Dupont Forest Falls

I’ve had these pictures for a while and totally forgot to send them. Back when Paul was visiting, we went down to Dupont Forest to see waterfalls. There are a bunch in a close area and we went swimming and hiking and had a great day.

My work schedule is great for doing photography side jobs, but doing all that work means I’m pretty busy most of the time now. I haven’t had much of a chance to work on my novel, but I’m still plugging away at it when ever I can. I had the chance to go speed dating with my friend Ashley, and though neither of us met the man of our dreams, it was a lot of fun and we made a few new friends. There weren’t even any desperate, psycho men there…well okay there was the one guy, but it was all anonymous. The only way you would get another person’s information was if you both asked the administrator for it, needless to say, I didn’t get psycho guy’s information.

Katie

1 minute director's demo reel

I've had my 1 minute demo up for a while, but I don't think it's been on my blog at all. So here it is:

Check out this video: 1 Minute Demo

Biltmore Estate

Feast your eyes on the carpet of flowers at the Biltmore Estate. My good friend Ashley, from ships, is on land and came for a visit. Ashley and I worked on the MS Rotterdam together about two years ago and yesterday we went to see the Biltmore on the busiest weekend of the summer. Despite be packed chin deep with guests, we had a blast and I got in some nice shots of the estate. I love the gargoyles and I don’t know about you, but the spookiest statue for me is the cherub. Those chubby baby statues have always creeped me out. I don’t know what it is, there’s just something not right about them.

Katie

Brie's Cats

These cats belong to my friend Brie. When I stayed over at her place on the weekend we went to Cherokee, her cats decided it was time for me to get up at some ungodly hour of the morning which for me is really any hour of the morning. They wouldn’t stop mewing and rubbing against the door, so I got out of bed and decided to pester them with my camera in return. I quickly discovered that they are a couple of hams, in as much as cats can be. I don’t know if they were attracted to the clicking of my shutter, or simply liked to see their own reflections in my lens, but whatever it was, they loved the camera, and the camera loved them.

The new job is going well. I’ve been teased and had pranks played on me at work, which means of course that my coworkers like me. I’m enjoying my new video editing job and I am quickly learning not to stay logged into my computer when I’m not around it.

Katie

Cherokee, North Carolina

This weekend I went to Cherokee, North Carolina. I stayed with my friends Brie and Andrew, who incidentally are both beautiful people. That should make photographing them easy, but it never is on account of they are both goofballs and don’t ever seem to want to simply sit still for a camera. I’ve shot Brie a couple of times and it seems I always end up with a little series, since one shot never seems to be enough to encompass it all.

I had been to Cherokee once before and I didn’t care for the town. It reminded me of the downtown areas in major ports in Alaska, and still does. Everything was tourist centered and not in a nice way. For example there were shops shaped like giant teepees, even thought the Cherokee people never lived in teepees. Most of the places sold products made in china, and some even had a man in giant headdress outside waving people in. With that said, there are some redeeming qualities to the place. It’s in a beautiful area and there’s a nice village where they have people working at crafts. We were even lucky enough to see a war reenactment in the village. I haven’t seen the show they do at night yet so I can’t comment on that, maybe next time.

Katie

Summer in Somerset

Near the smallish town called Somerset in Pennsylvania, my grandparents have a cabin. They have had this cabin since my mother was a child. Summers at “the cabin” are a long standing tradition in the family, and though I have not made it every summer of my life, it’s something I start thinking about every time summer rolls around.

I was able to visit grama and papa at the cabin for a couple of weeks and spend fourth of July there. The swirly light image is of grama. You can’t see her, but she’s the one painting with a flashlight. There have been few changes to the place since I was a kid. The mountain the cabin is on is privately owned so there is a chance the owners might sell, but that hasn’t happened yet. The question I get asked most often, when people discover I’ve done a bit of traveling, is what was my favorite place. Well, this is it.

Belle Chere

Belle Chere is a music and arts street festival that happens annually in Asheville. I went on Saturday just to see the spectacle. The streets were packed and moving wasn’t easy, but with four stages all featuring different rotating bands, it wasn’t too hard to get close to the action. My favorite performer from the day was David Holt who plays old time music on a myriad of instruments including the whiskey bottle. I also saw lots of protestors and street preachers. It was all part of the spectacle that was Belle Chere, which incidentally translates to beautiful living.

