Kat Eye Studio

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Set in Stone

A last little bit of love graffiti, this time from Murten, Switzerland. In Switzerland, you don’t find much graffiti, so these little declarations of love are a bit harder to find than in Italy. I loved the messages etched into the sandstone, in this little hideaway above the town. I wonder how long it took to create this heart?

I guess no matter the rules or the laws or the culture, the need to publicly commemorate feelings remains and is acted out in different ways. Whether it’s ink on a wall, a lock on a railing, initials carved into a tree trunk or hearts etched in sandstone, love finds a way to speak. I hope you enjoyed these images, this Valentine’s week.

Yesterday I was musing on street scenes at Mortal Muses, so come by if you would like to see the street personality of Lisbon and Chinatown in San Francisco.

Today I have one last message of love to share! Ashley at Ramblings and Photos has challenged us to write Love Letters to Kitty Paw, her cat. So, I dusted off my digital scrapbooking skills to help our cat Stevie send a letter. Didn’t he have a sweet message for Kitty Paw?

Click the image below see all of the fun love letters linked in! You might just be inspired to join in too.

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What’s the Story?

This image caught my eye on the train traveling from Lisbon to Cascais, along the coast of Portugal. Originally, all I saw was the heart, just barely visible in the window from where I was sitting. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds and the message was broadcast inside the car. It’s double graffiti, two surfaces for the painting of one!

I enjoyed all of the comments on yesterday’s blog post Ti Amo. So many different perspectives were shared. If you have some time, take a quick read here to enjoy them too.

I thought today it might be fun to spark your imagination, and ask you to make up stories to go along with this love graffiti. What story do you see in this image? I can’t wait to hear!

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Ti Amo

Ti amo means “I love you” in Italian. Where there is graffiti in Italy, you often find this phrase mixed in. What is it about love that makes people want to declare it to the world in this fashion? It’s as if it somehow makes it more permanent, less subject to the whims of life and human nature, if it is written down. Not just written down on a piece of paper either, but on a permanent structure, something that will be around a while.

I have to admit that my personal suspicion is that many of the romances with declarations of love in graffiti don’t last. Call me unromantic, but grand declarations of love in spray paint are not what makes a relationship. To me, love is trust and honesty and acceptance, not words on a wall. It is support day in and day out, not flowers or candy on a specific day that calls for it.

While I love to capture these little message of love I find left about, I also wonder about the stories behind them. What brought someone to this point, and what happens after the ink dries and fades away? I hope the couples have found something more lasting than ink on a wall. I truly do.

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Sharing the Love

This week is “Sharing the Love” week on Mortal Muses, have you caught it yet? Each muse has selected a guest to take her place and share the love – it’s been great fun! Come by and see all of our guests musing on the theme “Evidence of Love.” My special guest is Jennifée, a wonderful photographer from Norway. I love her images! You can find her post here.

My wonderful muse friend, Tammy Lee Bradley of Bliss and Folly, is also sharing the love with me and with you too! She is offering a giveaway of a vintage camera trio on her blog when you link in to Exploring with a Camera: Breaking the Rule of Thirds. So there are two giveaways if you link in this time! Visit Tammy’s blog to see the details of the giveaway, and then come link in here. Thanks so much to Tammy for sharing the love with us all!

In the last week, I’ve had three wonderful bloggers give the Stylish Blogger Award to me. I would like to thank them so much for sharing the love with The Kat Eye View of the World and Exploring with a Camera. Please stop by and leave them some love in the form of comments too!
Christine at Blue Elephant Photography
Beth at Rainbows’n’Frogs Photography
Karen at Out in the Fields

Today’s “evidence of love” is from Via dell’Amore in Cinque Terre. If you ever wanted to find love-themed graffiti, this is the place. Enjoy your weekend!

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The Beauty of Reality

Yesterday we took a day trip to Bologna, a two and a half hour drive south of where we live. It’s been a while since we’ve taken just a day trip, somewhere near by. We all enjoyed it – seeing someplace new, and then coming home to our own beds and another day of the weekend left to play around.

It was wonderful for me, to get out and shoot someplace completely new again. It’s been a while since I’ve done that since I travelled to the US and then have been focusing on fall in the park lately. Loving every minute of that too, but this was refreshing. It was also amazing to me to notice how differently I see now, as compared to, say, a year ago. Back then, I would have never have “seen” this image. It would have been part of the alley I walked by, with lots of elements I avoid… graffiti, dumpsters, street signs, windows with bars. I mean, where are the flowers, the doorstep beauty? But I love this. This is back-alley Bologna. This is real life, with it’s imperfections but worthy of capture anyway.

I think this is just another step along my journey. As I accept the imperfections in myself, I find I am able to accept them in the world around me. Apparently, that also means I am not always seeing just the lovely textures in the places we visit – but the reality of dumpsters and street signs. Finding interest in those too. And while I would not call this image “beautiful,” it does appeal to me, and does say “Italy” in a very real way.

It’s kind of fun to observe these changes in myself, to surprise myself. I also surprised my husband, who has gotten pretty good at being able to predict when to get out of the way for a photo, what little scenes might catch my eye. Yesterday, however, I messed him up because I was stopping to study things that would have never been photo-worthy to me before. Interesting to notice how it affected not just me, but him to.

And how does it affect you? Does it surprise you too? How do you look at this image? I think you may have to get used to it. There will probably be more graffiti and back-alley reality popping up around here, if my day in Bologna is any indication.

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Smile

I love this graffiti from a back alley in Bath. I don’t know that I’ve seen happy graffiti like this before. The words scribbled under it intrigue me too, “You might get hit by a bus tomorrow!” I’m not sure if the author of those words intends for you to smile because your life might be over soon or smile because you never know when life will end, but I prefer to interpret it as the latter myself. A reminder not to waste the life we have on frowns.

Happy smiley Sunday! I can’t wait to find out who is going to win the postcards tomorrow, can you? Today is the last day to enter.

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