Category Archives: photography

A Macro Kind of Day

Today was a macro kind of day. There’s this funky little shop in Leucadia that I’ve been wanting to visit for a while. I love the way it looks…the green building, the orange fence, and the wonderful old truck used a planted filled with succulents. It’s called Glorious Gardens Landscape and they specialize in succulents and xeriscape (drought tolerant landscaping).

I wandered through the cacti and succulents in this tiny outdoor storefront. Succulents are like plants from another world. They have unusual colors, sharp angles and often geometrical design elements, and many sprout crazy flowers like flagpoles waving a celebratory banner. I am drawn to them. They remind me of some of my favorite people: resilient and quirky! These people listen to their own drum beat and persist and follow through with what others often see as crazy dreams or unrealistic projects. Lucky for our students–many of these people are educators working to make a difference in the world!

While waiting for my plants to be potted (yeah, I couldn’t resist!) I spent some time with my macro lens looking closely at these fascinating plants. Here’s an assortment (using the app fuzel) of some of the images I captured.

I fell in love with this particular plant today…in shades of gray. It’s both delicate and sturdy. Intricate and simple…and simply beautiful. And in it’s macro close up, I feel like I am looking at it eye to eye. It’s looking closely at me while I look closely at it.

What do you notice when you have a macro kind of day?

Does Design Matter? A Terminal Walk

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A week or so ago Bart over at the #clmooc shared this blog post about classroom design and it’s impact on teaching and learning. Yesterday I spent the day traveling from New York back home to San Diego and in the process spent time in three airport terminals.

Since I had a layover at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, I took the opportunity to take a short learning walk to give myself the opportunity to think about my experience through the photographs I took.

Airports are funny places. Institutional, highly regulated, and not terribly comfortable. The food is pricy—and not usually all that good, the restrooms are not as strategic as we would wish, and there are never enough plugs to recharge those electronics that are so necessary these days. And yet, as travelers we spend significant time in these places.

As I walked through the terminal I noticed the usual features—the Starbucks, the strategically placed trashcans, and the lettered and numbered gates.

And then I looked up. I noticed the green glass (or plastic or Plexiglas) on the ceiling. In some places the same design was yellow and others more of a tan color.

Down the main corridor looking up meant seeing flags from countries all over the work—and a world sculpture all under the latticed ceiling that lets natural light into the terminal.

I saw plenty of vehicles of the golf cart variety. Some were moving with flashing lights and beeping noises as they transported travelers who needed some extra help getting from gate to gate. I also found a place where three vehicles were parked…and loved watching the little boy “driving” the one with the awning.

The chairs designated for those with physical handicaps were red in this terminal. I did notice right away that they were different from the other chairs.

I also noticed some new, more unusual design features. There were the walls of plants on either side of a bank of chairs facing the windows. A closer look revealed that they hold potted plants arranged to fill both sides and the top so it looked much like a shrub. I also saw the interactive big screen game…challenging those who pass by to try to beat the latest fastest time.

These last two features remind me a bit of a hamster cage with the wheel for exercise or a fish bowl with the castle to make the glass bowl seem like an undersea world. They are still containers meant to keep the pets both healthy and restricted, but probably serve the pet owner more than the animal they hold. The plant wall and the interactive game don’t change the terminal experience, people are still contained inside the terminal building–and often experience boredom associated with waiting and waiting…

These props seem almost like bean bags in the classroom for reading. They make things a bit more comfortable, but don’t fundamentally change the experience of the space. Bart talked about the workbenches he wanted for his classroom–to shift the experience for learners from recipients of knowledge to makers as learners.

I’m thinking about the ways the design of spaces impact our actions, our feelings, our experiences. What are the implications for classrooms? For airport terminals? For living and learning?

Breaking Through #Orange

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I love the challenge of taking and posting a photo every day. I could just take a picture, but the daily/weekly prompts push me to reframe and rethink what I choose to photograph. This month’s challenge–a different color every week–has posed some new considerations for my photography. Red and yellow pushed at my choices and had me thinking about and looking for ways to highlight those colors photographically. I was still finding interesting scenes and objects…at least one each day that “fit” in the color frame for me. This past week was orange and I began to feel that the task was hard. I could find orange–but it seemed so ordinary and overdone–caution cones, warning signs, and flowers. So I photographed a mural, those ever-present cones, some orange furniture, and made a mural collage.

