Kat Eye Studio

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Night School

Last weekend in Paris was about gaining new experiences, seeing what I could learn by travelling on my own. Sunday night I spent time with photographer Molly S.J. Lowe, on an evening photo tour organized through Photo Tours in Paris. Molly is a freelance and fashion photographer, an American transplanted to Paris. It was fascinating to hear about what she does as a professional photographer, and to hear another ex-patriate point of view. Take a look at her beautiful black and white photography at the link above.

Molly was an exacting teacher, wanting me to get the shot right in the camera, rather than relying on post-processing in the computer. Once she learned I knew what aperture and shutter speed were, we focused on the details of composition. I learned more about shooting in manual and choosing the right settings for the look of the photo at night. I learned to look closely at the edges of the frame to see what was going on. I learned that my camera viewfinder is not very accurate as compared to what will end up in the picture – and it’s not even symmetric – so getting the shot right in the camera for framing takes some trial and error! I learned that it is difficult to use manual focus at night, but sometimes you have to. I learned the ins and outs of using the tripod to get a good shot. She made me pay attention to the little details, the things that make a difference, and take a photograph from ho-hum to great.

We spent three hours together shooting around the Louvre and Place de la Concorde. Amazingly, in that time I have very few really good shots, and that is just fine with me. We stayed with each shot for as long as it took to get it right, focusing on learning those little details first hand, which is what I needed. And while I have several beautiful shots, there are only a couple that I feel a connection to and want to share here. These are the ones where Molly said, “OK, set up here and let’s see what you come up with…” rather than directing me on setting up the shot. These are the ones, like the fountain above, where I saw the image I wanted and she just helped me make it better and get it right. These are my view. That realization – that beyond having a technically beautiful image, it needs to also be my image – is as important to me as the lessons on the technical details.

Today’s photo of La Fontaine des Mers in Place de la Concorde is straight out of the camera, no editing. I find myself itching to crop it a little bit but in honor of my lessons from Molly I am leaving it as it is, because that’s what I captured in the moment. A moment I want to remember and learn from, my night photo tour in Paris.

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Dark Nights

September.
We turn our heads reluctantly from summer,
start to look toward fall.
Morning crispness, school books.
Endings and beginnings,
sadness and possibility.
Enjoy every last golden moment of this month.
Squeeze out the last drops of summer and
hang it on the line to dry –
our memory of sticky days and thunderstorms,
wind in the leaves and crickets chirping.
These will keep us warm and cozy in the
long dark nights to come.

This is just something I randomly wrote down this morning in my journal, after I wrote in the date. It seemed to fit with this picture from Bath, the row of chairs at night, cool drops of rain on them, empty of tourists – foretelling of the seasons to come.

I am finding black and white photos very interesting lately. Before I left on my trip, I participated in the Mortal Muses black and white challenge. It was interesting to look through my photos and join in with some of my favorites. I was even one of the featured photos last week, in Thursday’s post.

Participating in this challenge got me to looking at my black and white photos as a body of work, instead of each one individually. I love color, but I like the feeling that black and white can evoke. The simplicity of light and dark, lines and spaces. It got me to thinking about how I don’t really see an image as black and white when I record it in real time, but when I see the photo on the computer it just asks to be black and white. Like this one, when I saw it in yesterday’s editing, I knew that this was the way it needed to be.

And somehow, the words I wrote this morning, the challenge I participated in last month, the photo I took last week and edited yesterday all came together for this post. I love how that happens.

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Bath Time!

We are back from our lovely week in England, where we visited Bath, York and London. What a beautiful country! Buildings out of children’s story books, the fastest moving clouds I have ever seen, and everything was in English. Imagine! That might sound silly, but I wasn’t quite prepared for “foreign” travel in my own language, after traveling so much where the languages are different. The English language is the same yet so different in the UK. And some of the accents – they might well have been speaking a foreign tongue for what we understood!

Of all of the places we visited, Bath was our favorite. I loved the Bath stone buildings, the interesting doors, windows with flowers, rows upon rows of chimneys and the town at night. So much great history, from the Romans and earlier, to Jane Austen (I have to go re-read some books now).

When we found out the Roman Baths were open late I knew I wanted to visit in the evening, for the lights on the water. It turned out perfect – good light, fewer people – much better all around for me. You can almost transport yourself back in time with this image, imagining the baths in the Roman times. But not quite. The windows of the building behind, the signs, the walls – all subtle elements of modern day. An interesting juxtaposition of old and new, coming together in one pleasing composition. Hmmmm, that might just describe England as well!

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Laughing Out Loud




We spent one day and evening in Geneva during the “Fêtes de Genève,” a huge, three week long festival on the lakefront. It was fantastic to capture the motion, the lights and the uninhibited joy of these people on the bumper cars. Can’t you just feel the laughter? When was the last time you had this much fun?

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Create to Live

This has become one of my favorites from my most recent trip to Venice. Late at night, in Piazza San Marco, this artist had his paintings set up to sell. In the image, I love how the light just pools around the art, an island in the darkness. The artist is there too, a part of it, slightly visible at the edge.

Isn’t that how art is too? No matter what we create, it may be a representation of some other physical thing, but we are there too. Art is a reflection of us. You cannot separate the creator from the creation, the artist from the art.

And so I am in this image too, as the artist. I am the one who sees these moments. I am the one who looks longingly at these street artists, whispering inside, “I want to do that. I want to create for a living.” Set aside my American-dream culture to say that maybe it doesn’t matter if I have a big collection of stuff, maybe just creating is what life is about. Creating something good, something to be proud of, something that touches others in a positive way. Live to create, create to live.

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Evening Stroll

Wander around any European city on a warm summer evening, and you will find people out and about. Enjoying an aperitivo, window shopping, meeting up with friends, listening to street performers… tourist destination or not. There is such an energy, a feeling of shared community, to the piazzas and placas and platze no matter what country you are in, what language is spoken around you. This particular evening on the Riva in Split was no exception. This is one of the things I absolutely and truly love about being here in Europe and Italy.

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