the Curiosity of Kate

Letterpress

2011-05-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend I had the most amazing pleasure of attending a letterpress workshop at Art Center. I have not been this excited about a process since I was developing in the darkroom in high school. Everything about it is beautiful. Difficult and time consuming, but such an absolute thrill.

I designed a simple thank you note card. Our designs had to be reasonable enough to set and print in a day but I've never been so happy with a design I came up with on the spot and immediately had to start executing. It is a two color design with woodblock ornament layered under metal type. Check it...

My typeface. Craw Clarendon Condensed.

Press all inked and set for the first layer of the design.

Successful first pass.

Finished product.

Header and Flickr

2011-03-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

So there's that new header I said I'd make! I designed it a little hastily so don't be surprised if it undergoes minor changes in the upcoming month. But for now, I adore it. Not good that my blog looks nothing like my website now. Le hmmm...

I also wanted to share my flickr account with everyone. It has all of my Art Center projects I haven't yet posted to my blog. Click here to check it out and be my friend! Or follow me, or whatever it is you do on this particular website.

Tour Part 8: Chicago

2011-03-29T18:18:00.000-07:00

The Bottom Lounge in Chicago was our last stop on the tour. Not going to even lie about being distracted by the U of A vs UCONN game during Juliet and Alex's sets.

Juliet Weybret

Alex Goot

Boyce Avenue

Tour Part 7: Ann Arbor

2011-03-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

This was an interesting night. Needless to say, I don't think any of these guys fit in playing at the Blind Pig (and I believe they would all agree). A bit too divey for the style of music being played last Friday night but I liked the venue. I'll share details of it when I get the film developed. Sadly, it was sort of a bust in other areas. Not much light, and not much room to move around, it was too packed for me to even get to the stage when Boyce Avenue went on.

Tour Part 6: Toronto

2011-03-29T17:59:00.000-07:00

These guys played to a crowd of 1700+ in Toronto at the Sound Academy. Pretty impressive for artists who all started from scratch on YouTube.

Juliet Weybret

Alex Goot

Boyce Avenue

Tour Part 5: Ottawa

2011-03-28T18:50:00.000-07:00

The performance in Ottawa was at the Bronson Centre. The venue got changed 3 times for this show and we ended up in a community center auditorium. Different, but good for me because the side stage area allowed me to get some different shots (finally). Out of the entire tour, these are some of my favorite of Juliet .

Juliet Weybret

Alex Goot

Boyce Avenue

Tour Part 4: Montreal

2011-03-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

Hello from Sunny Los Angeles! I wore shorts today. I was totally stoked. Will be very happy if I don't have to experience weather beneath 50 degrees for a long time.

I had today off work to reorganize my life at home and to catch up on editing tour photos, so here is the crew in Montreal at Cafe Campus.

Juliet Weybret

(went on stage to take Juliet's nightly crowd picture)

Alex Goot

Boyce Avenue

Tour Part 3 1/2: Boston | Boyce Avenue

2011-03-23T13:38:00.000-07:00

Boyce Avenue at the Royale in Boston, March 19.

Tour Part 3: Boston | Alex & Juliet

2011-03-22T19:59:00.000-07:00

Boston was stop number 3 on the tour. We were there for just a day, and I'm sad to say I didn't have time to explore the city, but it was a great show for everyone! Here are images of Juliet, and for the first time, Alex Goot. I don't have the energy right now to sort through the pictures of Boyce Avenue, so hopefully they'll be up tomorrow, along with last night's show in Montreal. I better catch up quick, tomorrow night is our show in Ottawa already. The tour is halfway over!

Juliet Weybret

Alex Goot w/Chad (from Backseat Goodbye) on acoustic guitar (& Justin Bieber for moral support)

Tour Part 2: Brooklyn

2011-03-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

Here we are, on the train to Boston. Our traveling days have become my editing and uploading days. The little free time we have on the tour, I want to spend running around all these cities I haven't visited yet. Boston will be a tough one. On only 3 hours of sleep last night, and only 3 hours between our arrival time and call time at the venue, I may just have to plan a trip back to Boston.

No pictures from NYC today. I explored with my friend Johanna Torkelson with just a film SLR, so those will have to wait. Though here I am at the Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park!

Juliet and Boyce Avenue played 2 shows in Brooklyn at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, but I've only got a few pics from the first night. I was too busy enjoying the company of Johanna to run around through a sold out show with a camera the second night.

Boyce Avenue sound check

Juliet Weybret

I'm back!/Tour Part 1: DC

2011-03-17T10:48:00.001-07:00

Hello! I'm back! My lack of blogging was supposed to be an ultimatum of sorts. "No blog posts until my Wordpress theme is done". Well, that didn't happen, obviously. But I'd been away from blogger for so long I hadn't realized how much you can customize. Needless to say, I'm happy with what I slapped together on the train from Washington DC to New York. A new header will come soon, and then we'll think about how much time I want to spend swearing at html and css.

My reason for return? I'm on tour right now with my little sister, Juliet, who is opening for Boyce Avenue on their East Coast/Canada tour. I am official manager/merch girl/tour photographer for the next two weeks and needed to get the photos out there for all Juliet Weybret/Alex Goot/Boyce Avenue fans to see. So here you are, Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington DC., March 16.

Juliet Weybret

Boyce Avenue

Small venue and a full house didn't leave much room for experimentation, but I've got 7 more venues to try and develop my live music photography skills.

Oh and here's a bit of DC...

Fancy that!

2010-11-10T22:26:00.000-08:00

My lovely and beyond talented friend Cara Robbins made an illustration request. "Hot air ballons" is all she said and instantly I had 3 ideas. Here's round one exclusively for Cara!

(I seriously need to finish customizing my Wordpress blog. This background color is killing me.)

Indecisive

2010-11-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

Camera: Rolleiflex, Film: Porta 100 NC.

Black & White, yellow toned, unedited. Thoughts?

November in California

2010-11-02T17:24:00.001-07:00

Feel like I should've spent the day at the beach.

Boo?

2010-10-31T12:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween :)

Dog Problems

2010-10-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

the Fun. show was awesome last night! They covered Dog Problems by The Format. Although "covered" may not be the right word seeing as the lead singer of Fun. was once the lead singer of The Format. Nevertheless...more inspiration to illustrate!

pssst...check back on Halloween!

Bonjour!

2010-10-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

I'm full of illustration ideas right now...

Aim & Ignite

2010-10-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

On Thursday I'm seeing the lovely band fun. (again again) at the Music Box in Hollywood. I'm super excited and have been listening to the album, Aim and Ignite, since yesterday. The song 'Light A Roman Candle With Me' and album artwork inspired me to do this illustration today. Let me know if you like! And click here to check out fun. if you haven't heard them already.

Rainy Day

2010-10-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

It's another rainy day in LA. I'm spending it in Illustrator...

Besides the above illustration, I have one other little idea I want to try and I'll be finalizing my Design 4 Cause project and finding a printer to send it to for Monday. Check back for both of those later!

Design 4 Cause

2010-10-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

Very much enjoying my Art Center classes. Right now I'm in the almost final stages of our Design for Cause project. The Monday after next we have to have 3 "super tights" of different campaign ideas. Here are 2 of my three that I worked on this week.

The organization I chose to design for is the California Alliance for Arts Education (learn more at ArtsEd411.org). Our instructor has encouraged us to submit our designs to the organizations because other students have had their ideas made into campaigns before. My goal is to increase awareness for the organization but I know they have events fairly often. Perhaps they'll want to incorporate one of my designs to promote their next event? Would be so cool.

And on the topic of design, I must revamp this blog soon. I'm sick of almost everything about it.

Bright Ln.

2010-10-03T22:48:00.000-07:00

My need to get out of the house and dislike of going to gyms in Hollywood where everyone is trying to look like an actress or model has brought me to the jogging path around the Silver Lake Reservoir. On my route, there is a street called Bright Ln. Alas, a new project idea.

I watched the documentary on Keith Carter about 2 months ago (which I highly recommend) in which he mentions that he keeps a box of photographs inspired by a street called Utopia Blvd. Whenever he photographs something that might be found on Utopia Blvd, he puts it in the box.

I'm going to take on the task of doing the same for Bright Ln. I'd like to try and find one image per week to share. I'm curious to see if I keep my project literal or make it ironic. I'm tempted to not mix the two, but I may not be able to help it.

Now to share something visual...I'm taking classes at Art Center and am most enjoying my typography class. I've been feeling inspired to design something all week and sat down today to crank out a logo. There are already a few changes I want to make but so far think it's cool.

It's by no means the official logo for the blog, just something I felt like doing, but the name belongs to a coffee blog by my good friend Willie Kessel. You can share images, recommendations or stories of your own favorite cup of joe over at cupof.tumblr.com

1 year

2010-10-01T14:59:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that 1 year ago Dan and I left on our epic Spanish adventure. Time seriously flies. We look back on that trip every day and long to see more of the amazing country. Hopefully we'll be traveling again soon. We both entered the National Geographic contest so maybe a trip to the Galapagos Islands or Waikiki is in our future!

On a similar note, I want to thank everyone who voted for me for the People's Choice award. It was going to be impossible to get me at the #1 spot with over 2500 votes but I made it into the top 75 which was cool to see! The Judges announce the contest winners (separate from the People's Choice voting) October 30. And speaking of winners, Ashley won the contest I held to win an 8x10 image! She actually chose an image that I took in Spain at the Royal Palace in Madrid:

Congrats Ashley, and thanks for all your help!

Win an 8x10 print of one of my images!

2010-09-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

The other week I entered the World in Focus travel photography contest. They just extended the deadline to September 13, 2010 so I thought I'd try a little harder to get the People's Choice Award. To persuade my friends, family, and younger sister's youtube fans to help me, I'm offering a chance to win one of my prints! Your choice!

Here's what you do:

1) Click on this link to vote for me: http://worldinfocuscontest.com/bin/Rate?image_id=1010212904

2) Come back to this blog post and leave me a comment saying you voted! You can vote once per email address on the World in Focus website but if you have multiple addresses, you can vote again and leave another, separate comment on my blog saying you voted again.

3) If you follow me on twitter (twitter.com/kateemmaphoto), you can leave ANOTHER comment and I'll enter you again into the drawing to win a print.

4) Make sure you leave your name and email address in the comment so I know how to contact you if you win! Good luck and thanks for the help :)

You can check out this YouTube video for more details.

The end is nigh!

2010-08-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

Ah, graduation. On Sunday. Where did 3 years go? How did I make it through college that fast? Justin and I agree that we feel gypped of one year of our youth. Still, I'm excited for a change and to move to LA and be close to family and Dan. This is not the end of my education though. I've decided I love learning too much and have enrolled in design classes at Art Center at night which I'm seriously looking forward to! And I'm also not abandoning my high school dream of moving to London after graduating from college. London is definitely still in the 5 year plan.

To conclude my independent study I have two assignments to share with you.

a) portraits of Willie and Justin that I did with my 4x5. Yes, after 2.5 years of it gathering dust, I pulled it out of my closet to figure it all out again. Verdict: success

And b) my attempt at a conceptual composite. Not my forte but nice to practice. I've thought about expanding this idea into a series called "6 impossible things". #1- Wearing a codfish on your head is considered proper. I did two versions of this image...mostly because it was really late and I was sick of working on the first one because I couldn't get the fish right (I'm still striving for perfection on it). The other is much more ridiculous than the first, but probably more hilarious too.

