My daily blog post is most often the result of a percolation of ideas throughout the day…written toward the end of the day.  Today I knew I would be writing about my week of focusing on angles –this week’s #sdawpphotovoices topic.  My morning began. as it often does on Sunday, with some time reading articles on Twitter.  Today’s @brainpicker post was about a book called On Looking: Eleven Walks With Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz.

As I read the review of the book I found myself thinking about how photo-a-day has impacted the way I look and what I see as I go about my daily life.  And then I saw Janis’s post today on SDAWP Voices as she reflected on her week–and she was saying similar things about her experience (and she had also read the same post by @brainpicker this morning!).  This book focuses on the ways a different lens opens up an entirely different experience of the place.  When you walk with a toddler and pay attention to how that toddler pays attention, you see a different place than the familiar routine you are used to. What does your dog see?  How about an entomologist?

Back to angles…this week’s photo-a-day focus.  I took a lot of pictures this week, from a variety of angles, of a variety of angles…angles were everywhere!  Some of my favorite pictures of the week I never did post on Instagram.  But because I am writing every day to post to this blog, my pictures also become a stimulus for my writing and my thinking.

I love this picture of the lone fisherman with his pole angled in the surf.  I don’t often take pictures of people–it feels awkward to photograph people I don’t know…and I didn’t want him to pose.  Instead I took the picture from a distance, knowing I would lose the details of his face. The bonus is the reflection!  I can see writing a story with this photo as the prompt…I think the story is already beginning to take shape for me.

This angry bird kite was roosting in the tree above the beach.  Its angles had it caught pretty securely in the intertwining branches…in fact I saw it again several days later on a walk later in the week.  I love the play on words and images of the bird kite in the tree.

Shell fragments are common on the beach, but coming across an entire shell–especially one still connected and angled like this is a rare occurrence.  If you look closely you can see the strand of sea grass lying in the background.  I wonder if a seagull got this tasty morsel!

Coming down the ramp from the parking lot, I got to see these wonderful flat and yet angled rooftops of the new concession stand and bathrooms.  I love the way that architecture can take straight lines and create unexpected angles by the way they are placed in relation to each other.

Tomorrow I will shift my focus from angles to patterns.  Added to my photography focus and blogging focus, I will also be thinking about all the other ways I might see the world through the lens of a child, or an architect, a scientist, or an artist.  I’ll also try “seeing” the world through my other senses–how does what I hear impact what I see?  What about smell, taste, and touch?

What have you failed to notice?  How can you shift your attention to see more of your world?