Kat Eye Studio

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Can I Resist?

I’m having a heck of time this month. You see, I’m a joiner. And there are all of these things to join in November, just calling to me! But I’m trying to resist, because I have a busy month that includes a lot of personal projects I want to do, instead of joining something that doesn’t get me closer to my goals and dreams.

It started with Art Every Day Month, which looks so fun. I mean, I create most every day anyway in some way, this is right up my alley. But I’m resisting, because I don’t want to focus my creative inspiration and efforts just to meet a self-imposed deadline every day when I have so much else going on.

Then there is NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, which inspires you to write a post every day on your blog for the month of November. Hey, I do that most of the time anyway! But not committing this month, which includes visitors and travel and the busiest, longest work week of my entire year.

Along the way I ran into 30 Days of Gratitude. What a wonderful way to uplift and celebrate the month of November, than to be grateful, for 30 days? But then that focuses me on one specific topic… and again a whole 30 days of commitment to it. Can’t do it.

On my internet wanderings I bumped into Digital Detox, which sounds like a wonderful week long little way to simplify your life if you want to participate, and then November in Black and White. Hey, I love black and white photography. But wait, that would commit me to a whole month of it. Right now, when I have other things I’m focusing on. OK, so no.

Thank goodness I don’t have any idead for a novel, or NaNoWriMo would be calling to me too.

I hadn’t realized that I was such a joiner until I find myself struggling to resist joining in to all of these things. The communities they create are so fun. The things you gain by doing these activities is so worthy. As I read some of my favorite blogs I feel like I’m looking longingly into the windows of people at a party and I’m outside in the cold. But I remind myself, no, I can’t put myself through this right now. Because for me, what’s worse than being outside looking in? Joining something and then not being able to follow through. I beat myself up, because I committed to something, darn it, I should follow through. Instead, I’m choosing to stay sane this month, without adding extra pressure.

So to satisfy those urges to join, I’ve decided to create KaNoJoMo – doesn’t that sound fabulous? It stands for Kat’s Non-Joining Month. This month, I am not going to join or commit to anything that is not on my personal priority list. I am going to resist, walk away, focus on my own stuff in the limited time I have available. I’ll just wave at everyone else through the window as I walk by, give them a thumbs up to let them know I support what they are doing.

Want to join me? Haha – I tricked you! You can’t join me! That’s the idea, no joining. It’s a personal decision, one you can make too. No monthly or weekly or daily challenges or commitments to other projects if that is not right for you. Only commitments you make to yourself. You don’t need to announce it to the world (as, ironically, I am doing), you just have to make a personal choice.  You don’t need permission from anyone else but you, and you don’t have to apologize to anyone for not joining.

Week 1 of KaNoJoMo is already over, and I survived without joining anything. Whew. Only 3 more weeks to go…

Today’s photo is from Saturday evening in Venice. *Sigh* I love Venice. Still.

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Images and Words

If an image is worth a thousand words, why do I find myself writing so much? This is an interesting quandary I have found myself in… As my passion for photography has increased, so has my need to express it. Not only in images, in words. Where I took the photo, why it caught my eye, how it makes me feel, what I’ve learned from the experience, how you can do it too… writing, writing, writing.

The surprising thing, to me, is that I have discovered that I enjoy it. I like to write. I like to find the words to express myself, to bring an idea into reality. To help someone understand something new, maybe see things in a different way. I never though of myself as a writer, yet here I am writing, almost every day. I think I’ll add it to my little “I am” statement…

I am an artist, a photographer and writer, and I have a unique vision 
to share with the world.

It feels a little weird. Like a new style I’m trying on, one that looks good but I’m not comfortable with it yet. I think I need to wear it a little while and see how it feels before I go off and change my “About Me” page. 🙂

Speaking of writing, what brought all of these thoughts to my mind –  my second article for Jenny of Rising Sun Coaching is now posted over on her blog. If you are interested in learning more about how I found my passion and purpose during my time in Italy, and how you can too, then give it a read. 

See you next week! We are off traveling this weekend. Venice again, the in-laws are in town for a visit. I know, rough life. 🙂

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Exploring with a Camera: Frame within a Frame

“Frame within a Frame” is a compositional technique that I’ve had on my mind to share here, but was waiting for the perfect “frame” shot to lead off with. I found it in this shot from Bologna, looking through a bridge window into the buildings and canal beyond. Now that I’m writing this post and reviewing my archives, however, I am seeing that I use this technique more than I thought!

Frame within a Frame works for a couple of reasons:

  • First, it serves to focus the eye of the viewer on a specific subject. When you look at a frame within a frame photograph, you are usually drawn directly to the frame and what is inside of it. Then you kind of visually take a step back and take in the whole of the image. In the photo above, you are immediately drawn to the jumble of windows and walls and the distant bridge within the frame. Then you back out and see that you are looking through a wall with graffiti.
  • Second, it provides context for the image. You are looking through one thing – the frame – into something else. You have a better feel for where you are, as the viewer. It places the viewer of the photograph into a slightly different role. Instead of just looking at the photograph, they are looking through the photograph, from the frame into what is beyond. They are immersed in the image more completely. 

The “frames” that are within photo don’t have to be windows, although these are used to good effect. Basically you are looking  for anything that serves to contain or frame the subject. The nice thing about a frame within a frame is that it doesn’t have to be a straight line! The edges of our photographs are typically straight lines, with rectangular or square shape. Compositional frames we can use within our photographs can be any shape, from natural or man made.

In this image the eye is immediately drawn to the subject framed in the “white” of the overexposed window, and from there you move into the room to get the context of the boy (my son) standing at this very large window.

In this image from Padova, the subject is the bookstore, but the context is provided by the frame of the store window at night. The person walking by serves to punctuate the fact that we are looking into the store from outside.

I find that I use arches all of the time in my photography to frame a subject. It helps that they are almost everywhere in Europe! An arch is a nice contrast to the rectangular shape of the photo, as shown in this image from Brescia.

And here is one from Marksburg Castle, in the Rhine River Valley of Germany. This arch frames both a near and far vista, looking down the Rhine. It shows the strategic view the castle had of the surrounding area.

Yet another, this time an arch internal to the building, at Casa Battlo, in Barcelona. This arch frames the beautiful lines of the staircase curving upward.

Don’t ignore the good old, square doorway though! This doorway serves as a frame, giving more depth to the alley beyond and leading your eye right to the window at the end.

Natural elements make great frames. I think you can probably conjure up images you’ve seen or captured looking through trees at a distant object or vista – the trees are the frame. The palm tree in the image below from Split, Croatia serves to frame the subject of the lighted building while also giving the context of where the photo was taken from, the waterfront promenade. I have photos of this building without the palm tree, and they are not as interesting as this one.

This may be a familiar photo to you, as I’ve used it in Exploring with a Camera before. The branches of the trees arching over and hanging down to the water, along with the reflections completing the the arch below, serve to frame the path and draw your eye right along it to the water beyond.

Finally, here is a more literally frame within a frame from Bologna. Instead of looking through the frame, you are looking at what is inside the frame. It takes the random jumble of advertising, ties it together and gives it context. It becomes street art on it’s own.

So, now that you’ve seen a few examples of frame within a frame, how can you use this compositional technique?

  1. The easiest place to start is to look for the obvious in our everyday lives – windows and doors. Look at these as frames. What do you see when you look through them? What do you see reflected in them? Consider the point of view from both sides of the frame – looking out and looking in.
  2. Expand beyond the obvious to look for other opportunities for frames in our everyday spaces – hallways, mirrors and furniture are a few places to start. What other ideas can you come up with?
  3. Look for frames in architecture. As with arches, architectural elements can make great frames for something beyond, as well as provide the context of where you are at when you take the picture.
  4. Look for frames in nature. Trees make great frames, what other natural elements can you use to highlight your subject?
  5. Try changing your focus point and exposure – focus on the frame as the subject, focus on the image beyond the frame as the subject. What works best? Why? For many of my Frame within a Frame images, I have done both and then picked the one that had the best feel.
Chances are you are already using this compositional principle without thought, as I was. Take a look at your photos, and see where you have used frame within a frame and what effect it had. Keep an eye out, notice how it is used in the images you see around you everyday on the web, in print, in TV and movies. Try to consciously use it this week if you can. Next week, you can come back and share your view here, I can’t wait to see what you’ve captured!
P.S. I am no longer going to be using the Flickr group for sharing, it just hasn’t gotten any traction, probably because I’m not loving it. We’ll continue with linking in to the Share Your View follow up posts instead! If you have suggestions for other linking tools, please let me know. I’m looking at trying some different ones. Thanks for your participation!

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What am I Doing?


“If you do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always gotten.” 
This quote, by either Anthony Robbins or Zig Zigler from what I can tell by some brief and wholly inadequate internet research, is what I’m pondering today. It makes so much sense, it is so clear. I read it and say to myself, of course, how would I get anything different if I’m always doing the same things?
Why then, do we so often stay with doing what we’ve always done? What keeps us there, when we dream of getting something different out of our lives? I think it’s fear…. of failure, of losing something we already have, of being uncomfortable, of the unknown. If we change, try something new, put ourselves out there, what we get might be… worse. Better to stay with what we have. 
But what if we get something better? What about the successes, the new wonderful things, that might be waiting for us if we change? So easy to forget about that, to brush it under the rug of fears we keep ourselves stranded on. Don’t leave this comfortable, warm little rug for the big, bad cold floor of life.
Am I doing what I can, to get something different out of my life? That is the question I’m asking myself today, trying to move off of my little rug.  How about you?

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Down the Road

Travelling toward the end of the year, one month at a time. Welcome November!

I think fall might unofficially be over here, given the amount of rain that has been pouring down outside for the last two days. We changed from daylight savings time yesterday, here in Europe, and darkness comes early again. In our home, we are welcoming the winter with lighting more candles and snuggling up to watch movies.

I will miss these lovely leaves but am ready for the dormant period, the quiet time. As I read in Simple Abundance this morning, “November’s beauty radiates from within.”  Just like me. Just like you.

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I am musing on the energy of night over at Mortal Muses today. Come by and say hi!

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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.