And so concludes my Brooks career.

Solitude

2010-08-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

In week 4, my self assigned project was to finally use my Argoflex seventy-five twin lens which I found while visiting my boyfriend's hometown of Bisbee, AZ. I am in love with this camera. I was given the idea to shoot with a song lyric or word in mind. I chose "solitude". Not even I am certain I stuck with my word or captured it correctly, but I think I captured the morning well. It was gloomy, cool, and overcast. I love shooting black and white film in this weather.

Film used tri-X 400:

Week 5's assignment (portraits with a 4x5) will be here soon.

Also wanted to share a photo essay from Burn magazine that I came across a few days ago. I love the feel of these images. I've challenged myself to try and emulate this effect. The essay is titled "Strange Rain" and the photos are by Julien Coquentin.

self portraits

2010-07-30T15:37:00.001-07:00

As promised- the self portraits I took this week. I've been encouraged to expand this assignment somewhat and take a portrait without me in it. I suppose you could call it a self representation. We'll see what happens...

I also have some links to share.

#1 I hope some of my Brookies will enjoy. Especially the ones who have taken the underwater class. The link below has more links to some seriously awesome underwater photography and a few underwater videos. I'd pick specific ones to share if I didn't want to share all of them. So obviously it's easiest to share the main link:

Underwater

#2 is a very cool photography blog. This blogger aims to share the coolest photography in existence in the world today. I agree with about 90% of the work he posts in that it is seriously awesome.

Open Eye Photography Blog

Ta and enjoy x

t-minus 5 weeks

2010-07-28T09:25:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, I am still alive actually. I have in fact not offed myself due to the pressure of graduating in 5 weeks (oh God...).

I'm spending my last session doing an independent study with my greatest inspiration, Chris Orwig. On top of that I TA for the Flash class and Chris has hired me on as his "studio manager". Oh and I've decided to be ambitious and start an internship with an ad agency in Hollywood this weekend. I think through inception someone gave me the idea that there are 48 hours in a day instead of 24 (stop being paranoid...).

Anyway, here is some of what I've done this session. My IS focuses on creative concepts, shooting with film and old cameras, and advanced photoshop techniques (plus making career contacts in the design industry, which is going surprisingly well!). Here are a few images I worked on in week 1:

And week 2:

It is now week 3 and this afternoon I am shooting 2 self portraits (I've never actually done this) and have a pretty cool idea for the end result of one of them...

Summer break is an illusion

2010-07-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

Here I am on my last week of my last summer break for the rest of my life (unless of course I make up my mind about going to grad school) and I have had almost no down time. From photographing a wedding to helping move my boyfriend into his new apartment in Santa Monica, it has been go go go for the last two and a half weeks. And given how busy last session was I'm incredibly behind on scanning and editing. I am trying to get the shots of Sam and Christina's wedding done first though because I obviously can't keep a bride waiting! All I have left to do are shots of the ceremony but here is some of what I captured last Friday:

In other news, I have my little sister visiting me this week in Santa Barbara. We're going to do her senior portraits this evening and tomorrow evening. I have a couple locations in mind. One I just saw in passing so we'll see how it looks when we get there. I'm also looking forward to testing out one of my new old cameras, an Ansco Shur Shot Jr (circa 1948) that was given to me as a gift in high school. I just brought it home with me to SB last week and loaded it up with film last night. I can't wait to see how it shoots! I've also brought back a No. 2 Brownie but I'm not sure if the part that winds the film still functions properly. Still, it's quite a gem to have!

Oldies but goodies

2010-06-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

I just came across these images of my gorgeous friend Gianna. We took these when I came home from school after my 2nd class at Brooks. I'm surprised at their quality actually haha. Obviously my Photoshop skills have improved since then and I completely recomposed all but one but I'm somewhat impressed with my lower-devision self for once.

Keith Carter

2010-06-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

My biggest source of inspiration at Brooks Institute, Chris Orwig, has shared yet another awesome book with me this week: Keith Carter Photographs Twenty-Five Years. Chris knows just the kind of images that draw me in and inspire me and I'm so stoked that he shared Mr. Carter's book. Here are some of my favorite monographs. Please check out his website to see more amazing work. Keith Carter Photographs

Images ©Keith Carter

The end is nigh!

2010-05-20T12:27:00.000-07:00

So, tomorrow, grad review. I'm trying not to stress about it. I put everything in it's final stages this morning so I really have no need to panic. Though tomorrow morning at 10.30 I will guaranteed be singing at the top of my lungs in my car to the Arctic Monkeys first album. Alex Turner's voice is the only thing that can calm me down in situations like proving to three professionals that I should be allowed to graduate.

Here's a look at the folder I'm presenting my cover letter, resume, and promo pieces in, as well as my new business cards:

Also, wanted to share something that someone shared with me yesterday. Chris Orwig let me borrow this pretty awesome book.

I've just flipped through it briefly but it has a lot of cool ideas for staying curious and creative. I can't wait until I have some time to really to some exploring!

J Charles Photography

2010-05-17T23:00:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I just launched Justin Miller's website. Have a looksie.

J Charles Photography

Cheers, x

Surprise!

2010-05-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

Wondering where I've been the last two weeks?

Well, check it out: kate-emmaphoto.com

That would also explain the new blog layout. I still have plans for a wordpress blog, and I'll get around to soon now that my website is updated and Justin Miller's is just 1 gallery away from being complete! I'll post a link here when it launches tomorrow morning (or possibly tonight!)

Enjoy! Be sure to go to the contact page. Mostly because you can throw around paper airplanes.

