Catching rays, my muse | Seattle Cat Photography

March 16, 2012January 14, 20162 Comments

Today I was happily out and about to a couple of foster cat homes to take some photos; both kitties (Bee and Velvet) I had met before at the rescue but now are in great foster homes, and so have a less stressful, more comfortable slice of life. It’s great to see rescue cats blossom once they are in ‘foster care’ and in their new forever homes; the individual attention they receive away from the stress of the many cats and hustle and bustle of a busy rescue, allows the shy, submissive, previously sick or neglected cats, to come out of their proverbial shells. They find their voices, they discover that there are humans out there that provide love, shelter, compassion and a warm bed, and they don’t have to be scared anymore.

I haven’t had the chance to go through Bee and Velvet’s photos from today yet, and I will likely have to go back for some more from Velvet (very shy but strikingly beautiful), so I am posting some of my cat Jeffers catching some rays on our dining table. He could easily be used as a reflector, his white fur just gleams in the sun. I adopted Jeffers from animaltalkrescue.org (where I do the volunteer photography for); he never was shy though, and he is so at home here.These sunny shots taken during some of the brief Seattle sun we have had lately, warm me up for just a moment…

So today I hear that a friend found some of my images in use on some random sites in a search she did online, and of course, they are uncredited to me. I know that in this Internet age there are just so many photos flying around in cyberspace but as far as copyrighting goes, the moment you take that photo, it’s yours…it’s copyrighted. My hope is that anyone reading and following my blog will be a good ‘web neighbor’ and not take my photos without permission, and give credit where it is due. Photographers share their photos within this crazy medium, in order to share their art and to communicate a message or story (and by all means share if it’s going to get a cat adopted!), but stealing is stealing. Everyone appreciates getting credit for their work and a simple link back or a simple request to use a photo, would be a much-appreciated act. I was discussing with a friend the other day how my mum always tried to drum it into me that ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery’. Maybe so, but not when you don’t give credit to the person you are imitating, and with this stuff, it’s considered outright theft! I don’t claim my photos as being anywhere near perfect but they’re mine, that’s all. If anyone sees my images being used elsewhere without them being linked back to me or without due credit, please let me know. Thank you! Lots of kitty karma your way!

I’m off to finish watching some Kubrick genius (‘The Shining’) and hoping there are more glimpses of Spring to be seen this weekend. I am also hoping for a less migraine-filled couple of days.

xo ~ K

“Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.” ~ Ansel Adams

Perfect Imperfection | Seattle Film Photography

March 13, 2012January 14, 2016Leave a comment

Hooray for analog! I finally got around to the long (although not quite arduous) process of getting my medium format film prints into their new square photo album this afternoon. Having the prints in a square format (some 5 inch square, some 4) makes them automatically special, but it’s the getting them there and into a real live, not-on-the-computer, album that makes it all so extra special.

Taking photos on film, in any format, involves you in such a different process from that of digital photography, and until I got my Diana F+ a few Christmases ago, I’d mostly left film photography behind for some time. Back when I was working on feature films, I had basically become a film snob, and would abhor anything that would be shot on anything but 35mm celluloid, for the process and production values at the time when working with film, just magnified a project to further greatness. Everyone has now gone digital in the lands of both professional photography and film-making but there are signs everywhere of nostalgia for those mediums; there has been a resurgence in what is called the ‘analog lifestyle’; go see http://www.lomography.com/ if you want to see how the Lomo movement has taken off with and grab every cool camera to do so with. And funnily enough, every camera app on your iPhone wants to replicate film, to get the look and feel of its simplicity, its unsuspecting colors and its element of surprise. I love using the phone apps but they don’t truly represent the process of taking photos on film, getting them developed and into your hot little hands, where they were highly anticipated for so long (usually the next day, actually). You had to make sure every shot counted and there were always some good, and disappointing surprises with the returned prints.Then finally getting those beautifully imperfect prints into an album – not even into separate plastic dividers inside, just with actually photo mounts straight onto the page – feels like the most wonderful thing. For if photos aren’t meant to be gazed over (other than on a phone display or on you laptop), what are they for? There’s a major satisfaction of holding that imperfect surprise of a print in your hot little hands…and there you go, that is your art.

As photographers now, with all the new technology and post-processing available, you find yourself expecting nothing less than perfection. Perfect composition, lighting, exposure, posing, editing, all of it; some aspects of the medium have allowed us to get close to perfect, particularly with the new ability to take countless shots without worrying about wasting frames/money. But we may spend too much time trying to get that ‘perfect shot’ these days…

I think I will set myself a personal cat project with film because I think this would be a lot harder challenge against digital. I would expect most pet photographers to agree that they can take a lot of shots of cats and dogs at a session but most will be throw-aways, due to the activity and often non-compliance (or if you’d like to say, they had a different agenda that day). I don’t think I’d be able to do the same pet portraits on film, but I’d go in with hope that the less-than-perfect shots held their character as I imagined but still showed me some great surprises. I will have to research some pet photographers of the past who shot on film…

On to a week of organizing photos, possibly a cat session and a model session, as well as prepping for school portraits! It’s keeping me busy but it also keeps me sane; it all serves as therapy!

“A beautiful thing is never perfect.’ – Proverb

Bye for now. xo ~ K

Oh, England… | Reflections

February 27, 2012January 14, 20161 Comment

I’m ending the week with a lot on my mind, a lot of projects to finish, groups and fundraisers to sort out, and a major desire to get out of town. This time last year, me and my little family were planning and prepping for our trip back home to England, and it now seems like an eternity has gone by. I am very much needing what I think is a much-deserved break and that would be a wonderful one to have coming up again.