But my photos were feeling boring–I wasn’t inspired. Apparently, somewhere in the process of spending a week focused on a color I had raised the photography bar for myself. I wanted interesting, provocative, artistic shots–and they still needed an orange focus. The orange umbrellas from Friday were a bit better–I like the framing of the shot.

On Saturday serendipity struck and I was given a small orange bead that became the focus for both my photo and a blog post.

And then on Sunday (the last day of orange) I had a breakthrough of sorts. My learning walk gave me the time, space, and focus to tune into the orange around me in interesting ways. I ended up posting these three:

And there were a few others that I haven’t posted yet.

So today begins green. I like taking the opportunity to reflect on the week of photos and think about my growth as a photographer and my thinking about how the constraints of the photo-a-day challenge (self-imposed) support and/or interfere with my creativity. What am I missing when I focus on a theme or prompt? What do I gain when I force myself to “see” through a constrained lens?

I’d love to know what you think!

Learning Walk: a Photo Essay

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I made time for a learning walk this morning, just a 30 minute or so ramble up the paths around this conference center in the woods. For me a learning walk is a quiet introspective time for noticing the world around me. I find that in addition to looking for interesting images to capture with my iPhone, I am more attuned to sounds during a learning walk. This morning’s walk in the warm, but not too warm sun of Westchester, New York was accompanied by a symphony of birds as they called to one another and flitted through the leaves and branches of the plentiful trees. The backbeat percussion was provided by the hum of cicadas. Occasional scurrying sounds suggested that I was not alone on my walk.

As I headed up the hill I noticed this rustic chimney on a building along side the path. I went around the other side hoping to find a beautiful old building, but really, the chimney was the outstanding feature. I noticed a sign pointing the direction of the tree house. A tree house? I was intrigued and continued my walk.

This isn’t my definition of a tree house. Looks more like a conference building near trees–not stunning or particularly interesting. But…I took a few minutes to sit on a picnic bench and attach my macro lens to my phone and then set off to explore some of the plant life.

I love the texture of this thistly plant…and its spiky stem and leaves. But this week is orange in my photo-a-day challenge, so while I was drawn to this beautiful purplish-pink I continued to look for examples of orange.

I discovered that these berries that I had seen as red, had a stage where orange was prominent. And I love the hint of orange highlights on this berry!

As I looped around the tree house to head back I noticed some other buildings and happened on this interesting little building…with a rusty orange stovepipe!

I backtracked the way I had come, noticing things I had missed on my way up. A tree stump with a hole. I wonder what might live in there?

I also wondered if there were storms here in the winter. These roots from a very large tree are facing up instead of anchoring the tree in the ground.

I came across this clearing…a surprise opening in the otherwise moderately dense woods. I wonder why this space is open? Does it have a use? Is it a pasture of some sort? It looks freshly mowed.

I returned to the conference center with lots of interesting things to think about. I love taking the time to notice and wonder. It’s a great way to explore a new place and also to allow for re-seeing someplace you already know. For me, the photography aspect keeps me from turning my learning walk into a work-out, speeding by without taking the time to stop and notice something that catches my eye…or ear. I saw so much more than I captured with my camera…the elegant white moths that fluttered around the plants, the way the sky looked through the trees, the tiny white flowers that were enough off the path that I didn’t venture through the brush in my flip flops.

I want to provide time for my students to take some learning walks this year. We might take our ipads and do some photography. Or we might take our sketch pads and stop to capture our noticings that way. We might even head out with our writer’s notebooks. Whichever tool we choose, the important part of the process is taking the time to notice…and then taking the time to think and reflect to make sense of the experience once we return. I hope to share some of our class learning walks when school starts in the fall.

I invite you to try a learning walk. I’d love to know what you notice and learn along the way.

Can We Crowdsource Equity?

Dandelions: A Photo Essay

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Dandelions fascinate me. These pesky plants, often referred to as weeds, are hearty, resilient, and strong and at the same time delicate, graceful, and intricate. During the winter I had the chance to watch a dandelion transform through its growth phases. It somehow ended up thriving in an abandoned planter in my front yard—one of those spaces where I always have plans to have something beautiful grow—but lack of consistent watering and attention seem to spell doom for whatever I purposely plant there. We’d about given up on the planter, planning to relegate it to the back yard where it wouldn’t be such an eyesore—its been just a planter of dirt for some time–when I noticed a dandelion flower blooming bright and yellow seemingly oblivious to the neglect of this newfound home. I grabbed my macro lens for my iphone and worked to capture that sunny globe.

