stance on a wide path. How to get that?

It seems that I waffle back and forth. From insecurity I force myself to stand up and be confident to move forward and try new things. With some success, my confidence grows to the point I feel like I’m doing well, only to be occasionally knocked back by something I didn’t see coming in my arrogance or ignorance. Is there a way to hold the middle path?

All I’ve figured out so far is that I keep moving forward, pretending confidence when I don’t have it. Otherwise I’d be balled up by insecurity, stuck in one place. Hoping that my confidence, when marvelously gained for those brief moments, does not turn to arrogance. It seems to me a fine balance to hold.

I’m hoping someday, the path of confidence is wider than it feels right now. I mean, look at all of the things I’m confident in now, I don’t even think about, that I used to worry about or that used to seem enormous. But maybe that’s the key, the path is always wider looking back than looking forward. It’s the act of moving forward, that widens the path.

November 9, 2011 by Kat

The City’s Forest

Architectural Salvage

Perhaps it’s just because I enjoy framing street scenes, or perhaps it’s because the latest Find Your Eye lesson is on starting a series, but I stumbled on a new series topic in my photography last week: The city’s forest.

I first noticed an interest in capturing these trees planted along the street when we visited Hood River, Oregon a couple of months ago. I was attracted to the light and shadow. The shape of the tree contrasted with the shapes of the architecture. The interaction of these bits of nature brought into our hard, urban world. It’s as if we know we need the trees at some deeper visceral level, so we mark out spaces in regular intervals along our streets to make room for them. They shelter our path from the sun in the summer and the rain in the fall. They provide color and beauty. They are silent witnesses to the lives bustling under and around them. They survive and thrive, even where we neglect them.

Sheltering the Abandoned

Can you imagine our neighborhoods and towns without these trees? I can’t. Or maybe I can, but I don’t want to. I am always sad when a tree lining a street dies or has to be cut down. The trees we plant are physical extensions of the heart of a place, and something changes when a tree is lost.

I’m on the hunt now, to capture the city’s forest. To celebrate the life of these trees in manmade places.

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