Kat Eye Studio

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The Thrill of Discovery

Do you remember when you discovered photography? Remember the feeling when you first captured something amazing with your camera? Something that expressed an idea or emotion or moment and took your breath away? The first inkling that there was a connection between your image and your heart and soul?

If you’re new to photography, it’s probably not that long ago that you first experienced this feeling of excitement and amazement. For some of us though, we have to reach a while back to remember that first thrill of discovery. Yes, excitement still comes after time, but maybe not with that rush of discovering something completely new. At least it’s been a while for me. As much as I love photography and get great joy from it, as you all who visit here regularly know, I hadn’t realized how long it had been since that “rush” of exploring something new had taken hold. Until recently, as I’ve been getting into mobile photography.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I had no idea what getting on to Instagram would open up for me. And it’s not Instagram per se, it’s using the mobile camera (iPod Touch 4th gen) and the apps. Freeing myself to have a camera in my pocket all the time, to look for interesting things, and then to process them with abandon.

Yes, processing with abandon. I feel positively giddy. Like I’m breaking all of the rules. I’m painting and layering and altering photos in ways I have never considered on the computer. And I absolutely LOVE the results. All of the images in this post were taken and processed on my iPod Touch. You can see more of the images I’ve been posting on Instagram here.

I love them so much, I was inspired to print and frame a little photo collage of a few images and put it on my wall this weekend. This is the first thing you now see when you enter my home:

This morning I realized these are the first photos I’ve put up on my walls that weren’t taken while living in Italy. Is that significant? Maybe not, as I’ve only recently purchased the printer and created the opportunity to do something like this as a quick weekend project. But maybe it is significant, because this is the first work I just want to gaze at for a long time. I want to say go around to everyone available and say, “See? Look what I did!”

At moments it seems silly, as if I’m acting like a little kid, but I’m going with it. I know inspiration when it hits me. I take joy where I find it. There is nothing like this early thrill of discovery, so I’m going to cherish it as long as I can.

PS – Have you entered my big celebration giveaway yet? If not, go here to enter.

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Exhibition Blues

There is nothing more exciting that opening an email or receiving a letter that says, “Congratulations! The following pieces of art you submitted have been accepted into our upcoming show…” I do a little happy dance and enjoy the moment before I switch into execution mode to get the submission ready to hang.

Last week I got one of these emails that told me I had two works accepted into the Oregon Waterways show at the Giustina Gallery here in Corvallis. Yay! The works were Mirrored and Morning Wings, below.

Mirrored

Morning Wings

I had a third work I submitted, Explore with Me, that wasn’t accepted. I’m not entirely surprised, as it didn’t fit as well with their theme. It was my favorite of the three, though, so I submitted it anyway to see what would happen.

Explore with Me

As I prepared for this exhibition, I thought I would share with you what I’ve learned about exhibiting. I’ve only been on this journey of exhibiting for barely a year. The first exhibition I participated in was the Nature of Oregon exhibit with the PhotoArts Guild last November. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

  • Participating in an exhibition is one of the best ways to really learn to present your work. You have to figure out how to print, prepare and hang the art. It’s a bit of a trial and error process, and I’ve evolved along the way, but there is no better way to learn than by doing.
  • Visit exhibitions before you start down the process to see how other artists present their work. What do you like? Not like? Jot down notes. This helps you know the direction you would like to go.
  • As a first step, consider participating in a “community open” exhibit or an organized group exhibit with a local guild or club. These exhibits usually don’t have a selection process, so they give you the opportunity to learn how to exhibit without the pressure of selection.
  • Selection for an juried exhibition is very subjective. If you submit a piece to an exhibit that is juried, you never know what might happen. It’s all up to the jury’s tastes and plans for the individual exhibit. Don’t get disappointed if you submit and hear nothing or a “no thank you” back. It doesn’t mean your work is awful, it just means that it wasn’t what they were looking for.
  • You are more likely to have work accepted if you submit to an exhibit with a specific theme than a general open call. Read the “call to artists” carefully and submit work you think best matches the theme. You can also be creative, submitting work related to the theme but with a twist, and see what happens. (My experience: That hasn’t worked out too well for me so far.) Don’t expect your favorite pieces to be selected because they are your favorites. The work you submit needs to be of high quality, but selection depends mostly on how well the piece fits what the exhibition is looking for.
  • Don’t expect to sell anything. If you do, consider it a fantastic bonus! Keep in mind that you will likely be bringing this piece home as you prepare your work for display. If it’s something you want to display in your home or give as a gift, go all out in the framing/preparation of it. If it’s something specific to the exhibition, however, and you don’t see it in your home, then you might want to think about how you can reuse the presentation materials. For my first exhibition, I had large canvases printed. They looked cool, but now what do I do with them? They don’t really fit my home decor and I don’t expect to sell them. Now I have amassed a stash of exhibition 16×20″ frames and mats, and can easily change out the prints as needed.
  • Give yourself plenty of time to prepare your work. Know your leadtime. If the timing is short between submission and exhibition, you should begin prep before you know you are accepted. Usually there is ample time between acceptance and delivery, but I got caught with this exhibition. I can print on demand and have the frames but needed more mats, so I was scrambling last week to order mats that could get here before the submission delivery deadline. The frame shops were backed up too, because other local artists were scrambling for the same exhibition. I ended up ordering mats that weren’t ideal and had to pay express shipping. If I had ordered the mats when I submitted for the exhibition, knowing I could always use them later, I would have had the mats I wanted without the extra cost. Grrr. But it’s all a learning process, and now I’ve learned one more thing with this exhibition.

Participating in exhibitions has been a great growth opportunity for me. It’s helped me learn to be more objective and less personally attached to my work as I submit. It’s helped me learn to present my work in a way that highlights the images but is also economical. It’s also driven me to learn to print, since I wasn’t happy with the prints I was getting, which has completed the cycle of creation for me.

Have you ever tried exhibiting your work? If not, I encourage you to consider it. There is nothing more exciting than seeing your work hanging on a gallery wall, visible to the public. Well, maybe selling a piece from an exhibition would be even more exciting, but I haven’t experienced that quite yet. 🙂

PS – Have you entered the big giveaway for my 1000th post yet? If not, visit here to enter.

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Addressing the “Shoulds”

What are your “shoulds?” Throughout the day, without even noticing it, many may run through your head:
I should call my mom.
I shouldn’t eat that brownie.
I should pay the bills.

Yeah. Lots of “shoulds.” They invade our artistic process too. We have a great discussion going on in the comments on yesterday’s post, and inevitably the “shoulds” have popped up there too. They do in almost any conversation about photographic process…
I should get it right in camera. I shouldn’t need to post-process.
I should use a tripod.
I should take a photograph every day.

What are your “shoulds?” I bet that you have some immediately that come to mind. We all have them. We carry them around, a lot of time without noticing them. And you know what? They drain us. They are an insidious way of saying, “I’m not good enough as I am. I need to change.” They are the voice of doubt. Fear in a subtle form. “Shoulds” are a nagging weight that pulls us away from our creativity and purpose, because instead of moving ahead with confidence they keep us chained to indecision, always questioning ourselves.

We need to address the “shoulds” and make a conscious decision on what to do with them. Make them to a “do” or “do not” and then move ahead. How?

  • First, you have to acknowledge the “should.” Write it down. Give it voice. You can’t address something if you don’t first consciously recognize it. Acknowledging there is a “should” does not make it truth. It just brings it to a place you can work with it.
  • Ask yourself, “Where did this ‘should’ come from?” Did it come from someone else? Who? Try and be specific. The statement, “I should call my mom” could come from internal means, you just miss your mom, or as a result of your mom repeatedly saying you don’t call her enough. The feeling “I should take a photograph every day” could come from your photography teacher or it could come from your own internal desires. Do your best to identify the source.
  • Next ask yourself, “Is this ‘should’ of value to me? Does it help me in some way?” The feeling we “should” do something can indicate that we want to learn something or grow in a certain direction. Look at it as objectively as possible. What is the outcome if you follow this “should?” It may mean you learn something new about yourself. Maybe more information is needed to answer the question, and that will define your direction. Ask yourself, “Do I want to follow this ‘should’?” If the answer is “no” or “not right now” then you will know your direction. The “should” may mean nothing to you, add no value, once you examine it in the light of day.
  • Make a decision. Ask yourself, “What is my choice around this ‘should’?” Move it to a “Do” or a “Do Not” and then set the “should” aside. If your “should” is, “I should be using a tripod,” decide if you will or you won’t. Maybe you need to practice with it and see what it brings you. Maybe you already have tried it and you know. Either way, make a choice and then move ahead. Write down your choice. Consciously say goodbye to the “should.”
  • Finally, give yourself permission to change your mind later. Nothing mires us in indecision more than the fear of making the wrong choice. But here’s the truth: You can always change your mind. Very few decisions are truly final. Thank goodness, or we would be living with choices we made in our teens or twenties that no longer fit our lives. If you struggle with the idea of changing your mind, thinking “I should stick to my decisions,” then maybe take a look at that “should” sometime.

