Cookie Bake

Friends and neighbors came over for our annual cookie bake. But the cookie bake isn’t just about eating and watching Die Hard 1 and 2, (our idea of Christmas movies) it is a working holiday party. Everyone took part in rolling dough, cutting and frosting their cookies, and of course doing the occasional quality control taste testing.

Katie

The WLOS Bear

The news station has a bear. Well, we don’t exactly have it, but it’s shown up a few times and everyone gets so excited when it’s in the parking lot, they all run outside to see. Sometimes I think they get too close. I was standing in the bed of my truck with one of news photographers when the bear wandered down in our direction and we both got some great shots. We think it’s blind in one eye and might be sick. It was way too thin and didn’t seem to be bothered by the crowd near by. We called the park service and they said they couldn’t do anything so we stopped using the outside garbage cans in hopes it will move on.

For those who don’t know, my sister, Rebecca, is now working abroad teaching advanced English at a University in China. She is going through training where she teaches young students, but at the start of the new semester she will be teaching college students. She’s not very good at keeping in touch with people and I expect if you tried to email her, she wouldn’t respond. She just asked that the few people who are getting her emails pass them along to other people who are interested so here are some excerpts from emails she’s sent:

Katie

“First as I viewed the plane, it was like this big white bird thing with small narrow eyes and pilots for pupils.”

“The Beijing airport is pretty busy and thank goodness my new friends helped me get through all of the security lines and bag checks.”

“I have arrived and my place is on the first floor, there are neighbors who live up on the second floor, and they invited me for dinner, then the people who I will be working with invited me for dinner also. So I had two invitations on the first night, I feel like quite the social success.”

“I have an extra bedroom and one of my toilets [Western] flushes really good, so if you want to come and visit keep that in mind.”

“I have three new friends today. I can't pronounce their names so I just call them by the first letter A, B, and L. But they took me shopping and thank goodness because the grocery story is three stories.”

“On the first day the kids were so excited to see me, their new English laoshi. When I arrived, they all ran up to touch me and say halloo. I was in a swarm, holding their hands all the way up stairs to the teacher's office. And then under the desk, more children were hiding so that they could see me too. Once everyone was shooed out of the office, I had some hot water and went to class. Here the kids like to repeat every word that you say. And when I started talking, some of them looked so confused. Their little faces scrunched up as they were trying to understand the new English accent. It seems they can understand English, only if it is spoken with a Chinese accent.”

“Apparently if you want cheese in China, you have to go all the way to Beijing. My upstairs neighbor brought me back some today; I am very excited about it…I also never thought anything could be cheesier than Spanish soap operas, until now. The Chinese may not have a lot of cheese, but they certainly have a lot of cheesze.”

“My evening classes with the adults are the most fun… I gave them each a piece of Dove and told them to smell it, not eat it, and then I made everyone tell me a few descriptive words about the smell. Some people said that the smell made them think of sitting beside a peaceful river, some said that they felt greedy, and some said that it just made them smile. And I told them that there were no wrong answers.”

Cover Shoot

The cover shoot for the catalog I was working on was an amazing experience. Susan Rienhart, a writer for the Citizen-Times and our model for the day, was a real trooper with the myriad of set ups we squeezed in and Sam did a great job as my assistant. She even shot the behind the scenes photo of me. Everyone did fabulous work in design, hair, make up and more. I haven't seen the finished magazine yet, but the photos look great!

Catalog Shoot

Here are some highlights from the catalog shoot I finished last month. I had to shoot a myriad of products, which made the job very challenging, but also very interesting. I shot everything on a white background so they could all be easily cut out and placed on different color backgrounds for the final catalog. Next up, the cover shoot.

Katie

Fall Snow

Ah, Fall. The cool crisp air, the warm, vibrant leaves, the snow…yes, I said snow. I’m not a fan of the cold, but I say if it’s going to get cold enough to snow, it may as well. Freezing cold weather without snow is like crème brulee without crusty caramelized top, and what’s the fun in that. So I guess if it has to be freezing this early in the year, it might as well snow, and man did it ever. Our brightly colored leaves were blanked with fat white flakes of it and what a magnificent sight.

Katie

Parade of Homes

I’ve been shooting the most amazing homes in Asheville for our local Parade of Homes in the Citizen-Times. I got to go out, peruse, admire, and photograph a hand full of some really unique houses in the area. If I had a few million kicking around, I might be tempted to snatch one of these up.  This one was my favorite. It was an old barn that was completely taken apart and reused in the house along with both new and recycled materials.

Katie

Flying Trapeze

How does that flying trapeze song go? Someone flies through the air with greatest of ease? Liars. Doing the flying trapeze is really difficult. The song writers only picked those words because they rhyme. I had the great fortune to have a flying trapeze lesson and I flew through the air with great difficulty. It was a lot of fun though, I had a blast. There are some flying trapeze artists in town who are giving lessons for a month. If you are in the Asheville area and have always dreamed of running away to join the circus, here is your chance for a taste. You can find all the info you need at the following site. Click on Flying trapeze:

http://www.ashevilleaerialarts.com/

Katie

New Catalog Shoot Coming Up

When it rains, it pours and I have been in a deluge of work over the past couple of weeks. I’ve been prepping for a catalog shoot that I just became the primary photographer for. I’ll be shooting clothing, food, and artwork, among other things. I’ve attached the spec sheet of clothing that I shot. I also attached some of the pieces that I sent as samples of my product photography. On top of that, I’ve been shooting gorgeous houses for the parade of homes for the newspaper’s website, and I’ll be sending highlights from that soon. For now, I need to catch up on some sleep. More news to come.

Katie

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.