Port Gamble

2010-05-01T14:45:00.001-07:00

Taken in Washington last summer with Kodak T MAX 100 film.

AZ sunset

2010-04-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

Shot from the "flats" above Bisbee. Those mountains are actually in Mexico.

PS- I shot digitally for once! But there's already 2 rolls of film in my bag wanting to be developed :)

Vegas baby!

2010-04-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

Shot with my Holga on Kodak Porta VC 120 film

Down by the railroad tracks

2010-04-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

Just some of what I scanned today...

Shot on Fuji Superia 1600 ISO film.

ta x

Polariod preview

2010-04-17T21:12:00.001-07:00

Just returned from a whirlwind adventure with Dan. We traveled to Vegas for the night so that I could see my favorite band, Arctic Monkeys, for the 5th time and so that he could finally see them for the first (and why wouldn't we go, it's Vegas?) I brought the Holga and the Minolta and burned through a roll of film in each of them. Unfortunately it won't be ready for pickup until Tuesday, but I did what I could with my fancy iPhone aps so I could give a preview of what I shot!

The rundown of our night:

Stayed at Excalibur

Across from New York, New York

The View From the balcony (anybody get that joke? maybe?)

Wandered the strip

On the drive out there I spotted some amazing signs for abandoned shops, gas stations, and restaurants so we stopped at all of them on the way back. It's sort of turned into a new series so I can't wait to see how the film comes out.

Do Wah Doo

2010-04-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

As a visual artist, and a lover of the musical arts, I've always enjoyed the combination of the two into music videos. Now that I've taken a video production course, I appreciate these 2-6 minute films even more. Here's some really awesome ones that have always been favorites, have recently been released, or that I've just rediscovered. Be warned: I'm a diehard fan of the single take!

The Last Shadow Puppets- Standing Next to Me

Kate Nash- Do Wah Doo (the single was released today!!)

Arctic Monkeys- My Propeller

OK GO- This Too Shall Pass

OK GO-This Too Shall Pass (Round 2)

Vampire Weekend- A Punk

Spring cleaning

2010-04-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

For me, this means out with the old, in with the new (photography). I hinted that I'm entirely redesigning my website...mostly because I've entirely redesigned my style. These decisions came about from a number of things. The two main reasons being that someone taught me, after being afraid I'd be disciplined for it for so long, that it is okay to break rules, and this same someone whose work and as a person I admire very much, sees a lot of potential in me which provides me with so much motivation! So, now I am going back to images of mine that I already love, and am loving them more after a little bit of my new post production style. This is also part of picking the images that will accompany my new site design. When sorting through my travel folder last night, I found these three from my trip to Seattle last summer that I just loved and wanted to share.

I hope the new site will be up by May, and a Wordpress blog will accompany it shortly after.

ta x

Toys

2010-04-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

Toy #1)

Asus 25.5" monitor. New love of my life. If anyone is thinking of investing in a first monitor and doesn't want to spend a fortune with Apple or NEC, Asus is a great brand to go with. Granted I've only had my new toy for a week but I'm thrilled with it! (shot taken with polaroid ap on iphone)

Toy #2) My beloved Holga. I really do love the results from this plastic toy camera. Film used is Kodak 120 ISO 400 (vivid color). There is no post manipulation to the triptych of the beach or the single of the house except for slight contrast curves.

From Me to You

2010-03-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

Jamie from From Me to You is rapidly becoming my new favorite person. I found her blog maybe two weeks ago and am so intrigued and inspired by her images. She collects old cameras and shoots a lot of film which is right down my alley right now. Also right down my alley is this quote from her from an interview with The One Thing Blog.

"So I may show up at shoots with red lipstick and a charm bracelet on but I’m a photographer and I strive to be great, all the time, every day, and besides, who says all successful women photographers have to be morphed into men? I don’t want to shoot babies, I just want shoot what my mind likes."

Besides loving red lipstick, that last sentence drew me in so much. I just want to shoot what my mind likes, is that a crime?

Anyway, just sharing one of my inspirations. Cheers x

Ready for launch

2010-03-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to announce the launch of Ms Johanna E Torkelson's website! Check it out and let us know what you think.

Next stop, Justin Miller's website!

In other news, here's a little preview of something else that is in the works:

Very excited about that :)

Aaaaaand just for fun, can I say that I love the polaroid ap for the iphone? I'm always teetering on the edge of buying a polaroid camera but the cost of one plus film is too ridiculous for me to justify right now. So instead I spent $1.00 on the ap for now. Here's my workspace while finishing up Johanna's website.

Beautiful San Ynez

2010-03-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned, March 9 truly was one of the most beautiful days I have experienced during my time in Santa Barbara. There was something in the air...quite literally. Something about the atmosphere was making colors so vibrant and light just looked gorgeous on everything (hopefully you can still tell through my color balance slider and blend modes addiction!). Here's just a handful of images from mine and Dan's adventure into San Ynez Valley.

These 2 shot on Kodak Max 400 35 mm film

These 3 shot on Kodak Ektachrome 400 35 mm slide film

There will be more where these came from! Not to mention the two rolls of 120 film from my Holga that haven't even been scanned yet. It's already a busy session. Lynda.com tutorials on Adobe Illustrator consume more of my time than going to class, but I'm so glad to be working with Illustrator again. And in light of graphic design, I stumbled upon this poster series:

Check out the Travel Series Posters over at The Heads of State!

My Cuppa Tea

2010-03-10T22:38:00.000-08:00

WANTED: these mugs from Suck UK...

Really though, how cool? I love collecting fun coffee and tea mugs (mainly Alice in Wonderland themed) and these are just too awesome, and so useful!

