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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The Workshop Report: Hebden Bridge

After months of planning, weeks of busy preparation, and days of travel and jet lag, the moment of truth had arrived. Saturday, 29 September was the first Kat Eye Studio on-location workshop: A Sense of Place in Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, England.

My impression: I couldn’t have asked for a better day!

A lovely group of five class participants gathered on a partly-cloudy Saturday morning at my friend and PR consultant Fiona Pattison‘s flat in Hebden Bridge. Some participants were local, some had driven for a couple of hours, and one had come all the way from Holland via Scotland to be there. Some I had met before, some I knew from my courses online, and one participant was completely new to me and my photography. I was honored and excited that they all chose to join me on this day.

We started our morning with the classroom discussion. We talked about my philosophy of the Photography of Place, and how we all have our own unique “sense of place.” We talked about how we each develop that sense of place, and how to better express it in our photographs. We learned a little bit more about each person as we discussed what inspires us and draws our eye in the Photography of Place. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we were so busy and engaged with the workshop discussion that I have no photographs of the morning workshop portion of the day!

After a hearty lunch of soup, bread and jacket potatoes (aka “baked potatoes,” for those of us from the US), courtesy of Fiona’s wonderful cooking, we headed out to explore the countryside of Hebden Bridge. We lucked out on the weather! After torrential rains across Yorkshire earlier in the week, we had a partly cloudy day with some sun and minimal showers.

The participants: Amanda, Maki, Bernice, Carolyn and Rhiannon

We had a lovely walk along the stream, capturing the natural beauty of the area as we practiced the concepts discussed in the morning session. The great thing about being with a group of photographers is that you understand there is no hurry. The group spread out as each one of us stopped to capture what caught our eye. We mixed and mingled and chatted with each other along the way.

Maki finding something interesting across the stream.

Here is a sampling of the the details, textures, lines and moments that were captured by the participants on this day.

hebden2
Photos by Rhiannon

P1160998
Photo by Bernice

'a sense of place' workshop - Woodland walk
Photo by Maki

HCC9
Photo by Carolyn

Our walk upstream was rewarded with a visit to Gibson’s Mill. The reflections in the mill pond were stunning! The different perspectives of these wonderful reflections and buildings serves to show how we will each have a different interpretation of the same place.

'a sense of place' workshop - mill at Hardcastle Crags
Photo by Maki

P1170019
Photo by Bernice

hebden3
Photo by Rhiannon

HCC18 copy
Photo by Carolyn

Photo by Kat

Our day together was warm and wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for a better group to help me launch my on location workshops. I enjoyed every minute of the day, and appreciated the understanding the participants had for the little glitches that came up along the way. Sharing my love of photography and my belief that we all have a unique and worthy vision of the world with like-minded people was fantastic. I want to do more of these!

You can read more about the experiences of the Hebden Bridge workshop participants in their own words in these blog posts:
a sense of place by Maki
A Sense of Hardcastle Crags by Carolyn
Sense of Place with Kat Sloma from Kat Eye Studio by Fiona

Stay tuned tomorrow for The Workshop Report: Hampstead.

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The Black and White Landscape

We got up early. The clouds were low and the morning was quiet as we hiked to Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park. We encountered a few photographers with their tripods at the bottom of the trail, photographing the falls, but there were few others around at that time of day. It had rained the night before and the trail was damp. The only noise was the sound of our bear bell and the rushing water, when we were near the stream flowing from the lake.

After a two mile hike, the valley opened up into glacier-fed Avalanche Lake. Amazing waterfalls crashed down cliffsides from the glacier invisible above. The clouds reached down and touched the mountainside around us, muting the colors. There were layers upon layers everywhere. In the rock…

Glacier National Park

…and the ridges…

Glacier National Park

…and the mountains themselves.

Glacier National Park

Many of the images from this morning’s hike seemed to call for black and white. I’m normally a fan of color, but I can see how landscapes like these are perfect for black and white. You see the texture and variations in light in a completely different way. I’m not sure that these images are “done” in terms of processing. I edited them a couple of weeks ago and I tweaked them again today. I think I still have much to learn about creating an effective black and white image, but recognizing the possibilities is a start.

Glacier National Park

Oh, and our quiet, misty morning hike? By the time we left the lake, the clouds were dissipating and the crowds had arrived. While we saw almost no one on the hike up to the lake, we saw a steady stream of people on the hike down. We had just beat the rush of people and just captured the clouds as they were lifting. Timing is everything.

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The Path of Confidence

I’ve been thinking about confidence lately. What is it? How do I get it, and keep it? I can imagine confidence as a path along a ledge. If you move to much to one side, you fall of the ledge into insecurity. If you move too much to the other, you fall off into arrogance. How do you stay the middle road of confidence? That’s what I’m wondering.

For some reason, I also think of confidence as a physical stance. Feet apart, body strong, looking straight ahead, making eye contact with the future. The stance is grounded, solid. It takes more than a wisp of wind to break a confident stance. Compare this to insecurity, which I imagine as curled into a ball, trying to present the minimum amount of surface to the world. Hiding the face, protecting as much as possible. And then arrogance, which is similar to confidence in stance but not as strong. Looking up, maybe, or eyes closed, and not able to see what is coming down the path. The stance of either insecurity or arrogance is not as stable. Things you can’t see can hit you and knock you over.

So really, mixing all of my metaphors together, what I want is a strong stance on a wide path. How to get that?

It seems that I waffle back and forth. From insecurity I force myself to stand up and be confident to move forward and try new things. With some success, my confidence grows to the point I feel like I’m doing well, only to be occasionally knocked back by something I didn’t see coming in my arrogance or ignorance. Is there a way to hold the middle path?

All I’ve figured out so far is that I keep moving forward, pretending confidence when I don’t have it. Otherwise I’d be balled up by insecurity, stuck in one place. Hoping that my confidence, when marvelously gained for those brief moments, does not turn to arrogance. It seems to me a fine balance to hold.

I’m hoping someday, the path of confidence is wider than it feels right now. I mean, look at all of the things I’m confident in now, I don’t even think about, that I used to worry about or that used to seem enormous. But maybe that’s the key, the path is always wider looking back than looking forward. It’s the act of moving forward, that widens the path.

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Things I Love About Mornings…

I love the quiet.
Sipping my tea.
Seeing the sky lighten.
Pen on paper.
Me and my thoughts.
Reading for inspiration.
Allowing new thoughts to swirl and coalesce.
And then… when I’ve gone inside long enough…
Emerging to connect with others.

This image is from this last winter, when I was enamored of silhouettes. Remember that phase? Even though the photo is now out of season, it represents the morning to me. My special morning time which allows so many things to take root, grow and expand within me. And after this quiet time each morning, I love to reach out and connect.

I am reminded of this wonderful morning time as I did one of my favorite things this morning… visiting new links to the Photo-Heart Connection. Visiting the links for the Photo-Heart Connection or visiting the discussion group when I have an online class going on are one of the best parts of my day. There is something wonderful about the connections that form between us when we share our art and our heart. I thank you for that.

Today is the last day to link in to the Photo-Heart Connection for May. Won’t you join us in sharing your heart? Just think, not only will you gain from finding that internal connection, you’ll brighten my morning tomorrow too. It’s a win-win all around. I hope to see you soon!

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Brain Power

The brain is an amazing thing. Our bodies, our cells, our neurons, the way it all works together is amazing. Over the weekend I read a fascinating book that made me aware of all of this, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD.

It’s a short read, but an amazing story of the author’s personal journey through a stroke at age 37 and her recovery. As an accomplished brain scientist, she has a very unique point of view. There is much important information in her book, about understanding and helping those who have suffered strokes; about the plasticity and flexibility of our brains to adapt. But what she learned about how our thoughts work as her brain came back “online” is the most important, I think.

We have a choice in our thoughts. We have a choice to engage in the negative patterns of our brain and react to the emotions we feel in our body, or not. We can “step to the right” as she calls it, out of our left-brain, rigid thinking into the wholeness and peacefulness of our “right” mind.

Her stroke of insight: “peace is only a thought away, and all we have to do to access it is silence the voice of our dominating left mind.” Later in the book she discusses the different “characters” that come from the two sides of our brain, and how “we can take a more balanced-brain approach to how we lead our lives.”

I so resonate with her message.

It’s as if she experienced from the inside out what I’ve been struggling with the last few years. This idea of balancing the “doing” and the “being.” Balancing the coexistence of the logical, goal-oriented left-brain me with the creative, spiritual right-brain me. There are both there. They both have their place in creating a whole life.

Photography and writing are the things that help me “step to the right” as she puts it. For many of us, I’m sure that’s true. While I’ve known the benefits of a creative practice for a while now, reading this book helped to put it in a new frame of reference with the physiology of our bodies and our brains. Why we might do the things we do and think the thoughts we think, but also the choice we continually have to change our thoughts and subsequently change our whole perspective on life.

Today I’m honoring my body and my brain. Thanking them for the work they do all of the time. Dr. Taylor has made me very aware of how amazing our physiology is, and, more importantly, my role as the consciousness in this body. I get to choose.

I chose this image from San Francisco for today because of the optical illusion I perceive in it. I love how it looks flat! I composed it to look that way and processed it to enhance that perception. Even though our left brain may understand the reality of what we are looking at, we can move ourselves into the right brain and alter that reality by how we frame the world through our cameras. Fun, huh?