Katie

Model Shoot

I’ve gotten myself a real job. Not that any of the other jobs I’ve had weren’t real, but they didn’t have benefits, or a regular schedule, or consistent pay. I’m starting work tomorrow as a video editor for a local news station. I’ve decided I’m done working on ships for the time being. I’m sure I’ll still travel, but I might actually be able to take a real vacation, where I can see a place…and just see the place and not have to work. So for the next year or so, I’ll be at home with weekends off, working my real job. I couldn’t stand a 9 to 5, that would just be too much, my hours are 3 to midnight. Any one who knows me, knows I abhor waking before 11am.

In the mean time, I’m still freelancing as a photographer. My fabulous photo editing friend Sam and I are working on a series of demigods of Greek mythology. I’m shooting, Sam’s editing. These photos are from a model we shot to be a siren. I’ll post more from out shoots as we do them, with the finished products last. These were just some fun shots we did with the model.

Katie

Hitchin a Ride on the Parkway

My cousin Paul is up for a visit from Florida. He has a Buell sport bike. I don’t think I’d ever own a motorcycle, but I have to admit, they’re way cool. He took me for a ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway the other day. We were going to go to Mt. Mitchell, but it was closed. So instead, we just rode around and took a few pictures. It was an awesome ride.

Katie

Highland Games at Grandfather Mountain

The Highland Games at Grandfather Mountain is an annual event for Scots, the descendants of Scots, and those who just wish they were Scots. It’s a weekend of athletic events, concerts, and camping. Mom, dad, Sam and I went this year. I saw everything from men in kilts throwing telephone poles around, to men in kilts screaming and beating on drums. My favorite band was Albannach. Their music is classified under Celtic Battle Music and that pretty well sums it up. We had a great time and can't wait for next year.

Katie

Yap Island

Yap Island is a part of Micronesia and was my next stop on the this World War II cruise on the way to Asia . This island was so small and remote, the company was not able to orchestrate any shore excursions, so everyone, even guests, were on their own. I went out with two other crew members and found a local to take us around the island and show us some of the culture. Our guide was shy, but he let me take his photo when I told him he was sitting in fabulous light. He took us to a traditional meetinghouse and to a village with stone money.

They call Yap the land of stone money and the concept behind it is unique. The large stone disks with the big hole in the middle is their traditional form of currency. It worked for both bartering and decoration. The stones that the discs are made from are not found on their island, but far away on the neighboring islands, so it wasn’t like you could just make new money there. They used the money mainly for ransom. Our guide said that if a man from a different village did something wrong, they would tie him to a tree and make the people of his village pay a ransom to get him back, kind of like bail I guess. It was very fascinating. I would have loved to bring home some of the stone money as a souvenir, but I found it impossible to move.

Katie

Kiwis in New Zealand

Near the North Island of New Zealand, white island is privately owned and still has sulfur spewing up from the volcano there. When asked why the guy who owns it bought the island, he said he just thought it would be neat to own a volcano. The other geysers are from a geo thermal reserve near Tauranga, New Zealand in a town called Rotarua (Roto Ruwa.) You can practically see the sulfur stink can’t you?

The last photo is of the infamous Kiwi bird. Kiwis are nocturnal and their habitats are created with very very low light, which is why the photo looks kinda like a blob with a pencil beak, but take my word for it, that’s a kiwi.

Katie

Glow Worms

When I was a kid, I had a little toy glow worm that glowed in the dark. I always thought it was the coolest toy, but I never imagined the real thing might actually exist, or that I’d have a chance to see it one day. Glow worms are found only in Australia and New Zealand. They are translucent and it’s actually their poop that glows. Bugs are attracted to the tiny luminescent dots in the dark caves that the worms life in. The bugs fly to toward the light and get caught in the worm’s sticky lines that they hang around them.

The worms are very sensitive to light and sound so only our guides had lanterns to take us through the caves. We weren’t supposed to take any photos, but of course I had to sneak a few. I had my flash off and I waited until the guide was talking so no one heard the click on my camera. When they had all the lights off it just looked like a million tiny blue stars around us. The shots I took are from waist level looking straight up. The last photo looks kind of wormy, but it’s actually just me moving the camera during a 30 second exposure. The worms themselves are long and clear and there’s a dot of light they emit at the tail end. This was an amazing sight to see.

Katie

Christchurch, New Zealand

I was able to do my first tour in Christchurch, New Zealand. I was so lucky to have this tour in particular because it went by a location where they shot Narnia. For the first half of this tour I went on a long ride out of Christchurch up into the mountains. I went on an off-road adventure on winding dirt roads to some amazing vistas. Next the site of the chronicles of Narnia shoot.

Katie

Christmas and New Years

Christmas and New Years on the ship was great. There’s always a nice dinner for the staff upstairs on Christmas day. I had shrimp and steak with plumb pudding for dessert. The shore excursions manager brought party popper things with paper hats and little toys. It felt like a very British Christmas.

Then New Years Eve was one wild party all over the ship. I got pictures with Gene, my friend from my past two ships, and Sydney who I just met this contract. Gene is very short, so I had to squat down, since I was in heels and towering at about 6’2” Sydney is around my height, she’s the one I’m not crouching next to. All the crew were decked out in their finest partying until the wee hours of the morning. I called it quits around 2am, but I was told the party didn’t stop till 5.

Katie

Dry Dock is Done

I’ve been supremely busy this cruise. It seems to me that dry dock caused more problems than solutions. Certainly it needed to happen, but when the contractors left and all the water and power was turned on around the ship, there was chaos. Pipes burst, rooms flooded, lights and sound didn’t work, and who was left to clean up? That’s right your faithful crew who also had to prepare to take on an overbooked ship of passengers on their Christmas cruise in a matter of hours. Needless to say, the ship wasn’t ready. We had a really rough start to this cruise, and now almost two weeks later, when the cruise is nearly finished, we are finally starting to get everything back to the way it should have been from the beginning.

After doing five days of work alone, my assistant arrived. He’s Filipino and his name is Edmark. I’m told that traditionally in the Philippines parents will give their children a mix of their two names, like Edna and Marcus make up Edmark. He’s proved to be a great assistant. He had to jump right in and start work having come from a short vacation and from a completely different department, he was food and beverage before, luckily he was equal to the task. He’s nice and sweet, a little shy, and I think I’ve finally convinced him to stop calling me Ma’am. Made me feel like a school teacher.

Here are shots from the last day of dry dock when they put the propellers on our ship again. They are massive and so cool looking. They are the only part of the outside of the ship that isn’t painted over. They had one wrapped in plastic because they were painting the hull of the ship. I took another picture of the front of the ship because there happened to be two dock workers having a cigarette break below. I did a really long exposure so they are kinda blurred, but that little white blob on the ground next to the ship is two people.

Katie

Dry Dock

Uncle Todd requested photos of the dry dock, and I’m not one to disappoint. Not that I’m that great of a thing photographer, but a big old ship out of water is a cool looking thing. They were working on the props when I took these so that’s why you can’t see any propellers in the back. If I get the chance, I’m going to go out again and shoot the back end with the propellers on.

Only a few days to go and we’ll be out to sea again. I’ve been working like crazy trying to get everything ready, I have no assistant at the moment and I just found out he won’t be joining until five days into the Christmas Cruise. It’s terrible to have to work alone on a ship at all, let alone over a Christmas cruise (they’re the worst.) You have a ship full of people who want the perfect family holiday served to them on a platter, and I don’t care how shiny the silver platter is, nothing is perfect.

Luckily I can stay out of the lime light for the most part. I’ll be busy, but I’m still going to make time to do the international choir, and I’m sure there will be a great dinner Christmas night. I’m going to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Years now because I probably won’t be able to in the middle of the holidays. Have a good time, eat, drink and be merry and I’ll talk to you again in the new year.

Katie

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Brisbane, Australia, where we are in dry dock, is North of Sydney. I have had the chance to get off a couple of times. One night I went out to get some supplies and have a few drinks in an Irish pub with some of the crew. Another time I went out for the day to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. I got to hold a Koala Bear and I got up close and personal with wild lorikeets. The bird picture hasn’t been color enhanced, that’s how vibrant the lorikeets were.

The sanctuary has 130 koalas that are all kept in open enclosures with fresh eucalyptus leaves for them to munch on. Koalas are nocturnal so most of them were sleeping or looked very sleepy. They are a little freaky looking when they’re awake cuz their eyes are all red, but when they’re sleeping they’re sooo cute. They just sit on a branch and ball themselves up. They kind of remind me of Muppets. The sanctuary had lots of other animals including kangaroos you could feed.

Katie