I would apologize for the nonsense posts lately, but it's nonsense that I think is really cool. And I am trying to share random goodness that doesn't have to do with my photography. But on that note, yesterday was quite possibly the most beautiful day I have ever enjoyed in Santa Barbara (cold and windy, but SO colorful). And I have 4 rolls of film to prove it. They'll be picked up tomorrow and scanned Friday (hopefully).

Ta for now x

Adobe Photoshop Cook

2010-03-02T22:08:00.001-08:00

This is quite possibly the coolest stop motion movie ever made! Please check it out, it's well worth it :)

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

6 months

2010-03-01T19:47:00.000-08:00

Another session has flown by and I am officially 6 months away from graduating. When did that happen?

I'm really excited about my last 6 months of school, and am thinking of the possibility of more school. I have found that I have a passion for more than just photography and have only dabbled in these areas. But we'll see.

I wish I could share with you the final project for Multimedia, but it is a physical object; a personal and 100% customized DVD, actually. My menu design was a big hit in class so I'd like to share that at the very least. In this screen shot, the rollover for my "contact" section is shown rather than the original state.

Chris told us on the last ay of class that he hoped that we didn't walk away from the class knowing how to customize a DVD or make a virtual book, but rather that we changed and grew as artists and people. At least if he didn't get that message through to the other students, he sure got through to me. I feel like my photography is heading in an all new direction and I can't wait to get some new stuff going. I'll be doing an independent study with Chris during my last session so look out for some mass amounts of creativity then!

You are the CSS to my HTML

2010-02-14T10:33:00.000-08:00

And I have just demonstrated to you exactly how nerdy I am. I saw this card a few days ago when I was browsing some of my favorite blogs and laughed like a loon. If it hadn't been sold out, I would have gotten it for Dan, despite our pact to treat February 14th like it's any other day.

I just have one thing to share with you today. My virtual book! It was made for a class assignment and I'm really happy with how it turned out. It might end up being featured on my website as an actual gallery if I get some more "fine art" type images that I like (finally bought that Holga I was talking about a few months back so there's hope!). Tell me how you like it and I'll see if it deserves a gallery position on my site!

The Fine Art and Film Book

Bits and bobbins

2010-02-07T21:33:00.001-08:00

I've just now finished my homework for the weekend. My excuse is that I'm becoming increasingly obsessed with sewing and I have fabric that has yet to be made into things. Yesterday I made a tie for Dan. He came with me to Joann Fabrics and while I tried to pick out fabric for the dress I'm making for Christina's wedding, he found a tie pattern and then went off through the fabric to find a pretty awesome black and silver paisley design. This afternoon I tried not to look at my sewing machine but alas, I now have the yellow waist sash all made for the wedding. After a ridiculous amount of time, I finally figured out the rather simple concept of pin tucks.

On the homework front, I had to create two artist statements. One of them poetic. Never having got along with the poetic world, I just stuck with what I know best about poetry, haiku! So my fist statement is made up of 3 haiku and words from an earlier journal entry that I thought described me. As for my other artist statement, I chose to just embrace the fact that I couldn't get sewing off the brain and tried to visually compare the workflow of my two favorite activities. Hopefully a success but I'll let you decide.

I also had to create an "inspiration wall" and wanted to share some of the photographers whose work I find beautiful and intriguing. It seems I'm drawn to fine art and surrealism. No surprise there!

Parker Pfister
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison
Dirk Karsten
Steen Doessing

Inspire

2010-02-03T22:47:00.000-08:00

Chris Orwig talked today in class about things, people, events that inspire us in positive and negative ways, whether it be past or present.

A new goal I have for myself is to make my blog more inspiring. Not directly through my work but by sharing resources that I find helpful/inspiring/interesting like the page with all the photoshop brushes (and if my work inspires you too, great! It's a lifelong goal that I have). So here is designer Francisco Inchauste's web page and blog. I thoroughly enjoy his thoughts on visual elements.

Cheers x

Lost & Found

2010-01-31T17:17:00.000-08:00

...was the title of the assignment for my creative journal this week. And what a great idea Chris had making us do this. The idea was to find an object, any object really (though his recommendation was to find something at an antique or thrift store) and go photograph it in 10 unlikely places. I used a clock I bought at Urban Outfitters over a year ago and walked around Stern's Wharf taking pictures of it. It's one of the most touristy spots in Santa Barbara but I looked at it in a completely different way.

As a side note, my current obsessions:
color balance sliders
layer blend modes
textured brushes (none used in these images though)...found some great ones here

X-Pro

2010-01-26T19:24:00.000-08:00

Had some free time yesterday when my Multimedia class was cancelled so I got the cross processed film I mention a couple weeks ago all scanned and edited. I love how it turned out. The colors of the sunset were amazing when Dan and I were up West Camino Ciello so I almost didn't want to cross process the second roll but I took a chance and am not disappointed. A lot of the images even looked great in black and white. This will most definitely not be my last time cross processing film.

A little on the editing: Obviously I didn't want to manipulate any of the color (though I've been having a lot of fun doing things of the sort in multimedia!) so what you see is true to the film that I picked up, minus the black and white image. Everything needed a little contrast so I added a curve and changed the layer style to "luminosity". If this didn't bring the color back to normal, I duplicated the curves layer, changed it to "color" and either lowered the opacity, or masked the areas that needed the color. Hope that's useful to someone!

And one last thing, I wanted to share this blog: Wet Behind the Ears I actually saw someone recommend it to someone else via facebook and took a look for myself. There's a lot of fashion stuff posted on it but still, very cool photoshoots!

That's all for now. Until next time xx

Oak Creek Ranch

2010-01-23T23:32:00.000-08:00

So here are a few of the architecture shots I did last weekend with lots of help from Christina, Justin and Willie. I'm the only one who's taken any architecture courses so the 3 of them let me take charge and boss them around (thank you guys, I love you!). Meanwhile Dan ran around getting shots of all the rooms to make Quicktime VRs so we hope our "clients" like that extra little surprise. Click here for the Oak Creek website; I really hope we helped them improve their photography given how much there was to shoot and how little time we had (and how long it's been since I tried doing this!). All in all it was a great weekend having this whole place to ourselves!

The Lodge living room

The Yosemite room

The dining room and kitchen in the new Cabin

The barn. Had a memorable game of foosball in here with the boys

The bar at the pool house

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2010-01-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

No, blogger didn't mess up the title of my post, I was just attempting to be witty...I'm the TA for the HTML class at Brooks this session and am enjoying learning while "trying" to help the students in the class too. The coding is really easy so far, I'm pretty excited to jump into Dreamweaver. I've been watching a tutorial on it from lynda.com in hopes of learning it pretty well before the class does. I love being a student still and getting a subscription to this site for only $10!

And as for the class I'm actually enrolled in, Multimedia is turning out great already. Right now it's just a review of Flash for me but Chris Orwig is by far the most inspiring teacher I've encountered at Brooks so I'm just super excited about learning right now. We're keeping these sort of creative journals for the duration of the class and I just decked out the generic black book because I didn't have time to make a hand made one. I'm taking every chance I get to be creative in this class. I just have so much motivation to try new things right now. The paper is Snow & Graham, I got it at Art Essentials for really cheap!

And speaking of trying new things, I just picked up my first two rolls of cross processed color negative film. I hope I'll get a chance on Monday to scan some of the film and post the images but we shall see. I've got a presentation due next Wednesday in Modern Literature and 5 friends and I were offered a job photographing a ranch in SLO in exchange for a free weekend stay. I'm so excited to see this place and get some more architecture work under my belt.

Anyway, ta for now, there will be a lot more coming your way soon!

Boxing Day

2009-12-26T16:53:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the day after Christmas and I figured it was time for a post. I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas. I had one of the best I've had in years. I spent it with my Aunt and cousins, walking the canal in Long Beach on Christmas Eve and rolling eggrolls then partying with my adopted Filipino family on Christmas day.

Before coming down here, I went up North to visit a few friends and some family. After leaving my best friends house one night to have dinner with another set of Aunt and Uncle and cousins, I pulled over to take a few shots of the vineyards:

So I guess next stop is the New Year. Tomorrow night I take a red eye flight to New York to visit my dear friend Johanna. It's been about 9 months since she was living in California, attending Brooks with me so I cannot wait to see her. I'm building a flash website for her so I can't wait to get started on that too.

And speaking of websites, one of my first goals of 2010 is to get the next version of my website up. I need to update two galleries, one with images from Spain and one of images I hope to get in upstate New York where Jo lives. Otherwise I've already added the flare I've been wanting since version 1. But as Chris Orwig has said many times to his DIM422 class, you'll never be finished and it'll never be perfect. (I love Chris's blog and his style of photography!) Second goal of the New Year is to set up my Wordpress blog so that it is more directly connected with my website.

In other news, I believe I promised more links to what Dan, Justin and I did in MPV all session. So here is our Basic Camera Handling assignment and our Mark to Music.

Basic Camera Handling

Mark to Music

When school starts again in 2 weeks we will convert our final project to quicktime and I'll convert my personal project as well, but here are some stills from my stop motion movie that will give you a feel for what to expect:

Motion and Still

2009-12-02T16:02:00.000-08:00

As promised, I have a movie and a photoshoot to share with you all!

This is my group's interview with friend, photographer, and surfer, Willie Kessel :) His website link is down under my "wonderful and talented friends" link. You'll be able to tell from the interview how talented he is though! We're going to compress our Basic Camera Handling and Mark to Music assignments soon too so those will be the next thing to be looking for here!

Willie Kessel-Seeing as I see

And here are my favorite images from the shoot with my cousin, Jamie. I really wanted to see what I could do with the orange light from the sunset and play around with some low contrast and flare. I hope I did alright! I really like the images, and so does J, and I hope you guys do too. Check her music myspace in a few days! She's just throwing it together now because she was waiting to get some images of herself..... myspace.com/jamiemellert

A bit of a tease

2009-11-29T00:23:00.000-08:00

It was lovely to pick up my camera again yesterday...and to photograph...a person?! Unheard of since I did a shoot my with little sister last summer*. I love natural light. I hate to manipulate it with artificial light. It might sound lazy but why not use what's there? Especially when you're as pressed for time as we were! Here's a little rundown of what went down today. More to follow in a few days.

The people:

The location:

The scarf I had to use to tie down my dress. It was so windy!

The vision:

*stealing shots of people in Spain does not count as portraiture ;)

Filming, photography and Flash

2009-11-25T23:36:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so, busy session! We're in week 4 and it's absolutely FLYING by. Dan, Justin and I are already finished with 3 of our 5 projects in MPV and were honored with being asked by our instructor for a copy of one! It was our basic camera handling assignment, a series of exercises to get used to the cameras functions and doing smooth camera movements. We still need to export it as a lower res quicktime file so we can upload it to youtube. I'll post a link to it, and our other assignments, when it's uploaded.

What we have left are our personal assignments and our final project. I'll be working on my personal next week which I'm fairly positive will be a stop motion video to Kate Nash's "Merry Happy". Something else I'm just starting to get going too is updating my website. TAing for the Flash class is making me so much more knowledgeable and inspired. I designed a new custom preloader today so that's the first step. I've got SO many more great ideas that I want to get started on (just wish there was more time in the day!).

