Do you speak in images? Enjoy taking photos to document your experiences or just to express what you notice in the world? Love to share them with others? Welcome to the weekly photo challenge! I post a new challenge each week…check in regularly and join the fun!

As I think about possible photo prompts, I try to think about the variety of images that might be possible with the particular prompt.  I like to think about “out of the box” interpretations as well as those  that might be expected.  So this week as I considered pictures I might include along with the prompt, I was thinking about the relationship between a photo of a hang glider, a bee, some geese, and a balloon rocket…and they all seemed to suggest something along the line of in flight.

The most literal is the hang glider I couldn’t resist following with my camera while walking on the beach on Sunday.  We were down at La Jolla Shores, not far from the glider port, and could see gliders in the distance.  One came over the bluffs and got quite close…and here is a shot.

And I was recently in Ohio where I saw many things that are different from the things I see in San Diego.  One example is this family of geese walking across the parking lot.  They are clearly not in flight…but seeing them creates images in my head of that magnificent “V” of geese in flight, most often seen by me in movies and picture books.

And school is still in session in my district.  This week we were out in the garden, enjoying the abundance growing in our Scrumptious Schoolyard.  There were birds, butterflies and bees diving in and out of the blossoms taking care of the business of pollination.

For the last few weeks our students have been busy with balloon rockets in the science lab. They developed hypotheses, created launch procedures and data tables, and then tested their theories as they flew their rockets across the room.  It wasn’t easy catching these rockets in action.  Here’s one in flight.

I couldn’t resist this final photo of one of my favorite photo subjects: dandelions.  I love this version of a dandelion with most of its seeds blown away.  For me it suggests that the fluffy, wisps of seed pods are in flight…heading toward a place where they will take root and proliferate, maybe even in a sidewalk crack.  I love the tenacity and strength of the dandelion!

So this week’s challenge is to find subjects that are in flight.  Those flights might be the literal leaving of the ground of an airplane or bird or the fanciful flights of imagination and whimsy. Maybe your photo is grounded…but suggests flight (like my geese).  As always, you are the one who gets to decide what counts as in flight…so have fun, and take to the air!

You can post your photo alone or along with some words: commentary, a story, a poem…maybe even a song! I love to study the photographs that others’ take and think about how I can use a technique, an angle, or their inspiration to try something new in my own photography. (I love a great mentor text…or mentor photo, in this case!)

I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #inflight for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

So let your imagination and your camera lens take flight! I can’t wait to see what you find.