Monthly Archives: September 2015

Some of My Favorite Things: October’s Photo-a-Day Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Manmade

I love spending time outside, appreciating the breathtaking beauty of nature. The brilliant blues of the waves crashing on the shore, bees buzzing near vibrant blossoms, colorful sunsets and more… Yet, sometimes I find myself in places where nature’s beauty takes a backseat and I find myself noticing interesting manmade creations.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. It wasn’t nighttime, so I didn’t get to star gaze and experience the telescope…but the building is spectacular!

The beautiful sunny day created a perfect backdrop for the architecture of this building. And from another angle, you can see the dome that houses the telescope.

Indoors, there are many informative exhibits–open to the public, free of charge, everyday! From the Foucault’s pendulum to the design of the windows, this is an extraordinary place.

While I didn’t get to go in where the current telescope operates, this “retired” version was on display. I am struck by its intricacies and beauty!

And looking out from the park, you can see the LA skyline from one side and then spy the iconic Hollywood sign in the other direction.

And sometimes interesting isn’t necessarily beautiful. A trip to LA is almost always accompanied by traffic–and this trip was no different. But since I wasn’t the driver this time around, I could take some photos out the window. I was interested in watching the train that traversed the freeway…although the moving car didn’t allow me the best angle!

So take a look around for photos that feature the manmade. Where do you find manmade beauty or objects of interest? Is it in the architecture? In the technology or transportation available? Something right in front of your eyes that you hadn’t paid attention to?

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

Take a look at the manmade this week…what do you notice? I can’t wait to experience manmade (or womanmade) through your lens!

Wordless Books and the Power of Words

2 Replies

Yesterday we embarked on a study of graphic novels in our classroom by reading Owly and Wormy Friends All Aflutter by Andy Runton.

This picture book is a nice entry into the world of graphic novels for our young students–even though it may not technically fit into the definition of graphic novel.

Our students aren’t new to reading wordless books, last year we delighted in the wordless books of Flashilight and Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd (you can read about these adventures in a post by my teaching partner here).

So there were no surprises yesterday when we began to read about Owly and Wormy. Our older students were eager to “read” as we turned pages under the document camera, and it wasn’t long before our young students began to join in, volunteering their own readings.

Wordless books, and particularly those with a graphic format, allow confident readers to emerge–even if they are still struggling with decoding print. Our students showed off their wealth of symbolic knowledge–recognizing that a four leaf clover in a speech bubble is a message of good luck and that a light bulb represents a new idea.

Imagine my delight when one of our first grade boys raised his hand…with two things to share. He quickly pointed out that this book was filled with verbs. You might wonder what he was thinking…this is a wordless book. But I knew that we had been working with vivacious verbs last week, using George Ella Lyon’s All the Water in the World and Thomas Locker’s Water Dance as mentor texts for this year’s first attempt at poetry. As I asked this student about the verbs in the book, he pointed out that Owly and Wormy were reading, sleeping, planting… It was obvious that he understands verbs! (And I wish I had recorded the actual verbs he pointed out…they were better than my memory!) I don’t remember the second thing he shared–it was relevant–but not as exciting as his noticing of verbs in a wordless book!

We’ll continue our study of graphic novels, focusing on the features as we connect back to Owly and Wormy and also to Julia’s House for Lost Creatures by Ben Hatke (a hybrid graphic novel/picture book that we read the first week of school to talk about what we needed to do to get along as a community).

And we’ll take our study further as we explore Hatke’s latest graphic novel, The Little Robot as a class read aloud.

The more I read wordless books and graphic novels, the more I am intrigued by the power of images and the resulting power of words that my students bring to our conversations about these rich, complex, and layered books.

What are your favorite wordless books and graphic novels to use with students? For yourself?

Beach Hues: Monochromatic

2 Replies

The beach offers me endless inspiration, stimulating my senses with the light, the life, the variety…and the sameness.

The ocean and the shoreline is an endless variety of blues, whites, and grays. Some days the colors are vibrant and fully saturated, other days, they are muted–layering hues of a single color in subtle textures like this image of a seagull taking flight toward the wave rolling in.

Sometimes the sky is reflected in the wetness of the ground. Clouds to walk in, waves to walk in…echoes of each other.

And look up and see the clouds like waves, a backdrop for a tiny airplane, perhaps a biplane, awash in blue and white.

It is the monochromatics of the beach that help me see texture, that force me to look closely to notice the daily changes and the endless variety of the cliffs, the waves, the sky, the shoreline…

Light and angle–twin photography tools–teach me about seeing and finding the beauty in the extraordinary sameness of the beach.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves

5 Replies

Life is filled with curves–just when you think you see what is coming straight ahead, the path curves and brings something unexpected.

It’s been hot, hot, hot here this week…and yes, we do complain about anything higher than 80 in these parts. Mostly we don’t have a/c…so last night after a sweltering few days in the classroom and sleepless nights at home, we headed to the beach to attempt to cool off. And while it wasn’t really cool, it was refreshing to have those coolish waves lap at our calves and treat our eyes to the beauty of the sun settling into the curve of the waves.

Earlier in the day my students were exploring water. They used pipettes to place water drops on a penny…and in the process discovered that water drops stick to each other and create little mountains or egg yolk shapes (in their words). You can see the curve of the surface tension in this shot.

Last weekend’s adventures led me to some beaches I don’t usually visit. And with high surf warnings, waves crashed in dramatic ways, shooting curves of salty water into the air…almost creating their own water version of a fireworks show!

Meanwhile, this dancer stood nearby as a photographer worked to create beautiful photos of her in her skirt of curved leaves.

A kite caught in a palm tree turned into curved ribbons of celebration–a festive sight to behold.

And back closer to home, I found a half dollar on the beach…or half a sand dollar! The curve that is visible suggests the curve that is missing, probably tossed and broken in the surf.

And I am drawn to the brilliant colors and elegant curves the prevalent bird of paradise. Using my zoom lens, I was able to focus on the bloom and yet, you can still see the ocean blurred in the background.

So where are the curves in your life this week? Did they sneak up and surprise you? Delight you? Create chaos or celebration? You might find your curves in the natural beauty of your surroundings or they might be metaphorical curves expressed in an image.

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

Take a look for your curves this week. I look forward to seeing them through your lens!