So, no images today. I really just wanted to let you all know I'm alive and that I'll have some fun stuff coming soon! On Saturday evening and possibly Sunday morning (depending on how much we can get done with these short days), I'll be photographing one of my cousins, Jamie Mellert, possibly for her solo album cover. We've got our fingers crossed for a vintage mustang as a prop. If you want to check out her band's music, there is a link to Panoramic View under "my wonderful and talented friends". Images of her and hopefully some video links will be here late next week!

Change

2009-10-29T00:25:00.000-07:00

Along with a new session comes many new changes. For instance, I'm back in a non-photography course. I'm taking MPV161 (an intro to video production class) with my favorite boys, Justin and Dan. Should be a riot. We've got so many ideas for short films already, I don't know how we'll execute all of them. Also, I'm the TA for the flash website class (same one I took to build my site) and since I just came back from Spain, I'll be updating my website with more images and hopefully more "flare" before the term is over. I'm also going to start working on a website for my friend Johanna, who I will be visiting in New York over Christmas break! Thoroughly looking forward to seeing Jo, seeing NY, and working with my first website client!

Some sad change...I had to say goodbye to my puppy (and by puppy I mean he's 12 years old, but he was always a puppy at heart), this weekend. Hardest thing I've ever had to do. Here's the pics I took of Huckleberry (Huck for short).

Some happy change...My roommate Christina just got engaged to her boyfriend of 5 years, Sam! I'm so incredibly happy for them and really looking forward to the wedding planning that will be going on in the apartment for the next 6ish months. They've started a wedding blog if you're interested in reading. Congrats guys :)

And some more images from Spain...

A drastic change in Plaza Mayor

A puppeteer

An old man

A couple (of drawings)

A sunset at the Palace

A clock

A colorful street in Sevilla

An elaborate design

A bird

A compliment

A rooftop

Horchata

2009-10-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

Hello all!

Dan and I are back and all my images were turned in this morning. I just finished this slideshow specifically for my blog :) The gist of my story is how the 3 cities I visited, Madrid, Seville, and Barcelona, change from morning until night (sort of inspired by the Arctic Monkeys song title "When the Sun Goes Down", go figure). Sorry the quality is so bad; I think it's time I invested in Quicktime Pro. These aren't my favorite 40 so I'll add more images in a few days that weren't turned in for class! Oh and the song is "Horchata" by Vampire Weekend. Their new album comes out in January and this is the first single. I love it!

Preview

2009-10-07T01:57:00.000-07:00

Hello from Spain everyone!

It has been quite the amazing trip so far. We've been to Madrid and are on our last day in Seville (I love it here, Dan's going to have to drag me on the train to Barcelona tomorrow). I've got a few shots from our scouting day in Madrid (we've got a system where we spend the first few hours of the first day in a new city just walking around with our lensbaby's). Enjoy! There will be many many more to come when we return.

Adios!

2009-09-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

It still doesn't feel like I'm actually going on this trip to Spain. Dan and I have been planning since the middle of last term and now it's just 3 days away. I go in between feeling completely panicked and entirely calm. And since right now I'm calm, and I realize I've been neglecting my blog, I'll share what I've been shooting since the Santa Barbara Mission.

People (my weakness)

Food (Stella Mare's restaurant in SB.....delicious!)

For fun (I think I love split toning)

So, no promises, but I want to and I'll try to post once or twice while I'm abroad. But until then, Adios :)

Cheers

2009-09-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

*to making new friends

*to old friends

*to good music

*to adrenaline

*to sore feet

*to temporary loss of hearing

*to screaming too loud

*to determination

*to 1am drives around Hollywood

*to sneaking in

*to courage

*to taking chances

*to once in a lifetime moments

*to knowing sheer happiness

*to no regrets

*to sleeping in

*to September 15th, the day in which everything that could go right, did go right.

...Cheers

This is probably simultaneously the most personal and cheesy post you will ever get out of me. For that I apologize.

And here's to my bff, Stephanie. Happy 20th Birthday!

quick update: Here's a lovely little quote I didn't think to share before...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

Dawn to dusk

2009-09-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

I spent the sunrise and sunset with the Santa Barbara Mission today (v romantic) in hopes of fulfilling some of the requirements for my first shooting assignment for the travel class. And even though the Mission has been photographed billions of times by Brooks kids alone, I think I'm happy with what I got.

I love this last one. Just as I decided I got the shots I needed, a group of local kids ran past me on the lawn and started playing in the light shining on the cathedral.

Will return tomorrow to photograph the interior!

Help?

2009-09-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, the trip is officially in 3 weeks. We have plane tickets and our hotel reservation for the first 3 nights in Madrid.

Uhhh, that's it....

Travel class started today. By friday I need two story angles that are unique to the area and that a magazine would find interesting to publish. And by unique I mean nothing that has been extensively covered on the area in the last 5 years. Help?

Obviously I'm heading in a direction towards the architecture in Spain and how it reflects it's political and religious past and how it shapes it's cultural present (also considering contrasting it with the people and their different ethnic backgrounds to make the story more unique), but I can't seem to think of another angle. Anything you'd like to see me bring back from Spain??

Now, on with the reason I made this blog in the first place: sharing photography. Instead of posting my own work, I'd like anyone interested to check out Paul Liebhardt's site. He's a travel photographer and also an instructor at Brooks. My instructor this session (Chuck Place) recommended we look at his work. It's absolutely amazing. I'm jealous.

UPDATE: The panic has settled, I have two topics, both of which I would love to photograph. Now that we have our angles we can start planning this trip a little better!

