July 31, 2005
More from 1983-1989
Christmas 1983
June 1984 Little Italy
The Curly Years - Jersey Shore 1984
More photos...
48th Street Rooftop 1988
Self-Portrait 1989
In the Pool 1989
As is being revealed my life has been somewhat about my hair. Banana curls, long-long, pixie, perm,
and much more to come. Also through my first 40 years photography was a major driving force of my life.
Posted by photocartoonist at 8:46 PM
Coming to New York City
In 1979 I decided that I was going to Paris, as in Paris France. I wanted to live in a place where they loved their artists and I decided this was best Paris. I had met a family of French restauranteurs in Atlanta and was told that they would help me. So off I went back to Atlanta and left Chicago for good.
But instead of Paris, I ended up in New York City on May 12, 1981.
In New York City I started a series of photo promotions; first an oversized matchbook and then a poster. I believe in the self-portrait. It shows a side that cannot be captured by another photographer. A photograph is more a statement about the photographer than it is a representation of the
person in front of the lense.
The camera does not lie; but it doesnt' really tell the truth either. So at its best photography represents
the vision of the photographer.
From 1979 - 1984 I was a bartender at night to keep from being literally a starving artist. It was a great experience and fostered my fascination with characters.
More photos...
I met my husband and partner Thomas Hudson Reeve in 1982. He use to stop in the bar I worked in and for many months I didn't know his name, just what he drank. We started dating in 1983 and by 1984 were living together. We married in 1990 and our partnership in No Evil Productions is like our second vows!
Ah the start of my holiday series! This photo was taken on July 4, 1985. Little did I know
it then but this was the beginning of working on holidays and birthdays and occasions for
greeting cards. Here it started as photo postcards that I mailed out every month.
1984 was the start of my fine art photography career; photography without a client, but with an even bigger purpose. It was the start of my street photography and my experimentation, my fascination with black and white.
The end of the 1980's marked the end of an era. I had jobs as a bartender, as a photo lab technician, as a photographer, but by 1987 I was working for myself and had started putting together what would become my greeting card designer career.
Posted by photocartoonist at 7:41 PM
July 30, 2005
Cake on the Internet
by DEANNA DAHLSAD
Has the Internet gone too far?
With the proliferation of the internet, folks now celebrate their
birthdays digitally. There are emoticons that hug you, chat room
birthday parties, e-cards, & even e-invitations to chat room birthday
celebrations.
Has technology gone too far? Have real birthday parties been replaced by
digital celebrations? Have geeks & technology won, rendering greeting
cards, real hugs from family & friends, and even birthday cake obsolete?
Is there no end to the madness?!
Now, thanks to BirthdaysBlow.com, you can even have your digital cake &
make fun of the times too!
Watch the singing robot as he makes birthday cake, “tastes like a TV
set.” Mmmmm
Posted by photocartoonist at 8:52 PM
Graduating to The Apprentice
School, important formative years, that is until I got my Catwoman glasses. And the name; yes the name. I was born Kathleen Anne Klutcharch. The family name was Klutsarets but my father and his brothers, tired of people's inability to spell it, changed their name to Klutcharch; a fact I would have to live down until I changed my name to Caverly in 1973.
I loved those glasses but I was teased unrelentingly. My nicknames included Catwomen and Computer. I wore glasses and or had contact lenses all the way through high school. I don't have any pictures from the years between 1969-1975 because, well, my father threw them away.
When I ran away to be a photographer in 1976, I gave a special box to my father which included my collection of photos taken after I became seriously interested in photography in 1971. When I came back to reclaim them in 1981 I was told that they has been thrown away. I am still not over this loss.
I started my apprenticeship as a photographer in a commerical color lab in Chicago in 1975 and by 1976 I ran away to be a hippie photographer and join a motley band of hangglider pilots. I started to work in studios and soon learned that my specialty was photographing people. I vividly remember my fascination with this belt; a plastic see-through belt with silver sparkled stars.
I also got a tattoo in 1976; a blue crescent moon, yellow star and three red teardrops on my right wrist. As I would find out in 1980, this is my identifiable mark, and except when I have covered it with theatrical make-up you will find it in photos of me over the years.
More photos...
I started my fashion and beauty apprenticeship in Atlanta in 1978 and I learned from some of the best. It was a wild world, however, and I was one of the few women behind the camera.
In order to truly understand what it was like, I decided to come out from behind the camera and I was photographed many times, the whole treatment, make-up artists, hairdressers, designer clothes...
I grew my hair very long and before I cut it in 1980, it got almost to my knees.
But mostly on the set, in the studio every day I looked like this:
I realize by looking at these pictures that things were happening quite fast for me back then. I left school, ran away to be a photographer, lived on a mountain top outside Chattanooga Tennessee and came back to Chicago all within just 4 years. I had graduated high school in 3 years, worked as a keyline and paste-up artist, went back to school and did research in behavioral physiology while studying psychology and became a professional photographer. WOW.
Posted by photocartoonist at 2:41 PM
July 29, 2005
Who Suffers from DGB?
by DEANNA DAHLSAD
I have a brother-in-law that I adore. However, as is the case with most brother-in-laws, I never know what to get him. Worse yet, is the selection of a birthday card. This is partially due to the fact that our relationship is based mostly in teasing each other. That, and he's a guy - getting any fella a mushy sentimental card puts you on the 'eeiiiwwww list' for life. If I send him a mushy e-card to his office email, I can be certain that I will forever be referred to as 'Her' in less than flattering terms...
Brother-in-laws aren't the only difficult ones to get birthday cards for. What about that girl you meet a few weeks ago in chat? She mentioned her birthday, but you don't know her that well... but she's so sweet, you don't want to let her special day go by without wishing her well...
There are co-workers, grandparents, aunts, kids, and virtually any man
(I've ever met anyway)...
These are people who suffer from DGB: Difficult to Greet on Birthday-itus.
Those who wish to celebrate their birthdays also suffer. :(
If you are looking for a funny way to send birthday wishes to those people in your life who suffer from DGB, try BirthdaysBlow.com.
Quirky, strange & warped, these cards are funny enough to generate a genuine lol, or at least a smile; without any inappropriate stuff to get you or them in trouble.
It's an experience that will leave you all smiling.
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:21 PM
School Daze: the Chicago years
a photo bio-essay by Kat Caverly
I am always amazed by the frufru and girly stuff I was dressed up in as a little girl. Look closely, even my little fingernails are red and check out the matching shoes and purse. And that hat!!
Ah yes, there is one of these in every family album! Take a real close look at this picture and tell me what you really see!!
Oh boy do I remember this photograph. I use to pout alot...I still do. I was prone to tantrums (still am) and never liked being told no. So my father taunted me with the camera when I started to pout; you know the bottom lip coming out. He thought it was funny and he chased me down with the camera. I finally gave up and sat in the shadows.
More pictures....
Between the banana curls, the peddle-pushers and those shoes, WOW!
Now look at those bangs!! Hahaha, even these bangs have a story! This is my thrid grade school photo and my mother got me ready for my close-up; banana curls and all. And she wanted my bangs to be perfect, but they weren't straight and she kept on cutting until they were hardly there at all. I was mortified. This and the collar of my favorite velvet dress sticking out.
Why do we bravely smile no matter what in photographs?
I love family photos and I love that my family took lots and lots of photos. It's great to look back on your life and smile, even laugh.
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:52 PM
July 28, 2005
My Autobiography::A Picture Book
My Life in 50 Pictures by Kat Caverly
I was born on August 7, 1955 at 1:00am on the southside of Chicago. My father contended that I came out talking!
I was put to work before the age of three. My first job was catching dinner. This was my first business failure. But I learned early how to smile through the hard times.
More to come...
My love for the holidays and dressing up animals is a family tradition.
This is the first photograph I remember. I got an Annie Oakley outfit for Christmas and my father, an avid amateur photographer convinced me that I should pose, taking aim at my mother trying to take a nap. I love this photograph and it is the inspiration for my becoming a photographer.
Every picture sure does tell a story. My Uncle Frank was also an avid amateur photographer and I grew up being photographed all of the time. Oh and did I mention that I really did come out talking?!
Every day between now and next Friday I will be posting at least 5 new photographs from my life. It is amazing being a photographer; I have my whole life in pictures and a story about each one.
