Next fourth, skip the sparklers

What is required to have a good time on the 4th of July in America? Sparklers? Fireworks? A picnic? For me it took only my sister, my camera, a tripod and a mini Maglite. Rebecca and I decided to lay on the mountain by our house and watch the spectacle of little fireworks set off in our neighborhood. Our neighbors didn't disappoint. They seemed to be in competition and I set up my camera just to play around and get a few shots. Once the display was over, I decided to focus on the tree of lighting bugs behind us. There was a nice gate so I illuminated it with the mini Maglite Rebecca had brought along. Then I remembered seeing some long exposure shots where a photographer had run around with a flashlight creating some cool effects with streaks of light, so I decided to give it a go.

Rebecca saw the results and wanted to play at it herself. Generally, Rebecca hates to have her picture taken, but being a student of philosophy I asked; if you're invisible in the shot, is your picture actually being taken? I guess she decided not, because she and I took turns playing with the light. Who knew playing in an empty field at night with a flashlight could be so much fun? Next fourth, skip the sparklers and give your kids a flashlight.

Katie

martini party

We had a fantabulous martini party at the house. Mom had said that Kim, her friend from work, had been in a band and was brining her guitar to the party to play for us. And I thought, okay live music is always good. I imagined her playing in a garage somewhere with some kids. I had known plenty of people who "played in a band" before and I just wasn't prepared for how good she was. I didn't know that she played professionally and that she was a fabulous singer. We were all serenaded on the porch while we sipped on Martinis. The evening was…fantabulous.

Katie

The Sea Beckons Me Back

The sea beckons me back once again. I'm taking a six-month contract going out in December. This itinerary is the one I've been waiting my whole cruising carrier for. I'm joining the ms Statendam to do the Australia/New Zealand run followed by a sojourn across the South Pacific then on to Asia and finally I'll be ending out my contract in Alaska via Russia.

I could not have asked for a better contract. New Zealand has been my main traveling goal since I set out to explore the world, but over time I've also been drawn to Australia and the many exotic islands of the South Pacific. In the Far East, I may have a chance to see the Great Wall of China and the Buddhist temples of Japan. So get ready to follow me on another exciting adventure at sea, across the International Dateline, South of the Equator, on the other side of the world.

Katie

Pick up Shoot for Movie: STIFF

Shortly after my return from Pennsylvania, I went to the last little bit of shooting for the movie Stiff that we needed to pick up for a montage scene. This was probably the most fun of any of the shooting we've done. Nelson, the director, played a homeless man. Crystal, our make-up artist, did a fantastic job making him over.

My cousin, Paul, happened to be in town for a visit and though I'm sure he hadn't expected I would have him turned into a corpse for the shoot, this wasn't the first time he'd preformed for one of my movies. Way back when, he acted in one of my earlier works.

I just had a chance to view the footage and everything looks fantastic. I'm very excited about the finished product. This is going to be a fantastic movie.

Katie

A Trip to Pennsylvania

Rebecca and I had a little retreat to Pennsylvania to visit my grand parents at their cabin. It's been a tradition since we were children. My mother would pack me and my sister into her truck and drive us all day and all night to the cabin. We'd stay all through the cool summer swimming in the creek and playing in the woods until my father would come up at the end of summer and bring us back home to Florida.

Since Rebecca and I have gotten older, we don't get to make it up as often. Rebecca had some vacation time and she decided she wanted to go to the cabin. I, being a freelancer and enjoying a certain flexibility with my schedule, agreed to drive us up. Our purpose in the trip was to simply get away. We got away from everyone and everything and just enjoyed the nice quiet cabin days with games of Canasta, swimming, hiking and lots and lots of good cooking and eating.

I told only a few people that I would be going and I'm sorry for all the Pennsylvania friends and family I neglected to visit. My purpose in going was to relax and have some quiet time to finish my book. Though I didn't quite finish, I'm now only a few chapters away. One day I took my camera out and snapped a few nature pictures. Of all the places I've been to in my travels, this one is my favorite.

Katie

CPR

We had special CPR and AED (Defibrillator) training. I did the training one day and went back to snap a few photos later. We had a firefighter come from Seattle to conduct this voluntary medical training. In the pictures are some of the shore excursions team in red, the front office staff are in white and the guy in black is our stage manager Jason. They published this picture in the Holland America Line company magazine.

Katie

Ushuaia, Argentina

I love Ushuaia, Argentina. I’ve been a couple times before, and it remains one of my favorite ports in South America. The countryside is cut with the jagged line of the Andes Mountains. There’s one spot where there’s a glacier hidden under snow at the top of the mountain. You can take a ski lift halfway up then hike the rest of the way. I had done the hike before, but the weather wasn’t as nice as it was this time. At first it was overcast and we even got some hail and sleet on the way up, but then in the span of two minutes the sky cleared and the sun smiled on us with a rainbow.

This time I went with Harrie the engineer. Some of the other engineers were supposed to go, but they chickened out at the last minute. It was probably for the best though, because Harrie is an avid hiker and we were able to keep up a pretty good pace and get up to the snow quickly. Harrie doesn’t like getting his picture taken, but he’s very photogenic and I was snapping away until he finally had enough. He kept saying we would moonwalk down, and I didn’t understand what he was talking about until he did it. I was thinking Michael Jackson. I finally saw what he meant when he came bounding down the mountain through the snow like an astronaut.

Katie

Ending the transatlantic crusing and the year

On this ship we have two satellite dishes. A little while ago one of the dishes lost power. The dishes are at the top of the ship inside giant domes. I’ve never had such a problem before and I’ve never done any work on a dish. My assistant, Noel, and I have been up a lot to do tests and take pictures to email back to the technicians who work on these things. One time we took some pictures of ourselves. The power loss is happening at a really difficult spot to get at. We need to replace a part that's in the middle of the pedestal so basically we would have to take the entire thing apart. I hope they send a techinican soon.

So that ends the transatlantic part of my contract. I’m so glad I only have to do that once, it was a tough part to get through. I’ve been in South America a few cruises now and I have so many great things to share. It’s New Years Eve and everyone is excited about the parties tonight. We are also getting to the first part of our cruising through Antarctica. Tonight the sun will set around 11pm and rise again around 2am. I should be seeing ice bergs before the year is out. Happy New Years from the bottom of the planet!

Katie

The Dutch Santa

Sinter Klaas is a Dutch character like Santa only he looks more like a bishop than a fat man. He has two little black nymph like characters that throw things at you and whack you with reeds. I think they are supposed to be the ones who punish naughty children and give them coal. The Crew did a gift exchange one night with Sinter Klass. Everyone brought one gift and we drew numbers and did a random gift exchange where you could trade your gift for any other previous one. They made everyone sit on Sinter Klaas’ lap and they gave the first engineer coal for a joke he made. It was a fun night.

Katie

Canary Islands

I missed out on the Canary Islands which are Spanish owned and off the coast of Africa. It’s a real shame because everyone that got off said it was great place to visit. All the islands are volcanic and some of the volcanoes are still active. There was one restaurant that drilled a big hole in the ground like a well and they would put their food down in it and bar-b-que from the heat of the volcano. I got some pictures from the ship of some local dancers welcoming everyone. I don’t really like to talk about work in the chronicles because that’s mostly boring, but I do actually have to do some work now and again. And these days in the Canary Islands were one of those times I was just too busy to get off. I’m quite lucky to get off as much as I do. A lot of jobs on ships don’t have the flexibility in scheduling that I do.

Katie

Lisbon

We went into wet dock in Lisbon, Portugal. Wet dock is like dry dock only you don’t take the ship out of water. The ship had new piping put in and carpets and stuff like that. We were there for four days and I was hoping to have the last day to run around and see the sights. But there was too much work. We were kept very busy by the Cruise Director doing chores for our department and then on top of that I had loads of work to do in Broadcast to get ready for South America. With everything that was going on, I only managed to sneak off for a couple of hours. But I saw some awesome sights in that time. There was a really cool castle called Bellum castle, well I don’t know if that’s how it’s spelled, but that’s how it sounds. When the tide comes in it’s surrounded by water.

Close to the castle there was a monument to all the explorers. A lot of explorers launched their expeditions from the port where we were in Lisbon, among them Christopher Columbus and Vasco De Gamma. The monument was pretty impressive. You can see a tiny person standing next to it taking a picture. And I really liked the walkways. They reminded me of Brazil, then I remembered this was where they originated. There was even a Christ Statue in Lisbon just like the one in Rio. I wished I could have spent more time exploring, but I did manage to pack in a lot in a short amount of time.

Katie

It’s been years since I’ve seen Carl and Zack and I’m amazed how much they’ve both changed since I saw them last. Everyone told me how tall Carl was, but it didn’t sink in until he was standing next to me... and he was the tallest! We had fun shooting fireworks, that’s Zack shooting a roman candle. And I couldn’t resist getting some pictures of their dog Kaylee whose tongue sticks out like Maes.

Katie

Filo Show Opening

The show went over great. We had wine and delicious desserts to serve all courtesy of Maria the owner pictured standing with me. People came from Asheville and Black Mountain to see my work. It was very exciting. Most people asked about my German Castle print and how I was able to take it. I stayed after for the swing dancing with some friends and that was fun. Even though I didn't sell anything, it was still a great opening.

Katie

My Next Ship: The Rotterdam

The leaves are turning, people are dusting off their sweaters, there's a chill in the air; it's that time of year…no, not Fall, it's time for me to get out of here and go some place warm. This Four month contract with Holland America will take me to the Mediterranean and South America.

I fly to Athens, Greece next Friday and I fly back home February 10th with plenty of time to spare for the Oscars which will be February 25th this year. It's a good thing that I'll have lots of time to make it home because I'm flying back from Antarctica, well not exactly, but Ushuaia, Argentina is pretty darn close. They're the closest port town to Antarctica.

I'm really looking forward to my month in the Mediterranean with ports in Italy, Morocco, Spain, and Portugal. I've done South America before and there are only a couple of new ports that I'll be visiting this time around. One of those ports is Antarctica it's self. We aren't actually going to be stopping there, it's not like there's a dock or anything, but for three days we're going to be cruising there. I can't wait. I get to see it before it all melts away.

Katie

Show Opening

Mark your calendars for my opening Friday October 13th (no, I'm not superstitious.) I'm having a show opening of my Photography from Europe at Filo Pastries in Asheville. Dad and I have spent months making all the frames and the largest are about 3 and a half feet, so they look really impressive on the wall. If you're in the area, you should stop by between 5pm and 7pm then stay for swing dancing after and bring a friend.

The photos will stay on the walls for a while so if you can't make it to the opening you can always come later, but of course I might not be there later to sign autographs and whatnot.

Filo is a fantastic café and gourmet pastry shop. Order a chocolate anything and it will be incredible. If you're diabetic, bring extra insulin. If you're on a diet, indulge its worth it.

Filo is located on Tunnel Road across from the VA. If you're coming from downtown on tunnel road you will see Filo just after the Ingles and just before the Blue Ridge parkway. Hope to see you there. I've attached the front and back of the postcards I'm getting printed up.

Katie

Vanity Mirror Review

A long while back I sent Vanity Mirror off to Film Threat to be reviewed. Film Threat is a site started by Chris Gore, who's an independent film reviewer and film festival guru. They have a reputation for giving their honest opinions about films and not sugar coating everything. Vanity Mirror got a 3 out of 5 stars which is "good." No stars is "crap" and 5 is "perfect" so I'm pretty happy with my good. Here's the review:

Katie

Film Threat
VANITY MIRROR
by Rory L. Aronsky
(2005-10-10)
2005, Un-rated, 10 minutes, JKR Productions

Yeah, vanity can be a real bitch. Keep preening yourself like that and soon it’s all you’re thinking about. The hair’s got to be a certain way, and there’s so much primping to make Narcissus wince. At least that’s the intention for the blonde-haired woman (Julia Denton) unsettled by an ugly half-done Robocop prototype kind of man (Sean Larsen) holding up a flower. He likes her beauty, but she doesn’t like him.

Now it could be that her rejecting him leads to the darkness that settles down upon her or it could simply be that she’s just gone paranoid over keeping her looks, especially when a mirror image of herself begins to mutilate itself. The mirrors magnify the wrinkles and the stretched skin. She looks like she’s in her late ‘20s which makes immediate aging impossible, though Katie T. Damien is also reaching for a kind of “Tales from the Crypt” vibe here, with uneasy black-and-white cinematography which is effective, but makes us wonder what kind of lesson she’s exactly learning her. Love your fellow freak? Watch out for the skinhead with the squinty eyes? Don’t shave in those sexy places after midnight? There’s a foreboding feeling here, but it doesn’t quite reach fully around giving that kind of brain wedgie to make you wonder even further about the character. Atmosphere, and not much else. The character may feel disturbed, but we’re not.

Mt. Pisgah

Rebecca and I went on a little road trip to Mt. Pisgah with our friend Kristin who came down from DC for the weekend. The weather was fabulous and we had fun hiking on the trails and just sitting around enjoying the scenery. Mt. Pisgah is really close to us. It's only about 30 miles South on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I think it took us 45 minutes to an hour to actually get there because the roads were steep and windy.

I don't have a picture of Mt. Pisgah itself because from where we were, it just wasn't that exciting of a view. I took a picture of another cool mountain a little further South. I don’t know which one it is but it looks neat. I would recommend Mt. Pisgah on a clear day when the sun is setting. There's good hiking and good scenery. I prefer Mt. Mitchell, but Pisgah is a close second.

Katie

Shooting Party at Biltmore

Last weekend I shot a mega birthday party celebration for a multimillionaire at the Biltmore Estate. They had two parties and one day of activities. The day of activities was the best because when the guests were all gone the guys running the events let me and the other photographers try them out.

There were three different stations set up on a secluded side of the Biltmore Estate: skeet shooting (which we didn't get to try,) archery, and Land Rover driving school. I had never shot a cross bow before so I tried my hand at that and got three bulls eyes, but I felt like I was cheating because they had a really great scope on the bow.

The most exciting thing was the Land Rover Experience. We all got to drive a new Land Rover through a muddy obstacle course to see what it could do. At one point it felt like the car was going to tip over, but it didn't. That was a fun time.

Katie

Time at the Cabin

Toward the end of our all too short stay at the cabin, papa took me and my cousins out to see some countryside. We all got a nice group shot on the top of a mountain, then we went to see the temporary flight 93 memorial, it's just a few miles from the cabin. And a trip to the cabin would not be complete without a swim in the creek. As you can see from the photos, it's sweater weather to say nothing of the temperature of the water. Kyle had never been, so he really wanted to swim. I was the only other person crazy enough to go with him.

The cabin has always been one of my favorite places to go since I was kid. I'm so glad I had the chance to take this trip and see so much of my family. My thanks go to grama and grandpa for being such great hosts as usual, to my parents for driving, to aunt marnie and aunt janny for conspiring to put this thing together and to my cousins who flew all the way up from Florida.

Katie

Fish Fry

Yum, look at that delicious fish. Every year my grandparents host a fish fry at their cabin in Pennsylvania with all the fish that my papa has caught and saved. This year I think he said they cooked 162 pieces and they were all gone before the party was over. Dad and papa fried up the fish in the garage because it was raining, but that didn't slow down the party.

Lots of friends and relatives showed up. Including Kerri and her husband Jack who went straight to the garage to sample some freshly cooked fish dad made. My great aunt Barbra, who hates to have her picture taken, showed off her wonderful smile for the camera and said that I would be off her black list if I made her look young and blond, so there you go. Of course I hardly had to do a thing to the photo.

I got a shot of my cousin Albert and his wife Cori with Nancy sneaking up behind them. Then I handed my camera over to Nancy to get a picture of me with my cousins and Grandmother. I told grandma I was too tall to sit in the chair and that I would cover her up, but she just laughed. But I scooted down at the last minute, so ha ha grandma.

Katie

Grandparent's 50th

I just got back from a trip to Pennsylvania to my grandparent's cabin for their 50th wedding anniversary. We had an original shot of them cutting their wedding cake and with the help of a local baker we recreated the cake and the shot. My cousins, Albert, Kyle and Jessica, flew up from south Florida to attend. Mom, Dad and I drove up with our pug dog Mae West and yes her tongue always sticks out. My cousins thought it was hilarious and posed for a picture with her. After some toasting and celebrating with family we went straight into the annual fish fry party. More on that in the next chronicle.

Katie

Tennessee

I just got back from a shoot in Tennessee with Michael the photographer that I went to Chicago with. As a state I have to say I didn't get a very good impression with the exception of the Eastern side that is close to where I live. We shot in Jackson for a few days. We passed through Nashville and were close to Memphis, but we didn't have time for a trip out to really see either city, so I can't comment on them. The part of the state that I saw was just kinda blah. The air wasn't clean and the landscape wasn't pretty. I don’t know that I could recommend Tennessee as a visiting place, but they do have cool looking storms with incredible lighting. I managed to get a good shot in on our last night there. And the shot of Michael taking a picture of the mountains on the side of the road, that was back toward Asheville. So yea, don’t go to Tennessee for a vacation, come to Asheville and visit me instead, it's much prettier here.

Katie

More Chicago

Day two in Chicago was the day of the cancelled shoot, we still had another shoot to do, but it wasn't until later in the afternoon. So Michael dropped me downtown to go touring while he took care of some business. I walked around and saw some more of the awesome architecture. I spent most of my day at the Chicago Art Institute. They had some fabulous works, including an extensive collection of Rembrandt and Monet. All in all it was a great trip. Chicago is a big city with lots to do. It was a fun place visit, but it might not be so fun to live in.

Katie

Chicago

I just got back from a four day trip to Chicago. I was working as a photography assistant to Michael Mauney, a local commercial photographer and the same one that I worked with on the trip to New Mexico. This trip went pretty well, we got all the photos we were set up to shoot except one where the subject cancelled at the last minute, but because of the cancellation I had more time to explore the city.

I've had to divide this trip into two chronicles. This first one is from the first day we were there. The weather was great. The blistering heat wave that everyone had been suffering through just the week before was over and we had comfortable if not cool weather.

Michael and I did the tourist thing and walked around the city. We went to a park and saw a giant bean. I'm not kidding there is a large metal sculpture in the middle of the park that's shaped like a kidney bean. I took a picture of my reflection in it with the city in the background then I found it was even more interesting underneath and I got a really cool shot of all the weird reflections there. Being a photographer, Michael prefers being behind the camera, but I managed to get a quick shot of him working. More to come, with day two.

Katie

Sunflower

Dad picked me a beautiful sunflower from the garden the other day, so of course I had to sit down and photograph it. This email goes out in particular to my good friend Jacob. Here I have attached not only the shots I got, but also the set up. A rocking chair, a peice of black velvet, and some sunlight, that's all you need. Well maybe a chair that doesn't rock would have been a better choice, this one was just convienient.

Katie

My Birthday

Mom and I had a joint birthday party yesterday since our birthdays are just two days apart. We celebrated on the day in between. We wanted a small dinner party, so mom invited a few of her concierge friends and I invited my photographer friends. In one of the photos mom is holding a big bundle all in bubble wrap. This was brought by Brian and Gry my photographer friends. It was bubble wrapped as a joke because the last time they came to the house was for the Oscar party and Brian brought a bottle of wine, but when I went to give him a hug, I knocked the bottle out of his hand and it smashed all over the floor. This time the bottle made it safely. We had some great Bar-B-Q and everyone had a good time.

Katie

New Mexico

I just returned from a shoot in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was working as a photographer's assistant on a commercial shoot. It was my first visit to New Mexico, and I have to say it reminds me of old Mexico. I tried both red and green chile, not to be confused with chili (the latter is like a stew and the former is more like a sauce) I went inside an old pueblo house and even wandered through an Indian reservation.

I was out there for two full days and after we wrapped the shooting, we still had a little time on the last day so I went to the Petroglyph National Monument where you can see all the neat whitish figures in the black stones (though they look like they're painted on, they are actually chipped on the surface by the ancient pueblo Indians to reveal the white underneath.) They were allover the side of the mountains, but you really had to search to find them. Then we all took a tram to the top of the Sandia Mountains and watched the sunset. New Mexico is dry, dusty, bright and beautiful and the people are all very friendly. It was a fun place to visit.

Katie

4th of July

For the Fourth of July, mom, dad and I went to Black Mountain (a small town near Asheville) to see fire works. They were great until we got rained out in the end. There was a huge grand finale as they set off everything left at once. I managed to get a few good shots before the rain started.

Katie

Commercial Contest

I finished both my commercial entries to the "any way you like it" video contest to promote tourism in Asheville. You can see them both on you-tube.com just follow the links below.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Va5irZfuc
www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6Rc0T0ieH8

Katie
P.S. - Don't forget to give them a rating and tell me which one you like best.