Kat Eye Studio

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Perfection

I am musing on the theme Thankful over at Mortal Muses today, but I also wanted to share the same photo here on my blog with a little bit more of the story, and why it inspired me to write that post. This photo is from Torcello, one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon. Our first visit to this island was on this most recent trip, it’s a short vaporetto (boat) ride across from Burano, but I was always so focused on the colors of Burano we never took the time to go. It is the first island that was settled in the lagoon and also one of the least visited. It boasted a nice walk along a canal, a couple of bridges, two churches and several souveneir vendors getting ready to pack it up for the season and offering great prices.

It also had this fabulous building. Dare I say it – the perfect building to photograph. I enjoyed capturing it from several angles but when I reviewed the images in my computer, I was just completely overjoyed with this one. It is perfect, to me. For some reason, it just has the meeting of texture and composition and place that I love. This one sings. It is my eye. I knew when I saw the building and photographed it I would capture something interesting, but did not expect the reaction I had to this one.

I don’t know that anyone else will see it the same way as I do. It doesn’t really matter, because this photo illustrates why I love this art form. The fusion of vision and moment and experience that begins with the seeing, continues through the capturing, strengthens in the review and then is completed by sharing the end result with all of you here. There is magic in this process. I love it all.

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The third of my “Lessons from Abroad” article series is posted on the Rising Sun Coaching blog. Check it out and let me know what you think!

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Miracles

“There are only two ways to live your life.
One as though nothing is a miracle. The other as though everything is a miracle.”
– Albert Einstein
This quote has popped up in more than one place for me lately, so it gave me pause as I read it again this morning. I like the idea of the second way – that everything is a miracle. Look at the beauty that is around us, all day, every day, when we stop to look. The beauty that can be found in a rotting door, peeling paint, corroding metal. I love it.
I think that artists in particular must live in this way – that everything is miracle. How else would you be able to create, if you could not first see the world around us with a sense of amazement? That each thing is a gift – the bird’s song, the turn of phrase, the peeling paint, the situations we find ourselves in. How can we choose to use that gift? Easier to think about when it’s taking a photo of a door like this in Murano, harder when we find ourselves in a difficult situation with another person. 
I don’t know the answer to that yet, but I like the idea of miracles much better than the alternative.

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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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Light and Dark Places

Italy has changed me. It was so clear to me on our recent trip to Switzerland, where the perfectly clean and cared for towns were pretty, but not so inspiring to me artistically. Where was the texture, the peeling paint? Where was the reality, the truth? It seemed too perfect. Like a wall erected between me and the place. Just look at the pretty picture, admire the beauty, move on. Distracting me by the surface.

But what’s underneath the surface? That’s what I want to know. What is it like inside? What I see in the buildings and towns I visit is a metaphor for what is going on inside of me. I could have the perfect, controlled, beautiful exterior, but at what internal cost? Perhaps at the cost of creativity, the cost of self-expression. Or I can have an exterior that is not quite perfect, a little bit flawed, that doesn’t follow all the rules, but is full of internal life and energy. Allows for a creative expression of the self. But with that must come honesty, an awareness and acceptance of the flaws.

Which do I want?

It might seem an easy question, of course I want the texture, the energy, the life. I want all of the creativity that comes along with it. But to get that I have to truly recognize and accept the flaws, the light and dark places inside of me. Boy, is that hard.

I guess the fact that I’m recognizing this is a start. The fact that I’m seeing the light and dark both, choosing the texture and peeling paint, feels right. Feels real. And I am amazed at how, once again, I learn about myself through my art. I can’t hide when I express myself creatively, all of me is there, in the images I create. My photographs have something to show me, they show something of me, beyond the surface impressions.

Right now, they are showing me that my time in Italy has changed me. No doubt about it.

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It’s That Simple

A pot of flowers on a step. Some color. Some texture. Some contrast. Nice light.

Seeing this made me happy.
Photographing it made me happy.
Rediscovering it in my image files and editing it made me happy.
Sharing it today makes me happy.
Writing about it makes me happy.
Looking at it makes me happy.

Can happiness really be that simple? A photograph of a pot of flowers on a doorstep? Yes, I believe so.

What simple thing makes you happy?

(PS – You can also share your answer here!)

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Great Expectations

What a find this morning! I love this photo from Dubrovnik, Croatia. I love the amazing texture and range of subtle colors. I love all of the layers and angles. I could look at this photo for hours and continue to discover new things.

I began working with my Dubrovnik photos this morning with the idea that I wanted to let myself be surprised. To see what images would pop out that I did not expect, did not plan. There are times I create my art at the moment of taking the photos with intention and foresight, lining up a composition just so, taking multiple exposures and compositions to study and see which I like best. When one of these comes out the way I visualized it, I am satisfied, but not necessarily overjoyed. Why? Because, with the work and intention I set at the time of creation, I expected at least one of those images to come out well.

But the images that often fill me with joy and excitement are the surprise ones. Like this one. Where my inner eye saw something in the moment, caught a frame or two but didn’t dwell on it. I don’t even remember capturing this image, and so to find it so wonderful now is a joyful surprise, a little gift in my day.

I worked with a guy that said, “Expectations are premeditated disappointment.” And there is some truth to that statement. When we expect something to happen and attach to specific outcome, we can be satisfied when it does turn out but when it doesn’t happen we are disappointed. But, what if we create without any expectations for the end result – the specifics of how it looks or how it will be received? What if we let loose our inner eye and detach from the outcome? Every image can become a surprise, every outcome positive – wonderful no matter what the specific details – because we didn’t set up any expectations. By letting go of those expectations, which are all about what our minds can envision at that moment, we allow space for other new and wonderful things to happen which are beyond our current vision.

This doesn’t just apply to creating art, but all aspects of our life, our work and our relationships as well. In her book Simple Abundance, Sarah Ban Breathnach says, “I approach my work with a passionate intensity, acting as if its success depends entirely on me. But once I’ve done my best, I try to let go as much as possible and have no expectations about how my work will be received by the world. I have consciously chose to be surprised by joy. It’s a choice you can make as well.”

I’m making that same choice to be joyfully surprised by the outcome of my work, my art. From the creation of it in-camera to the reception of it by the world around me. That doesn’t mean I won’t be intentional about creation anymore, that I’ll stop visualizing an outcome and seeking to achieve it, but it does mean detaching from the end result. Because I’ve found it’s a lot more fun to be surprised than to be disappointed.