Nice Day for a Picnic

We’ve been lucky enough to have perfect picnics weather, so Sam and I took advantage. We decided to have a nice long picnic in a field by Warren Wilson and wouldn’t you know there happened to be a guy practicing his spear throwing. That’s right I said spear throwing…only in Asheville.

Katie

A Quick Interview With Me

Interviewer: Aubrey Stevenson

1. I saw in your 'about me' section that you love anything Coldplay. Tell me how music influences your life and the one album you would pick to take with you on a hot air balloon ride!

I use music when I'm writing. It's like the video accompaniment just plays itself in my head. If I'm feeling good, a little reggae will have me bouncing through the day. If I feel bad, Tom Waits will commiserate with me. If I had to take one album with me, I'd say Coldplay's "A Rush of Blood to the Head." That's good for all occasions.

2. What are the most difficult and the most rewarding things about photographing animals?

The most difficult thing about working with animals is getting them to be still when you want them still and getting them to move when you want them to move. The most rewarding thing is getting the shot; because usually there's so much work and time that has gone into it when you finally get something good, it's really satisfying.

3. I see you live in North Carolina. Do you like living there? Why or why not?

I love Asheville and the mountains. I hate the cold though. I miss Florida and the humidity. It sounds insane, I know, but when you have dry skin and perpetually cold feet, a tropical environment is just what the doctor ordered. Asheville is a neat place to be. There are good people here. I have trouble staying put in one place for any length of time, but I'm trying.

4. What inspired you most when deciding to write your first novel?

I think being rejected from the master's program I had applied to was my biggest motivator. Most of the time when I set out to do something, I expect to get it. It's arrogant, but that's me. When I didn't get into the program, I just said, "fine, I'll do it myself."

The story idea came when I saw a quote from the bible about Nephilim and an interpretation about them being half human half angel. I was like, "I read the bible, and I don't remember that part." So I looked it up and there it was. I thought, "how cool is that. What would I do if I suddenly discovered I was half angel?" and the story grew from there.

5. I saw your short animated film. Very funny! Any thoughts about bigger film projects in the future?

I have a couple of ideas. I'd like to do a horror film. I've been wanting to shoot a feature for a while now, but it's all about the story. If you don't have a really good story, the rest is irrelevant. I'm in development now trying to flush out a script. I really want to finish my book first so I can move on and get to movie making.



Here's the directions:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. (I get to pick the questions).
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

The Magic of Childhood

Being a kid is just magic. It’s a time when opening a peanut shell and finding a nut inside is like discovering a pearl in an oyster. In childhood stairs work better than slides and no matter how bruised your butt gets, going down them never gets old.

Katie

Baby Brandon

Remember a while back how I said the two most difficult things you can shoot are animals and children? Well I must just love the challenge of it, because I had to go and tackle the children half of that feat. I was so excited that my trip down to Florida happened to be right after my cousin’s baby was born. I’ve never shot a newborn and I was ready to go all Anne Geddes on him. Brandon, the baby, had different plans.

The first night I was there, he couldn’t settle down and sleep. He also didn’t want to lay down, or be held in any of the ways I wanted him held. He would seem to relax and then when everything was in position, he would start crying. I did get a few nice shots that night, but it wasn’t nearly what I had hoped. Luckily I was able to go back the next day and Brandon slept through the entire shoot. I guess what I’ve learned from all this is that children and animals work on their own schedules and you just have to be patient enough to wait for them…that and catching them while they’re sleeping helps too.

Katie

Jacksonville, FL

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

Kayaking in Jacksonville

Before going to South Florida, I spent a day in Jacksonville with Aunt Marnie, Uncle Todd, Carl and Zack. Aunt Marnie and I went on a kayaking trip through a tributary that lead to the St. Johns River. It was eighty degrees out and I had to borrow flip flops and shorts. I got a few turtle shots, but my favorite is a turtle butt as the turtle slipped away into the water. We passed a canoe with a pet parrot at the bow; I thought that was pretty neat.

Katie

Denmark, South carolina

I’m just back from a whirl wind trip to Florida. I had just three days I could take off from work, so I decided to use them to go see my family in Florida and meet my cousin’s brand new baby. On the trip down I took a small country highway through South Carolina and I passed some really neat old southern style mansions. I had been making good time up until I decided to stop and take pictures, but it was worth it. Most of these houses were in or around the small town of Denmark, South Carolina.

Katie

My first Animation

The animation wars have begun. It all started when Ben, a friend of mine at work, showed me an animation he had made. It was a simple movie, but it inspired me to make a simple animation myself. So armed with clear plastic notebook sleeves, paper, and some dry erase markers I came up with the following movie. After I showed my movie to Ben, it was on. He is now working on a claymation movie, to which I will answer with a claymation of my own. For now, here is the first animation. I estimate, it took me about 4 hours to draw this out, and 2 hours to edit.

Katie

ktdamien has shared a video with you on YouTube:

The Horror
A stickman discovers his hometown is over run with zombies. Will he make it out alive?45 seconds of cheezy animated horror movie goodness. Drawn using paper, clear plastic sleeves, colored pencils, and a dry erase marker.

If you can't see the link above, copy and paste this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qftYDY2EzYM

Merry Christmas

In the film and photo world there are two notoriously difficult subjects to work with: children and animals. I chose the latter. When deciding on a subject for a holiday greeting, our dogs just seemed like the natural choice. They’re fairly well behaved animals, they know how to sit and stay, they even rollover sometimes when pressed. I was sure with a little bit of cheese for bribery I could easily get my Christmas shots.

Well, after a few failed attempts to get them together, I decided to shoot each dog separately and photoshop them together later. Huney (the hound) didn’t care to have anything on her head which she made it abundantly clear with her expression. Mae West (with the tongue) was the consummate professional and was fairly sedate and easy to pose. Her only problem was that whenever a “treat” came out, she would immediately rollover three times to prove how worthy she was to receive said treat. Silvia (the young pug) is persistently hyper and the mere fact that we could get her to sit still for a few seconds at a time was miraculous in itself. So here it is my deceptively simple Christmas greeting. Enjoy!

Katie

A Night Out/In

Sam, Mom and I just had a fabulous night out or in rather, watching the new Sex and the City movie over at our neighbor’s house. Of course we had to dress for the occasion and though I wouldn’t give the movie my highest rating, the night was a smashing success. The dogs… well they were lazing about today and are thrown into this Chronicle for extra cuteness.

Katie

Skiing at Chataloochee

The Cataloochee ski area in Maggie valley was having its annual canned food drive, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to go skiing. Sam and Ashley had never been skiing before, being from Florida and Louisiana respectively, so we all decided to go up and ski for the day. Sam took to it like someone who was born around snow and by the end she and I had progressed to a more difficult slope. Ashley had a little more trouble her first time out, but she kept at it and we all had a blast. On the bunny slope there was one little girl who hadn’t so much learned how to stop as she had learned that sliding down the slope on her butt would eventually make her come to a stop. One time she came careening at me and ended up stopping right under me. I snapped a quick shot of her in her stopping pose.

Katie

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.”