Kat Eye Studio

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Two of my Favorite Things

Sing along, to the tune of My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music:

Cute vintage scooters and red wine with dinner…

That’s all I have written so far, but these are two of my favorite things from Italy. Found here in one photo! Today’s market/wheels photo is from Pavia, a smaller town just outside of Milan. We visited this town for a day trip in 2009, early in our two years in Italy. It’s so fun to look back and see this early capture of two things I came to absolutely love later.

It’s also the perfect image to share today, for our Mosaic Muse link up at Mortal Muses. We are finishing the theme Looking Out, Looking In. I love the texture and depth that is added to this photo by the reflections in the window I am looking through. Another cool thing – if you look closely, the graffiti that is reflected in the window is also reflected in the Vespa side mirror. This was a fun discovery of “looking out by looking in” as I edited the photo.

Wherever you find yourself today, enjoy the view, whether looking out or looking in!

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Scooter Sightings: Pink 50 Special

This scooter sighting digs back into my archives, from a little town of Vigevano, outside of Milan. I think this may be the only pink scooter I captured during my time in Italy! Isn’t it a great color?

As I was looking at it with my son yesterday morning, we remembered another story that involved pink from Vigevano. After exploring the town, we stopped for gelato on our walk back to the car. Patrick was enticed by the delightful pink color of a certain gelato, Pompelmo Rosa. Not knowing much Italian at the time, we had no idea that “pompelmo rosa” means “pink grapefruit.” It was the most horrible tasting gelato ever. We all had to try it, just to see what he was complaining about. He learned his lesson – you don’t pick gelato by color alone!

Picking scooters by color, however, is an entirely different story.

Here’s another scooter sighting, shared with me from Kim in Australia. She saw this cute Vespa in a store in Akaora, New Zealand, and thought of me. Thanks Kim!!

If you have a scooter sighting, take a pic and email it to me! I’d love to share your scooter sighting here.

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Scooter Sightings!

With it being winter, there haven’t been as many scooter sightings in my world these days. I see a couple of die-hard scooter riders around town, all bundled up and looking like the Michelin man. I discovered a couple of months ago that riding a scooter in the cold air at 30mph, not to mention rain, is damn cold! I would rather ride my bike, at least I’m working and keeping myself warm. So my scooter is not getting a lot of use lately, but I thought I’d share a few scooter sightings of a different, and warmer sort!

On one of our trips before we left Italy I had purchased a couple of these metal scooters. One large one that decorates the living room, and after much debate, I splurged on this smaller orange one. Had to have the orange! When we got back to Oregon, it never showed up. I thought I remembered buying it, I remembered that internal debate, but no scooter to be found. Until Christmas time rolls around, and we unpack the ornaments. Yes! There was this cute little scooter for my studio, wrapped in bubble wrap and tucked in with all of the ornaments. Yay!

But that’s not the end of the “indoor” scooter sightings…

Last week, I came in to work one day to this scooter mug on my desk. How cute is this! A friend at work and his family had been on vacation and saw this in a Starbucks, and couldn’t resist. It just screamed my name, they said. Yay for scooters as surprises!

Then this week, I got a package in the mail from a fellow blogger in Germany. Huh, what was this? I open it up to find the cutest scooter magnets ever, and a note that she saw these and thought of me. Scooter surprise number two!! Thanks Rosie! I love them.

It’s so funny what I wrote about surprises this week, how I love the completely out-of-the-blue kind, and here are a couple of them coming my way. Lucky me.

I also love it when I get an email from someone with a scooter picture, or a link to something scooter-ish. It never fails to make me smile! I’m wishing I had saved them all. But I think I’m going to do this once in a while, a post on Scooter Sightings. If you have any scooter pics, see any cool scooter products, drop me a note. They always make me smile and I’d love to share them here.

Happy Scooter Hunting!

A couple of unrelated notes…

I couldn’t quite fit today’s post into the Many Muses Musing prompt of PEACE. But you still can! Tomorrow’s prompt is JOY. We only have three days left of giveaways! Come on over and join in.

Today is the LAST day for the Find Your Eye Special Holiday Offer. If you would like to take the class and give a gift to a friend, there are still a few spaces available. Don’t delay, since the offer ends today.

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Back to Bologna

Yesterday as I was writing yesterday’s Exploring with a Camera: Found Texture post I rediscovered an image for my market/wheels series. Taken over a year ago, this street scene in Bologna captured my interest for the texture, the scooter and the bustling street market. It was taken before I “discovered” my market/wheels series early last year. How many more images for this series do I have, hidden in my archives? I hope to find out.

As part of my goal to seek balance, I want to go back and sort through the thousands of images from my time in Italy. Seek a balance of working with the old and the new. Some of these images have been reviewed, edited and shared, but many, many more have not. I know I will learn more and see more with this review, both about myself and my photography. And hey, I can learn how to categorize and edit even more in Lightroom too, at the same time. Perfect.

I hope you all have a great weekend planned! I’ll be working on my website, getting it ready to launch very shortly. I would love to have you to visit me in a few places, while I’m busy working…
– Musing on “home” at Mortal Muses, with a story of quilts, handmade with love.
– An interview on the Seek Your Course blog with me.
– Today I am the “Sparkling Sponsor” for the World’s Biggest Summit. Yay! Welcome to all coming by! You can still sign up and join in this great, free class.

 

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Meet the Scooter

I would like to introduce you to my scooter. I know, you’ve heard about it more than once (here and here), but it hasn’t had a proper photographic debut on my blog until now. Ta-da!!

This morning I rode it downtown on a photographic excursion, so I had both the scooter and my camera together for the first time. They were instant friends, can you tell? The scooter and camera will be having more play dates in the future. Watch this space.

I don’t know why I seem to be using seventies processing on all of my scooter pics lately, but that is how I see them. Maybe it’s the retro styling of the scooter, but who really knows. I’m having fun, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

I hope you are having fun on this lovely Sunday too!

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What’s going on around The Kat Eye View of the World…

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Scooter Love in the Pacific NW – and GIVEAWAY!!

Who would have thought it! I went to Portland (1.5 hours north) on Saturday with a friend to see the traveling production of Mamma Mia. After the show we headed to the Northwest section of the city and what did we run across? Vespa scooters. Not one, not two… Seven in all. Seven!! I was in scooter heaven! Especially this one, parked in an empty garage against a textured wall in some moody light. It was calling my name. Luckily, I had my little Canon PowerShot with me to answer the call.

Someday, I will have a red Vespa scooter. And I will park it in front of every texture-y wall I can find to take pictures. Until then, I will take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way to live vicariously through taking photos of someone else’s red Vespa.  And I can do this in Portland. Who knew?

What a weekend though! Not only was there fabulous scooter love to be found, but we received our container from Italy. Yay! Early Saturday morning, the truck pulled up and there was the container waiting to be unloaded. All sealed and packed, just as it was as it left from our apartment on Via Matteotti. That means, however, that our lives are in disarray again. The semblance of order and routine we had been able to create for a few weeks is once again dismantled as we unpack boxes and try to figure out how to fit everything in to our house. Our house in the US and our apartment in Italy were the same size in square feet/meters, but there was so much more storage in the Italian apartment. Add the belongings that were in storage in the US to the items we collected over two years in Italy, and you have the makings of one gigantic garage sale in a few weeks. First priority is to get to the point I can walk through the house without tripping over anything though!

On top of that, the Liberate Your Art postcard swap blog hop was going on. So fun! I had such a great time hopping around, seeing where the art ended up. It provided a much needed break from the unpacking. The swap turned out better than I imagined, and the blog hop was a blast. I can’t wait to do the swap again in 2012!!

Until then, I have tons going on around here…

  • Find Your Eye registration is open for the September-October class series! I’ll be running Starting the Journey and the all-new Journey of Inspiration. Right now the August class, Journey of Recognition, is going on and has it been fantastic. I couldn’t ask for a better group of participants. I love doing this!
  • We are exploring Night Photography in Exploring with a Camera. I had forgotten how much I love taking photos at night! I hope you will join us and link in before Wednesday. You can still get the Night Photography Camera Companion if you sign up for the newsletter too. I’m sending a “catch up” newsletter to all new subscribers this week so that new subscribers don’t miss out.
  • You still have a few more days to catch Superhero Summer Camp too. Sign up for this fun and free six-week class closes on August 31. 
  • And finally – in honor of the seven Vespas of Portland – how about a GIVEAWAY!! My first one on US soil. I am going to give away a set of my new “Classic Italian Transport” postcards to one lucky reader, and a Vespa mousepad to another.

I will draw for the postcards on Wednesday morning when I write my blog post, from the comments left on this post. Let’s make it fun, you can have more than one entry. How about a whole bunch of entries!! Leave a separate comment for each of the following:
1. Just to say hi!
2. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook
3. If you are a newsletter subscriber
4. If you have registered for a Find Your Eye course (past or present) 
Good Luck!

Linking in to Creative Every Day and Creative Exchange, as always. Happy Monday! 

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