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:29 PM | Comments (2)
July 26, 2005
A Stand Up Gal
by DEANNA DAHLSAD
In getting her subjects to display their humor & playfulness for the viewfinder, she found that she had a character (or twenty) inside herself. And some of these were not content to be silently adored as prints – no, several of these characters craved the spotlight, laughter & applause.
In order for these characters to achieve such audience adoration, they demanded proper training. Lacking proper identification of their own, Kat Caverly enrolled for them: acting classes, voice work, improv classes, clown school, mime lessons, stand up comedy... For a few, even this wasn't enough: They would require shows of their own.
Through these performances, characters such as Shirley Kenosha, Mona Moore & The Professor received their much loved laughter, & Kat Caverly learned more about what 'funny' was to other people.
With Shirley she clowned around; combining stand up with mime actions to put the 'punch' in 'punch lines.' With Mona she learned that the rhythm of Beat poetry and the rhythm of comedy are very much the same; all adding to the playful qualities of her photos and the humor of the greeting card text.
With The Professor, the lessons were different, but important.
"I had created this funny little man character, The Professor, and I was a lot like a cross between Jerry Lewis and Lucille Ball. I went to this club in full costume (drag if you will) and I had special buck teeth and prosthetic male genitalia and all. We had built special body suits for various characters. I had a male-chest and special tidy-whities.
The low point was being put in a room at a comedy club that I wouldn't have put a stray animal in while I was waiting to go on stage. I found myself telling off the club manager as I left the club!! With those teeth! “ It was the final straw, I never performed at the comedy clubs again after that...”
You could argue that this was yet another example of Kat Caverly's personal character – not wishing to work in such environments. But it would be just as fair to say that her inner characters were divas in search of larger audiences...
For why play New York when you can have the whole world as your audience on the internet?!
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:11 PM
July 23, 2005
Kat Caverly Ends Up on the Streets
photo©Kat Caverly
As Kat Caverly presented her portfolio of photos taken of people at play, she was told her work was too commercial for newspapers, too humorous for corporate use; advertising agencies sent her to magazines, and magazines sent her back to newspapers... Rather than change the very nature of what her photography was, Kat Caverly knew she would have to find a new industry, a new venue for her works - if her photographs were to have any use, she would have to see to that herself. And so she entered the greeting card business - The Photocartoonist was born.
Read Interview with The Photocartoonist.
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:49 PM
July 22, 2005
Finding Characters in New York City
self-portrait 1986©Kat Caverly
In attempts to liberate herself from her work as an assignment photographer & begin to see the better side of humanity than she was witnessing as a bartender, Kat Caverly took to the streets.
Prepared by her lessons in behavioral psychology, armed with releases & her camera, Kat began to flaunt the silly side of people.
“My work as a street photographer was an exploration into humor good nature. Asking adults to play on the street with a perfect stranger (or was it perfectly strange?) taught me a lot about human behavior. I learned quickly that I really didn't need the camera.”
Now that Kat was able to play with her subjects, and make photographs that exposed more than physical features or a list of pre-described attributes, she happily took her film home to see what would develop.
It is here that The Photocartoonist was born: using her knowledge of people and photography to show the characters that are sitting inside human beings.
But what of the characters that lay inside The Photocartoonist?
Posted by photocartoonist at 11:15 PM
July 21, 2005
The Apprenticeship of Kat Caverly
1976-1986
When we last left, Kat Caverly had begun her career in photography.
It wasn't as glamorous as it sounds.
As a commercial & corporate photographer, she had specific assignments - including portrait works. While the job of a portrait photographer is to capture more than the physical likeness of a person, to capture & illustrate their character as well, these portraits were to illuminate the “strong, capable, wise” leader, and shadow their other attributes. This assignment work didn't allow Kat a way to express anything more (or less) than as directed.
These years of working on assignments allowed her to use her training as a behavioral scientist to get people to relax in front of a camera. Kat herself says “I think that the most important element in portrait photography is the ability to relax a person in front of the camera. Over the course of my career I heard being photographed be compared to "going to the dentist" more than just a few times. So the one and only thing that I want my subjects to be thinking about is BREATHING. I will do the rest.”
As a fashion photographer, Kat was allowed to express feelings & meanings, not merely show what things look like. But this too was limited to the assignment. None of this work was allowing to her to use photography to illuminate what she wanted or what she saw in the people she worked with. But she had to pay bills.
At this time Kat also worked as a bartender. It doesn't take a behavioral scientist to tell you that working as a bartender is also not glamorous as it sounds...
Becoming frustrated by seeing the worst of people as a bartender, and having a limited focus as a corporate photographer, Kat Caverly would take to the streets...
excerpts from The Biography by DEANNA DAHLSAD
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:58 PM
July 20, 2005
Kat Caverly:: A Piece of Work
A Career in Five parts (so far)
The Science of Kat Caverly
It's hard to imagine Kat Caverly as a scientist, quietly observing, not interacting with 'the subjects.' (For those that know Kat, just the quiet part seems impossible!) Despite the difficulty picturing her in the role of scientist, she was one.
She'd always had an interest in photography, but once studying with a professor who had a darkroom in the lab, she became even more interested. It remained a hobby though, while she continued to work towards her collateral MD/PHD.
That is until the summer before her last year as an undergrad.
That summer she got a job in a commercial color photo lab. Science may have been her choice, but art was her calling. Combining both, Kat Caverly ended up in love with photography.
And falling in love with a professional photographer; she ran off with him the following summer. That romance may not have lasted, but the love of photography has.
by DEANNA DALSAD
Posted by photocartoonist at 10:00 PM
July 14, 2005
Mizaru, Kikazaru, and Iwazaru for the 21st Century
Shoot No Evil, Record No Evil, Write No Evil
No Evil Productions is named for the proverbial word to the wise, “See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil”. This saying is like a traffic tip on the road of life; you will avoid much trouble if you steer clear of the evil.
Illustrated by the three famous monkeys for hundreds of years, the concept came from Buddhism and originated in Japan. Now the monkeys and the motto they embody are known around the world as an icon of a simple truth in any society.
We always liked the monkeys. It seems like they’re having fun. We think that they seem curious, even when captured in their classic pose. We suspect that when we’re not watching they are off doing something else, nothing evil, of course, but probably something fun.
by THOMAS HUDSON REEVE
Posted by photocartoonist at 4:06 PM
July 11, 2005
Juiceball: As American as Baseball, Mom, and McDonald’s Apple Pie
Commentary on Newgrounds.com
There has been an awesome response to Juiceball on Newgrounds.com; lots of love and even some hate. Cool!
We were a little surprised that any offense was taken by what we considered some pretty tame spoofing. Tastes and sensitivities vary, of course, and maybe we could have guessed, but we really see this weighing in as rather gentle irony, not caustic ridicule. We hope that people will appreciate it in the spirit that it is offered.
Humor has always been a good way to bring up a touchy topic, but hitting the funny bone sometimes entails some discomfort.
In this case we are struck by the observation that we Americans are in turmoil over what we put into our bodies, and what we know we shouldn’t put into our bodies. We often tell each other what we should do, but then we have trouble doing so ourselves.
We seem to want the “More-Bigger” even when it could kill us. Why?
Anyway, we thought it was a little funny, and we appreciate the feed back from all of you because it helps us learn. Thanks.
As for you poor humorless souls that detect a slight against the national honor, let me remind you that it is a time honored American tradition to satirize the foibles around us and within us. A democratic republic doesn’t simply permit its citizens to say what they think, it needs them to do so.
So God Bless America, and pass the Pie!
By THOMAS HUDSON REEVE
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:11 PM
July 9, 2005
America's Pass Time
Written and directed by Thomas Hudson Reeve Juiceball is a satirical commentary on the All American pastimes; baseball and fast foods. A whimsical look at the serious issue of performance enhancement drugs in sports, Juiceball gives "super size me" a new meaning.
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:42 PM
July 4, 2005
Happy Fourth of July
For more Fourth of July greetings and animations visit eCardology.com! Happy Independnce Day!
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:42 AM
July 1, 2005
Please Vote YES for Kung Foo-ey
Click on the Image Above
Scroll down to the fourth row, we are on the end. Your support and encouragement are greatly appreciated. Thank you. Click Here to vote!
Posted by photocartoonist at 9:57 AM