Kat Eye Studio

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Changing Perspectives

OK, here it is, the window that started off last week’s rainy photowalk. I was drawn to those window frames of wonderfully peeling paint in contrast with the shiny smooth metal of the building. It was interesting to find that the metal wasn’t as shiny smooth as it seemed from the car driving by. It had it’s own texture of rust and even writing on it, as you got closer. I like the shapes and lines in this image, and the contrast of not only textures but the silver-blue building against the warmer yellow and brown found in the windows and doors and repeated in the color of the curb.

I’ve been noticing lately how “straight on” many of my images are. That seems to be a favorite perspective. It’s not intentional, I often take many different angles and perspectives of one scene but come back to the “straight on” one as my favorite. Maybe it’s a reflection of my personality, I’m pretty direct and straightforward.

But the angles often show something that the straight on perspective cannot, and that’s depth. This is the window on the left. You can’t tell the depth of the texture, borne out through the paint and screen and screws and nails, in the image above. To show that, it took moving around the angle of the camera, the depth of field, capturing the layers and the details. Of the two images today, this second one is my favorite. It has more depth, it reveals more. It says more to me.

It’s just a reminder to continue looking from all different perspectives, to see which one connects with you the most. You never know!

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And this time, with Color

As I go through teaching Find Your Eye, I am following my students in their assessments of their eye and rediscovering mine all over again. It’s been a wonderful experience. I’ve been able to define my style even further, to state that my best images have an element of line, color or texture. Yesterday’s images were about line, devoid of color. Today I’ll show you more of the dance center Kirstin took me to – the inside is all about line and color together! 
Such wonderful, bright colors, green and pinks together. Lockers of green, walls of pink. Hallways of green. Everything bright, cheery and open. Can I come study here?
I even played around with bokeh lines. How’s that for some influence from my muses? 
Even wavy lines to catch my eye! There is a companion photo to this one, of me, floating around on Kirstin’s memory card. 
Thanks again Kirstin! I hope you all enjoy this little bit of summer color today. I’m off to photograph some more fog this morning in the park. 

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Share Your View: Linear Perspective

So, after last week’s Exploring with a Camera: Linear Perspective post, have you been seeing diminishing lines everywhere?  I have! As I was going through photos of our recent trip, this one from the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid caught my attention. Art museums are so wonderful for their lines and wide open spaces. Many museums do not allow photography, but I love it when they do. I have to laugh at the memory of taking this picture. As I was shooting it, a guy walked by and gave me the weirdest look. I could practically read his thoughts, “You are surrounded by all of this famous art and you are taking pictures of a hallway?” What he must not have realized, is that I’m creating my own art.

As I was editing this image, I found it interesting from a compositional perspective because it was not symmetric even though it initially appeared that way to me. There is a top to bottom symmetry in where the vanishing point is placed, but that is it. The walls in the foreground, the windows on the right wall, and even the track lighting on the ceiling create a little more visual interest than if it were perfect symmetry.

But enough about that, it’s time to Share Your View! Did you take any new shots using linear perspective this week? Did you find any in your archive you could share? There are so many different ways to use linear perspective, I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ve captured.

Link in below!

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Exploring with a Camera: Linear Perspective

I am so excited to share a new Exploring with a Camera today! The topic of Linear Perspective has been rolling around in my head since December for a new exploration, and I’m happy to let it free this morning.

Perspective is such a cool compositional concept! It takes advantage of how we see, the optical effects of lines over a distance. I remember learning the concept of perspective way back in my early art classes: Lines, when viewed across a distance, will converge to a vanishing point. Below is an example, from the Barcelona subway. If you were to continue all of the light lines in this photo, they would all meet somewhere at the edge of the tunnel. The perspective of the converging lines brings your eye right through the photo toward the vanishing point in this case.

When drawing, you need to make sure that your lines converge correctly or the drawing will look odd to the eye. In photography, we don’t have to worry about “making” the lines converge – they do that already – we can just take advantage of the effect. I’ll give you a few examples and variations on how to use linear perspective in your photographs.

Distance


To use perspective bring a sense of depth, include a long distance in the photograph so that the lines can converge more dramatically. This often means using a wide angle (smaller focal length, i.e. 24mm) instead of a zoom (longer focal length, i.e. 100mm), so that you capture the length of the diminishing lines. In the photo below from the Italian Alps, the diminishing lines of the fence give a sense of dramatic depth even though my depth of field (how much is in focus) is actually quite shallow. If I were zoomed in on the fence without the long lines moving into the distance, the photo would have a completely different feel.

Orientation


The orientation of your photograph, horizontal (landscape) versus vertical (portrait), will change how perspective effects the image. In the two examples below from Parco di Monza, note how the horizontal image emphasize the lines of the path while the vertical image emphasizes the height of the trees. Both use the diminishing perspective of the path and the trees, but in different ways. Placing a figure just about in the vanishing point makes for an interesting place for your eye to rest as it moves through the photo.