September

2009-09-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

Can I just say how crazy (but incredibly fun) this month is going to be? It's already been non-stop action and I'm only 2 days in. And the rest of the month's forecast says:

1) Plan a trip to Spain (4 weeks and counting)
2) Start up a new session at school (2 photo classes and 1 GE...guh! for those non-Brookies out there, that's more than normal!)
3) 2 day Disneyland trip at the end of the month (life sucks doesn't it?)
4) ARCTIC MONKEYS (!!) show at the Palladium on the 15th (!!!!!!!!)
5) 7 very very important birthdays

Actually, I find it funny how many people I know who have September birthdays, and they are without a doubt some of the most important people in my life (my best girl and guy friends, my aunt who is like a mother to me, two of my cousins, etc.). I don't know about you guys but I believe there is some truth to horoscopes and zodiac compatibility. I've got plenty of evidence of the ever famous Taurus/Virgo compatibility in my own life!

Okay, enough reading for now, we are a society dependent on visuals, I know...

Fun with the lensbaby:

One more quick thing, I just want to say that I wish I had built a set like this in ADV312 for the "big set" assignment! It meets the requirements, I just would have had to advertise a beverage. Too bad I didn't find this image from the TV show Pushing Daisies earlier.

(not my image...obviously...but can I have her shoes and dress?)

Voilà!

2009-08-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

Another session has flown by once again (it's now exactly a year until I graduate, eek!). I simultaneously love and hate how much changes in these hectic little 8 week periods. Whatever seems normal in my life at the beginning of the session hardly ever stands true by the time I finish a class. And with the end of this class (DIM422) comes the completion of my first website. Take a look!

http://www.kate-emmaphoto.com

And as I said I would, I purchased a lensbaby this week and ordered the 50mm. The 50 will be at Calumet tomorrow afternoon just after Gianna rolls into town. Here's the very first image to be produced with my lensbaby:

(blinds in my room)

ps- Spain, 5 weeks from today!

Shipwrecked

2009-08-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

Finally Santa Barbara is getting some good beach weather! Last Friday Dan, Justin and I headed down to Butterfly beach in Montecito to play some frisbee and discovered a small boat had washed up on the beach (no clue how long it's been there or how long it'll stay!). We returned the next night at sunset to do some shooting. I decided to go with b&w film and picked up the negatives today.

Dan...

Justin and some crazy moire pattern...

Wish list

2009-08-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

I started thinking about it a few days ago, and my wish list for photographic equipment is much longer than I realized. I've wanted new lenses for over a year now but have just never set aside the money to get them. That will change starting this week.

First purchases:
*Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens
*Lensbaby muse

I love shooting detail shots no matter what the criteria so I think these are good to start with, especially since I'm auditing Advanced Architecture next term. My oldest friend and one of my favorite models from high school, Gianna, will be here on Friday too so hopefully we can go out and have some fun with these lenses this weekend!

Other things on the list:

*CS4 (especially before another DIM class. Learning in CS4 and working at home in CS3 was not fun the first couple weeks of Flash)

*15mm f/2.8 fisheye (my friends and I usually document our day-to-day fun with a fisheye and I want one of my own)
*Tilt shift lens (probably the 24mm for architecture purposes)

*Holga (thanks to Holgas & Fiesta! They're only $30 and I don't shoot enough film anymore, so why not??)

*15in MacBook Pro (saving this one for graduation. I hope my little MacBook can hold out one more year!)

In other news, my website will officially launch on Thursday (8/27) so check back for the link. Aaaaand last Thursday, exactly 6 weeks before my departure, my new passport came in the mail. Yay Spain!

Holgas and tea parties

2009-08-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

2 weekends ago Santa Barbara celebrated Fiesta and Color Services hosted a workshop called Holgas and Fiesta, which I attended with my roomie, Christina, and friends, Britton and Ashley. This was actually my first time using a Holga so it was a new and fun experience. The lab gave us two rolls of film (one color and one b&w) which they just finished processing yesterday. The color film was cross-processed and I had them develop the black and white in coffee. Here are some favorite images from the day:

So. Much. Confetti.

Today, I'm modeling as Alice from Alice in Wonderland for Justin. This is my third time dressing up as my alter ego for him but we're steering clear of the cartoon Disney Alice look for the first time and going a bit more Victorian gothic. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

UPDATE: click on Justin's name to link to his blog where the images from the shoot are. click on Christina's name to check out behind the scenes shots of the shoot!

Looking forward

2009-08-16T00:56:00.001-07:00

"The way l look at it, in everyone's life, there's a certain amount of sh*t. ln the last year, things have turned out pretty sh**ty. So, logically, mathematically even, it's got to be time for something not sh*t" -Bridget Jones, the Edge of Reason

I've always enjoyed that quote...

Don't get me wrong, life is swell but sometimes I forget how much I have to look forward to. Right now especially I need to keep these things in mind. I'm going to start putting post-its everywhere so I can constantly remind myself of:

1) fun. @ Velvet Jones 8/21
2) Rx Bandits @ Velvet Jones 8/29
3) Arctic Monkeys (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) @ Hollywood Palladium 9/15
4) Spain 10/1

Also, the completion of my website is just around the corner and I'm so excited for everyone to see it! How does the contact page and my about me look? The umbrella logo at the bottom right on my about page will be the link to this blog :)

Timeline

2009-08-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love site building. But time is running short! Version 1.0 of my site needs to be up by Tuesday.

So instead of a photograph, how about a screen cap of what I did in class this morning? I love how much interactivity is embedded within that small piece of timeline at the top....

Multimedia nerd. I know. But it all makes sense now and I'm excited.

Progress

2009-08-03T14:26:00.000-07:00

Suddenly I'm incredibly productive. I go through phases I think, but I wish I was always like this. Got my passport picture taken today and turned in the application mere minutes ago. Hopefully it shows up before October 1st. Spain, here I come.

Also, last night I finished the rough edits of the images from my road trip to Washington. Here are some favorites: