Monthly Archives: July 2015

Doors

Sometimes it’s hard to find openings, ways to get in and get out.

Not all doors look like doors—heavy wooden slabs with handles to turn or pull to open and close. And they are not all found on traditional structures like houses and office buildings.

Sometimes the walls that hold you out are made of reeds growing along the shore,

and frame your view of the world. You are bound by your idea of wall instead of freed by the open door.

Other doors aren’t doors at all, they are signs warning you of the rules, enter at your own risk,

marking boundaries of beginning and ends.

Some doors are small, requiring you to duck low, risk the muck and slime

as you get a glimpse at the light on the other side.

Some doors are bridges to go over or under or through, marking sides, taking sides, allowing access to both sides.

There are doors on platforms, high enough to see above the fray, watchtowers of protection,

hope, and possibility.

Doors can be wide angles, opening to vistas

But you have to find them, recognize them

as openings

as doors

ways in and ways out.

Silent Sunday: July 5, 2015

Weekly Photo Challenge: #Make Art

3 Replies

Some days finding a photo to take and post is a challenge. Most of the photos I take are “found”–meaning that I don’t stage them other than moving around to get a better angle or to change the light. I seldom arrange things or stage a shot. But yesterday was different.

First, I was thinking about the idea of re-mediation, a concept being explored in the second make cycle of the CLMOOC. My photo-a-day prompt was shadow…and I had just gotten home from a full day at the Summer Institute. As a break from working on my #beachpeople documentary, I grabbed my camera and headed outside to look for a shadow opportunity. Nothing was grabbing my attention–the shadows I noticed seemed ordinary.

That’s when I decided to pick a dandelion puff. As I looked at it I wondered how I might photograph it in a different way. I thought about blowing on it…but couldn’t figure out how to hold it, blow on it, and photograph it at the same time…and where would I get shadow from that? Instead, I started holding the dandelion out to see how it cast its shadow. I tried the sidewalk, the side of the house, my car mirror, and the shiny paint of my car. I had to work to get the focal length of my lens right so some portion of the shot would be crisp. I took a number of shots.

When I headed back inside to study my work, I noticed some interesting images…but I wondered if I might re-mediate them in some way. I rejected my go-to apps and started to explore some that I seldom use. PicsArt caught my eye–could I transform this experiment into something that looked like art…rather than a photograph? (I do think photos are art–but I was looking for something that looked less like a photo and more like a painting or some other kind of art.)

Here’s what I started with–the original, unedited photo.

And here’s the art I made as I re-mediated the image.

I love the resulting image–the crispness of the near dandelion and the echo from the shadow. I might need to print this one and hang it in my house somewhere!

So, make some art! That might mean playing with some new editing apps, staging the perfect scene, or maybe even catching someone else making art like I did on today’s beachwalk! (Love catching #beachpeople in action!)

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 #makeart for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

So grab your camera and make some art! You make the rules…and feel free to re-mediate and let your imagination run wild!

#beachpeople: a documentary

9 Replies

As I have worked to grow and stretch with my photography over the last few years, I discovered a genre of photography called street photography. The idea is to document the people and activity on the street. I haven’t studied much, but it seems that this photography comes out of cities…places where activity on the street is common, especially if you are paying attention.

This is a harder kind of photography for me, my natural inclination is to pay attention to nature and scenes rather than people and their activity. It’s also about feeling intrusive, taking pictures of people instead of things. I’ve read that many street photographers talk to their subjects and ask permission to take photos of them. And this makes sense to me…but also takes away some of the candid nature of capturing the action in the moment.

So, I have been exploring this idea of street photography on my own terms, in my own place. I started to capture interesting moments and interesting people on my beachwalks and hashtagging those photos with #beachpeople. I love the variety of #beachpeople I come across. They are interesting and diverse. Some are obviously tourists visiting from other places–across the county and across the world. And some are natives, the beach is their place.

As this week’s make cycle in the CLMOOC comes to an end, I’ve been considering what the idea of re-mediation means for me…and what my make might be. And I started thinking about this collection of #beachpeople images. I decided to I would take these still images and create a documentary-of-sorts.

That took some doing. I considered using animoto and just tossing my photos in and letting animoto do the work. But I felt constrained by the 30 second free movie and the lack of editorial control. So I decided on iMovie–I’ve fiddled with it before (here and here)…but that also meant if I didn’t want to use the overly familiar iMovie music, I would have to figure out how to access open source music. I found this track called Folka Dot Tie by Mr Crispy–The Rat Room that created the sort of mood I was looking for and went to work.

As the mother of a filmmaker, I know what I want things to look like…but not necessarily how to do those things myself. I did discover some options that I didn’t know about as I positioned the photos and got them to move. And after spending hours getting to this point, I’m going to let this be good enough for now. I hope this re-mediation captures the variety and character of this small subset of #beachpeople, documenting just a few of the many reasons I treasure my beachwalks…and enjoy viewing the world through my lens.

I’d love to know what you think when you take a peek at my #beachpeople

One Word from Sophia, it’s Destiny!

3 Replies

Sometimes you know at first sight that you were destined to meet. That happened to me today.

The SDAWP Summer Institute (SI) is in full swing, which means my head is full and my schedule is packed. There is lots of reading and writing and thinking and talking going on…and I love it. Today at lunch I had a few minutes to myself, so I headed off to the coffee shop to treat myself to a latte. When I walked in and saw that there was no line, I immediately thought–jackpot! I can take a few minutes and walk through the bookstore, just to look.

Coffee in hand, I headed toward the children’s book section. And there it was…

I couldn’t resist.

One Word from Sophia by Jim Averbeck and Yasmeen Ismail grabbed me and wouldn’t let go!

I was drawn in by this brilliant little girl who knows what she wants…and has a plan to get it.

Sophia’s birthday was coming up, and she had five things on her mind–One True Desire and four problems.

This girl is a student of rhetoric and knows how to make an argument. She knows her audience and how to tailor her reasoning and evidence (love the variety and types!) to convince. And she takes her feedback as information essential for revision and iteration.

I don’t want to spoil the story by giving away all the details here…but if you are a teacher of writing, of argument, of debate…or just love a great story…you will want to read and study and probably even own this book!

And there’s more…rich vocabulary, compelling characters, and a surprising ending. And this is not a book just for children. I can see community college instructors using this book in their composition classes and kindergarten teachers too. And you don’t have to be a teacher…this is a book for readers and definitely for writers.

I think this will be a relationship that will endure…right now, it’s love at first sight!

Here’s Jim talking about the story: