Captured by Kat

Kat. 27. They/them. These are my photos. This is a side blog so I can't follow you back! But I will on my main :)

[capturedbykat]

It's not really a triptych, but I also edited these three photos to be submitted to the member's show at Nunu's, since each member can show up to three pieces. All three were taken on film cameras in the spring. The first is the Bayou behind Myran's. The second two were both taken on a walk on the UL Campus.

They all remind me of a very particular time in my life, I suppose Spring 2025, when I came to Louisiana to start a new life and found myself starting anew with one person in particular. These images feel historical in the mythos of my life story. What a terribly emotional time. It's hard to believe it's November and these are images of the past; in Louisiana, it can almost feel like life is one extended summer. Things are finally cooling down though, and with the more introverted energy, I hope to spend more time making artworks.

[capturedbykat]

I also desaturated the image after everything, and I kind of love it as a warm greyscale image. I pushed the warmth as far as I possibly could, and it reminded me of when I'd get the nice warm photo paper in college and print my images on it, even though it was more expensive.

[capturedbykat]

Tonight I played around more in photoshop to try to achieve some fun effects. I thought this triple exposure would look cool if I could give it an old photo vibe. After some playing around, I think I managed something with some nuance (rather than just a flat sepia). I think it suits the nature of the image.

skipping stones

Holga, multiple exposure, digital manipulation

[radiostasis]

I also made a slower version because idk, something about drenching an image in blue "pigment" until it's essentially a bluescreen made me think of old computers/old tech and the classic blue screen of death so... I made a slower version. You can kinda see in this one how the last ten additions are still adding in this one because it goes slow enough to perceive the tiny changes

[capturedbykat]

bluescreen

Holga, multiple exposure, digital manipulation

[radiostasis]

I messed around with gifs in photoshop today for the first time since college. it all started last night when I was looking at/editing photos and I got really into what happened when you just keep adding blue to the midtones.... 54+ blue really has this jarring effect

[capturedbykat]

I wasn't going to share this here, but then I figured, why not. It was my first foray back into digital workflow, now that I have a handful of images to work with. Funky experiments are always a good way to start!

[capturedbykat]

I submitted this self portrait entitled "Scarab" to the local queer zine Cher this evening. It was really just a away to showcase the scarab beetle necklace, but the prompt for this issue is "your gayest work" and I think a self portrait of me is pretty damn gay. Whether or not it gets accepted, I like how it turned out so I'm sharing it here. It's been a while since I did something like this, and I think it's not half bad for being shot on an iphone.

[capturedbykat]

I developed film for the first time since moving to Louisiana. Four rolls - a portra from my Holga, a roll of the coveted Superia X-Tra 400 on my old college friend's Olympus point-and-shoot, a years expired polaroid roll on my dad's old Nikon FG that has belonged to me for years now, and a disposable I'd found in my basement from the late 2010s. I'm no longer using my old standby, Old School Labs, whom I was faithful to throughout the pandemic and after (being that I left NYC and could no longer go downtown to Luster). This new lab did my scans incredibly quickly, and created a portal for me, selecting this photo as the cover image. I'm tired today, but it's all incredibly motivating, along with all the other churning forces that have been propelling me into my new life over the past four months. It's hard to believe I've only been here for four months, and have only known the folks I know here for that long, not even. In two days, I turn thirty, and a few days later, a piece of my heart leaves this city for the next chapter in his adventures. As my life shifts into this next arc, I'm going to be throwing myself, finally, into all the creative acts I've neglected in favor of taking care of my own personal growth. Writing music, playing banjo, piano, and shooting shooting shooting.

There were days and days where I'd be coming off a strange "bender" of a time in Arnaudville, and whether it was morning and I was gazing into the face of the Acadiana fog settled over the blue-green of the morning fields or a brilliant cloud-littered sunset, I had the urge every time to capture. To set up my camera on a tripod and capture the feeling of standing, staring at the beautiful cane field and the trees, and the distant metal shacks and the cows. The tiny house and the blue twinkling lights of Nunu's as I'd pull my volvo into the grass across the way. It was all so poignant, but I didn't have my digital camera experience up to snuff yet enough to attempt to capture it. This year will be my foray back into that after a decade (?!) of time away. Shame that I stopped for so long, but maybe by this time next year I'll be able to make trips to Nunu's enough that I can capture what enraptures me about this place. At least a little bit of it. For now, and as usual, feeling enough inspiration to pick up the camera was the first step...

[capturedbykat]

In 2020, I entered in the Holga week competition. I kept meaning to return to it, and finally did this year. I was very out of touch with the Holga and most of my photos didn't turn out because of poor lighting. Of the ones I managed to capture, these were definitely the best. I'm not sure they were winning shots, but they are encapsulating of a time in my life. Sidewalk chalk with Luca and Ruby, my wonderful new niece and nephew, right before my brother got married, and then after; in the wake of my dad's death, walking with my best friend and telling her everything. My naivete with the camera shows, and I don't think these are winning photos, but there's something to be said about beginning again, after a long pause. You have to face failures sometimes to then dig your heels in and try harder. I think that can be said for life in general. My submissions are more for me, than anything else, and a reminder to let the spark catch fire as I enter this next phase of life and art

[capturedbykat]

ephemeral;

[capturedbykat]

the archival impulse. how long has photography been a medium for me to express myself? as long as i've had my hands on cameras. i've had pauses but i always find myself coming back to life through a glass lens, a moment captured imperfectly but recorded nonetheless as a fragment of time and space and energy. my body of work always comes back to making sense of my own life, finding meaning in my narrative. the personal, the intimate, and the specific, all the various roles and characters and identities that compose my line of existence. i had some beautiful words on my tongue earlier, something that summed up why my art - which is about deconstructing me - is valuable as actual artwork, and not just narcissism or hobbyism. I've lost the words since, and to be honest I'm not even sure if it is. All I know right now is that it's a feeble attempt to express things which words alone can't, which memory alone keeps confined, and which brighten my spirit as a tangible form lived beauty. I want to archive it all, all these attempts, but I've always been subject to starting many projects and ever quite being able to follow through. Why this spark has suddenly flared is the return of more material to work with - mostly failed material, but then there was one photo. One seemingly mundane photo that was hiding something deeper. A connection. I thrive on making meaning from these fragments, these serendipidous accidents that shed light on things the way they were. Something that almost happened, but didn't; and how I miss it. Fragments have somehow always been weaved into my voice and I realized that they still are.

There is a threat in me, since Dad passed away on October 14th. A threat of lights going out, but the glimmer in me that is a spark catches fire through music, art, creation. An airplane, two bodies, a simple conversation, and an archive of memory. I've been activated once again to create, vividly and imperfectly until a life is laid out. If you come across this archive, I hope it's interesting to see the way this one life happened to be laid out - maybe the way I make meaning will strike something meaningful in you too.

[capturedbykat]

// the main subject (of my life during the pandemic) // 

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// pandemic entertainment // 

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// amalgam // 

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// the construction of a memory II //

accidental double exposure

[capturedbykat]

// the construction of a memory  // 

accidental double exposure

[capturedbykat]

// bamboo forest //

accidental double exposure

I told Luke and Emily that I’d never gone to the bamboo forest, so we visited. They both had been a ton of times during college, apparently it had much more bamboo in the early days. This one also annoyed me that it was double exposed, because the shading would have been really nice without all that crap over top of it.