Composition


You can use linear perspective in so many different ways to get good composition – this is the really fun part! You can move the vanishing point in a photo to get dramatically different effects. Look closely at the examples above and below to see how the diminishing lines are used compositionally.

The photo below is from the Royal Palace in Madrid. The composition is very symmetric, with the lines converging in the center between the left and right. It is not symmetric from top to bottom, however. The focal point of the end of the hall is around the bottom third of the photo.

Here is another photo, this time from Amsterdam, with a left to right symmetry of the linear perspective.

This image from Parco di Monza is interesting – the perspective is symmetric left to right, but the leaf (the real subject) is not centered. The perspective here is not the focal point of the photo, it’s the backdrop for the leaf, but it certainly makes the photograph more interesting.

While a symmetric perspective can certainly bring a sense of peace and order to a photograph, linear perspective certainly doesn’t have to be used symmetrically. This image from the Berrardo museum in Lisbon, Portugal is more asymmetric in it’s lines.

Putting the vanishing point at the edge or corner of an image can make it very dynamic. I love the way all of the lines converge in the corner of this photo from Paris. The contrast of the repeating pattern of the fence provides an interesting counterpoint to the linear perspective. I’ve noticed in many of my photographs using perspective I also use repeating patterns, a topic I covered in an earlier Exploring with a Camera post.

You can also vary the point of view and effectively use converging lines. The lead in photograph of windows in Madrid or the skyscraper from Barcelona below are two examples of linear perspective looking up. The skyscraper below has an asymmetric composition while the Madrid window image at the top of the post is symmetric left to right. (I seem to like that composition!)

Isn’t this fun? Take a look at the world and your photos this next week with an eye toward linear perspective. You can come back next Thursday to link in and Share Your View. I can’t wait to see what you find!

If you would like a button to put on your blog to show your participation, you can find the code to copy and paste here. If you are participating in a 365 or 52 project, I hope you will also share Exploring with a Camera in these groups. A little creative inspiration can really help in a long haul project over the course of the year.

See you all soon!

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The Habit of Being

As I was reading in Simple Abundance this morning (yes, there’s that book again!), I was struck by the concept of the habit of being. As opposed to the habit of doing, constant movement on the “to do” list, or the habit of brooding, focusing on the past or the future. The habit of being, just existing in the moment. Such a simple concept, yet one I am constantly re-learning. I keep turning back to this idea of late – of being in the moment, conscious of the now. There must be something to that.

So this morning, this image from our Bath hotel room jumped out at me. Seeing the beauty of light and dark, the monochromatic composition that presented itself. No other reason to take this photo, than to capture an observation of the moment. And yet, it pleases me. Brings me some peace and stillness, even now. My eyes wander over the details brought out by the light and the shadows.  Marvel at the beauty of the simplicity and the artfulness of the composition that the designer created in this space.

A reminder that along with the habit of being, you gain the habit of seeing. A good habit to have, as an artist.

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The Beginnings of Something Beautiful

I was so, so lucky to have a new friend, fellow muse Suki, come and meet me in Paris for an afternoon. She took the train over from Germany and we met as the overcast skies cleared up to sunshine, for a wonderful walk around the city.

This was Suki’s first time in Paris, and since it was only my second time, neither of us knew the city well so we just walked and talked and photographed our way randomly around the sights along the River Seine for a few hours. I don’t think it mattered to either of us where we were, it was just so wonderful to find a kindred spirit, in person. To find someone else who understood and could talk about our passion for photography, for capturing the perfect moment, for hours. We talked equipment and theory and, most of all, what called to our souls. What subjects and light and ideas that made our hearts sing. What dreams we have. And while we talked, we walked and photographed what caught our eye. We traded lenses, to try out something new.

We could have talked for days, I think. I was so sad when it was time for Suki to head back to the train, one afternoon together was definitely not enough. I am so glad that she came to Paris to meet me, to have a chance to have a few hours where we weren’t interrupted by the reality of work and school and other commitments, we could just talk and dream and be who we are – artists with cameras, a passion in our soul to capture the beauty of the world around us.

The images in this post are ones I took during my time with Suki. Pop on over to Suki’s blog where she wrote about our meeting, and see her photos too. It is such a wonderful example of how we all have a unique vision of the world to share. We were side by side the whole time but saw and captured dramatically different things. She has an amazing gift, she sees the essence of beauty in everything. I like the “me” I see through her eyes. I am envious when I look at her images, they are so beautiful. But then, I look at mine and see that they just have a completely different point of view. Not better or worse, just different.

The next time you think to compare your work to someone else’s, just remember this little story of me and Suki. Two people, sharing a passion for an art form, but from a different perspective. We all have a unique vision to share with the world, whether it is photography or painting or writing or whatever your work is. The creative universe is big enough for all of us to join in.

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Today I’m on Mortal Muses, talking about the end of summer. Come by to see how the end of summer is marked in our little town of Vedano al Lambro, Italy.

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