Kat Eye Studio

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I Colori di Burano / The Colors of Burano

I mentioned that on this latest trip to Burano I was attracted to color for color’s sake, and this little mosaic captures a few of those images, to show you what I meant. Such interesting colors, broken only by texture and a few forms and shadows. Even more interesting, when grouped together, to show the variety of it all! Burano is a candy store for photographers who love color.

When I finished this mosaic, my brain immediately saw a cover page to something, although that wasn’t the intent when I started. Maybe a calendar? I made a mental note on this as a project for next year, when I return to the US. For now, there are too many images to capture in Europe!

Along with this mosaic I must give a little thanks to Kim Klassen for the square mosaic template, which she posted in the Photoshop Test Kitchen. I am loving the Test Kitchen! It’s a membership site that I joined because I liked the idea of a place where tutorials and things were posted on a regular basis, so I could pop in and learn something new when I had time rather than commit to weeks-long classes. I love Kim’s videos, they are bite-sized mini-classes on using Photoshop.  This weekend I watched a couple and learned some tips on making a (better) blog button, and using the high pass filter for sharpening. Along with downloading this mosaic template, I downloaded all of her past freebie textures, which she offered up to members. Fantastic! If you are interested in learning more about Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (which I use), I highly recommend visiting Kim’s site and checking out her Photoshop Test Kitchen.

Apparently I had time to play this weekend because yesterday, after posting this photo on my blog, I decided that it would look good with some textures. Again, reaching into my toolbox from Kim, I used some of her textures and created this version. I like this one – it conveys the mood and the age of this place better than the original. The “recipe” I used (textures and blending modes) can be found here.

I hope you had time this weekend to play too!

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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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Share Your View: Frame within a Frame

This perfect frame within a frame image presented itself to me last weekend in Burano. Have you been seeing frames all week too? Now’s the time to Share Your View! Link up to your image, recent or archive, using the link tool below. Then we can hop around and enjoy all of the marvelous frames that the world has to offer. I’m looking forward to seeing through your eyes this week!

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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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Can I Resist?

I’m having a heck of time this month. You see, I’m a joiner. And there are all of these things to join in November, just calling to me! But I’m trying to resist, because I have a busy month that includes a lot of personal projects I want to do, instead of joining something that doesn’t get me closer to my goals and dreams.

It started with Art Every Day Month, which looks so fun. I mean, I create most every day anyway in some way, this is right up my alley. But I’m resisting, because I don’t want to focus my creative inspiration and efforts just to meet a self-imposed deadline every day when I have so much else going on.

Then there is NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, which inspires you to write a post every day on your blog for the month of November. Hey, I do that most of the time anyway! But not committing this month, which includes visitors and travel and the busiest, longest work week of my entire year.

Along the way I ran into 30 Days of Gratitude. What a wonderful way to uplift and celebrate the month of November, than to be grateful, for 30 days? But then that focuses me on one specific topic… and again a whole 30 days of commitment to it. Can’t do it.

On my internet wanderings I bumped into Digital Detox, which sounds like a wonderful week long little way to simplify your life if you want to participate, and then November in Black and White. Hey, I love black and white photography. But wait, that would commit me to a whole month of it. Right now, when I have other things I’m focusing on. OK, so no.

Thank goodness I don’t have any idead for a novel, or NaNoWriMo would be calling to me too.

I hadn’t realized that I was such a joiner until I find myself struggling to resist joining in to all of these things. The communities they create are so fun. The things you gain by doing these activities is so worthy. As I read some of my favorite blogs I feel like I’m looking longingly into the windows of people at a party and I’m outside in the cold. But I remind myself, no, I can’t put myself through this right now. Because for me, what’s worse than being outside looking in? Joining something and then not being able to follow through. I beat myself up, because I committed to something, darn it, I should follow through. Instead, I’m choosing to stay sane this month, without adding extra pressure.

So to satisfy those urges to join, I’ve decided to create KaNoJoMo – doesn’t that sound fabulous? It stands for Kat’s Non-Joining Month. This month, I am not going to join or commit to anything that is not on my personal priority list. I am going to resist, walk away, focus on my own stuff in the limited time I have available. I’ll just wave at everyone else through the window as I walk by, give them a thumbs up to let them know I support what they are doing.

Want to join me? Haha – I tricked you! You can’t join me! That’s the idea, no joining. It’s a personal decision, one you can make too. No monthly or weekly or daily challenges or commitments to other projects if that is not right for you. Only commitments you make to yourself. You don’t need to announce it to the world (as, ironically, I am doing), you just have to make a personal choice.  You don’t need permission from anyone else but you, and you don’t have to apologize to anyone for not joining.

Week 1 of KaNoJoMo is already over, and I survived without joining anything. Whew. Only 3 more weeks to go…

Today’s photo is from Saturday evening in Venice. *Sigh* I love Venice. Still.

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Don’t Worry, Be Happy

 

Do you have a song running through your head now? 🙂 The catchy song by Bobby McFerrin espouses such a simple philosophy – “Don’t worry, be happy” – but it is often so difficult to put into practice.

 

I read in Simple Abundance today:

Worry is a future-tense emotion. Worry is a projection of a possible – not necessarily probable – scenario. Will there be enough? Where will it come from? How long will it last?

Worry is part of the habit of brooding I mentioned in Monday’s post. Worry does us no good, it just keeps us mired in an unproductive place. Unless we can use our worry to create an action plan to move forward, away from it, through it – it’s just wasted energy. I know from experience, I’ve wasted a lot of energy on worry in the past. It got me no where.

A counter action to worry is to be happy. Find moments of joy and beauty around you, and notice them. Intentionally dwell on them. Find things like these little wooden toys, smiling out at you from a souveneir kiosk in Venice. Painted on smiles, but do you smile back at them? I do, I can’t help it.

Happiness can be found, it is a choice to look for it. So don’t worry, be happy.

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A couple of random things…
  • I’m on twitter! Come follow me @kateyeview so that I can find you and follow you back.  Let’s take this conversation further!
  • Does anyone know of a charity that supports or promotes art and creativity? I’m looking for one! Even better if it has an international presence and focuses on women or children. Post any ideas here or email me kat [at] kateyeview.com. Thanks!