None of these steps are easy, especially if it’s a “should” you’ve been carrying around a long time. It can be so ingrained you barely notice it. It can be difficult to tease out the source and what value it has to you.

It can be scary as hell to make our own choices, but we are always going to be the better off if we consciously choose our direction than if we live under the nagging doubts of the “shoulds.” Think of the parallel to our art. When we create photographs, we get to choose what is in or out of the frame. Our images will always be better when created with a conscious choice rather than a “should” picked up somewhere along the way. It seems so clear when put that way, doesn’t it? It’s the same with life.

So I ask you again… What are your “shoulds?” Start a list today. See how much these little things are hanging over your head. Pick one and work through the process. Let me know how it goes.

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Understanding the Process

If “what do I want to say” is the question I ask myself when I put the camera to my eye, then “how do I want this image to feel” is the question I ask myself when I go to post-process.

In last weekend’s workshop, David talked a lot about making very intentional decisions at the time of capture to convey what we want to say. But we also talked about the role of post-processing and how he uses it. He shared some examples of images he’d edited and said, “Did it look exactly like that when I captured it? No. But this is how it felt to me.” Warm or cool, dreamy or contrasty, all of these are choices we have in our post-processing to further the expression of the image.

Explore with Me

This coastal scene from earlier in the summer is an example, edited early last week to prep for an exhibition submission. Was the light this pink on the evening I captured it? No. But the processing captures the emotion of the moment for me. The connection of mother and child is there in the bicycles and the figures in the background, and the warm feeling of that connection is in the tones.

This conversation comes at a time when I’ve already been thinking about my creative process and the relationship I have with post-processing. On my recent trip to England I realized how incredibly important post-processing had become to me as part of creating images. I didn’t quite know how important until I was without Lightroom, my primary tool for editing. Sure, I could make very, very basic adjustments, but it wasn’t enough. (Not to mention any edits were painfully slow in the netbook I had borrowed.) I felt, literally, like my hands were tied. I could see where I wanted to tweak highlights and shadows, maybe shift the white balance a bit. I could see where I wanted the images to end up. And I couldn’t get there. I couldn’t make the images say what I wanted them to say, feel how I wanted them to feel, without this step of the process.

The RAW files my camera captured have become just that… raw material. Incredibly important raw material — you can’t create a final image you love without the composition and exposure and choices at the time of capture spot on — but raw material nonetheless. Not finished. Not yet conveying what I want them to convey, feeling how I want them to feel. Not yet ready to share with the world.

This was an incredibly important realization for me to make. It’s a dramatic shift from where I used to be; where I thought I was. I’ve been learning photography for 12+ years but I’ve only used Lightroom for 1 year. I had no idea how integral it had become to my process. But because I now better understand my process, I can more intentionally express myself through my images. I can more intentionally tailor what I do to get the end result I want. I don’t have to follow someone else’s process or choices, I can stand up and say, “This is who I am and how I work as an artist.”

How I work right now, at least. It will change. A month from now or a year from now I’ll have some new realization. But right now…

This is who I am and how I work as an artist.

Yeah, that feels good.

How about you? Do you understand your process, and how it helps you create work that expresses yourself? Let’s discuss here in the comments.

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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.

Garden of Gentle Breeze

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.

Garden of Gentle Breeze

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.

Garden of Gentle Breeze

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

Garden of Gentle Breeze

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.

Garden of Gentle Breeze

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.

Garden of Gentle Breeze

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.

Garden of Gentle Breeze

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.

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The Benefits of Space

As we finish up this month’s Exploring with a Camera: Allowing Space, I can see that we’ve all learned a lot. We’ve learned how space can give you room to breathe in a photograph. How the subject can be highlighted and enhanced by the space we allow around it. How a simple, open composition can lead to strong emotional impact.

Many of us have also drawn parallels between our photography and our lives with this exploration. We’ve noticed how allowing space can make room for other things to grow in our hearts and minds. I especially love how Gina put it: “Allowing space in our hearts, homes, and minds is really one of the keys to happiness.” Yes! Whether it’s physical space in our environment, space in our schedule or just space in our thinking processes, it’s all beneficial to us.

Let’s all take a deep breath, allowing space in our bodies as air fills our lungs, and enjoy the benefits of space in our lives, in any way, today. You can still link in your photographs through the end of the day. I’d love to see what you have found in this exploration!