I moved to the States from the UK over 17 years ago but as much as I have assimilated and have my life invested here, naturally I miss much that lies across the ‘pond’ (also know as the Atlantic). All my family is there, my son is thousands upon thousands of miles from seeing his grandparents regularly (as well as being far from his other set of grandparents, who are in North Carolina), and I dearly miss having proper fish and chips. I even got desperately excited at the site of several shelves of British goods in the local supermarket the other day, and more than one person reading that on Facebook pointed out that I need to get out more. Umm, yesss.

I will save the gig photos I edited last week and all my reminiscing about ‘Old Blighty’ for another day and instead post some photos from our trip last year (please view the gallery). If it stands to motivate me to push for us to get out of town for even one night so that I can recharge and have a change in scenery, brilliant. I am feeling a need more than ever to feel revitalized in body and soul so I can continue to be the person I need to be for my son, and to preserve my sanity! At least I now know I can just hop down the street to buy a packet of English Hobnobs and Branston Pickle.

Here’s to a less stressful next week! And crossing fingers for rest and a reprieve in my near future. Cheerio then.

xo ~ K

*All photos taken using Hipstamatic iPhone app.

Where we love is home– home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

My tricky little Valentine | Reflections

February 14, 2012January 14, 20162 Comments

Long week, longer weekend, and lots of tricky subjects in between…

My first tricky subject, as in one that I photographed, was my little stinker who despite the pouts, still pulls it off as a cutie-pie. I think that these moments of unplanned imperfect photographic moments are what keep photography fun; most posed shots would have everyone believe that all children are angels that comply to every request, and as in the case of the many cats that I take photos of, they are magically entranced by the camera. I laugh when I think of myself (now) trying to get Valentine photos of my little boy at the gorgeous Kubota Gardens http://www.kubota.org/ with my Seattle Momtog meetup; there we were trying to get cute-as-pie photos, but what we really end up doing is having to bribe and threaten for anything that will work with our own children (as they’ve heard all the posing cues many times before, and our two boys hadn’t seen each other in ages so they just wanted to goof off). It was chilly and grey out but luckily no rain…the boys kept themselves warm by running off and we get warm chasing them.

And it’s probably needless to say that it’s also beyond tricky to get photos of my feline friends sometimes; cats may well be the most uncooperative animals of all; no sitting, rolling over, coming when name is called, none of that. They seem to do the opposite of what you want so you just have to go with the(ir) flow when you plan to get great cat photos. When I get photos of the rescue cats at Animal Talk, I literally am trying to keep the cat up on a 2 by 3 foot space on top of a filing cabinet in a tiny closet room space, and usually have 5-10 minutes to get the ‘winning shots’ with often nervous or shy kitties. This week though, I got to take some pet cat photos in a private home, and naturally it’s the cat’s domain, so I must naturally work around what they want! I will get to posting those – General Zod & Ursa – on my next post.

Valentine’s Day itself doesn’t have to be tricky; my man will be working a double shift at the restaurant as usual, which means (I joke) he will be wining and dining other ladies all evening and not me. It’s just another day though; I should be getting chocolate and flowers on many a random day, right?

My biggest tricky subjects this last weekend involved none other than our usual blended family drama; it makes everything else so much harder to bear, and other tasks and projects slower to complete, but they end up being the respite from the chaos. Focusing on something that brings us joy removes us from our complicated lives, even for a short while.

This week I have much planned in the way of photos; a location scout tomorrow, a foster cat shoot ( I will only ever talk about shooting with a camera, btw), much editing, and more rescue cat photos too!! And I guess I will still feel like I am owed a Valentine’s date at some point…

Much love to everyone for Valentine’s Day and EVERY day; show the people you love, how you feel very single day, not just when a stupid Hallmark holiday tells you too, and well before it’s too late.

The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost. ~ G.K. Chesterton

xo ~ K

Sadness in the Seattle sun | Reflections

February 8, 2012January 14, 20164 Comments

Today was another glorious day in Seattle. For the last few days it has felt like spring has hit us early and everyone is enjoying the sunny weather; if you know Seattle, you know that we lap it up…suddenly you see people in sunglasses and shorts, yet it’s still technically winter. We tend to associate the sun with happiness and that feeling of warmth both inside and out, with vacations and summer, with family get-togethers and BBQs, with light and life. But sad and tragic things happen every single day, no matter the weather; life doesn’t stop because it hits a whopping 60 degrees Fahrenheit in February.

Today is…was, the birthday of someone I loved very much, and he would have been the same age today that I was the year he died, almost 7 years ago. The day he died was a sunny day too. Birthdays are when we celebrate a person’s life, yet when someone dies, birthdays, anniversaries and just about every holiday season, it is hard not to think of the person that is now gone. Now that I’m a parent, I can’t help imagining how a (his) mother feels on the birthday of a child you have lost. I do know the grief I have felt and feel at the loss of a partner… And that grief was unbearable, and I felt as though I went to hell and back after he died.

I felt the need to visit a cemetery today; there is no grave site for me to visit and I have always sat with my thoughts and feelings alone, but a place of rest and peace was where I wanted to be. We went to Lake View Cemetery, up by Volunteer Park; Roman and I wandered through the tombstones and grave sites of all these people we didn’t know but who other people have lost and loved. There I was telling my 4-year-old boy to not jump on the graves, to walk around them, to help me look for Bruce Lee’s grave (as if he knew where it was…), and I tried to explain in preschooler terms, what all those grave stones represent.

There’s a lot of sadness in my heart when I think of who I have lost, yet a lot happens in 7 years. Whole lifetimes happen and happiness can be rediscovered. I didn’t see just see just a cemetery today, I saw my little boy and his whole life ahead of him, one that shouldn’t end before mine. I never want to know that loss. And I no longer hold the belief that we ‘should live each day as if it were our last’ but that we should appreciate all we have now while we still have it. Life as we know it can change in an instant.