Each day as I arrived home from work, before the daylight had dimmed, I noticed another phase of the dandelion’s life and attempted to capture it with my macro lens. I love the way the macro forces me to slow my breathing, lean in close, and look carefully. Steadiness is paramount to a successful photo—and I find myself angling the lens this way and that as I work to achieve the optimal focus on some aspect of my subject.

As the dandelion turned from yellow flower to white fluffball, I realize how little thought I had really given to these two very different versions of the same plant. Like so many people I had played with these “weeds” as a child, picking these little fluffballs and blowing while I made wishes, never considering that I was in fact helping their cause as those pieces of fluff, each with a seed, attaches floated to a new home.

I got closer still and worked to capture what happened day by day as the dandelion naturally progressed. And that’s when my view of dandelions was forever transformed.

I became obsessed with taking pictures of dandelions…in all their states. And I began seeing what had once been ordinary in new and extraordinary ways.

Instead of my “go about my business without paying too much attention to the little things” stance, I suddenly had a caterpillar’s eye view, which opened up new ways of seeing.

So my takeaway…look closely and pay attention to the ordinary, searching for the hidden beauty. I feel like that’s also a lesson to heed even without my iphone in my hand. In my classroom and in my work with teachers I also need to search for the hidden beauty masked by the ordinary–that’s where the treasures lie. What treasures are hiding from you?

Reflections on Yellow

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I love focusing on a single theme all week long with my photography. Instead of feeling limited, I find myself not only looking for ways to capture my “word,” I also find myself searching for new ways to frame my shots to create interesting and different photos.

One of my favorites this week is this picture of the variegated hibiscus (orange with yellow at the center) with the flamingos slightly out of focus in the background. I was intentional at including the flamingos and was working for a crisp focus on the flower. I’m pretty happy about the result.

I worked hard to avoid yellow as road signs and street markings (once I got past the fire hydrant) this week. Yellow was more challenging as a photographic topic than red. Here’s a snippet of the entire week:

It is so much fun to see what other people participating in this photo-a-day challenge come up with! There are some gorgeous yellow pictures out there this week. I love that Janis’s (@janisselbyjones) yellow “abandoned bucket” was featured on the Litterati Facebook page this week!

Looking forward to orange! We’d love you to join us, check out the challenge here.

Being Intentional

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Barb’s blog post about her yellow walk on Wear the Cape Tuesday takes me back to a week or so ago when I first heard of something called streetview that seems to be some version of something we are tagging in the Connected Learning MOOC as a #learning walk. The streetview/learning walk is not really something new, it involves that ever important skill of noticing that I wrote about the other day and adds another intentional element: documenting the noticing. The documenting described in the sreetview make was photography—convenient for me!

I tried my own version of a learning walk last week focused on the parking garage at UCSD. I took some pictures, found an app that would let me put them in a collage (many collage apps seem to have a six photo limit—but I needed more), and then thought about what that composition said to me about my experience.

I love that this composition takes away a lot of the cold, institutional feel of the garage and highlights the icons, textures, and angularity. It would be interesting to capture the smells and sounds of the garage as well as the things to see–capturing more layers of the garage experience. Mostly what occurs to me by doing this exercise is that I was more aware of interesting details, noticing things I hadn’t noticed before. (I hadn’t been aware of the electric cart parking space–is that for the all the golf cart-like vehicles? I’ve never seen one parked in the parking garage!)

In addition to my streetview and Barb’s yellow walk, on Wednesday Linda @hirshmiller, who is also participating in SDAWP Photo Voices photo-a-day, read a piece of writing about her increased noticing as a result of her search for yellow this week. We were all incredulous as she described her amazement at noticing that her cat, Flounder, had yellow eyes. And how that discovery sent her on a mission to wake the sleeping pets and peer into their eyes to see what color they are. (For me, that would have been a small job…for her with her husband’s animal rescue mission and her kids’ aspirations toward animal-focused careers, that meant checking the eyes of 55 animals!)

These experiences are reminding me how important it is to be intentional as we move through our lives, to be open to noticing new details, and to uncovering interesting connections. Writing does that too…when I write regularly (like I am doing now with this new blogging adventure) I pay close attention to the world around me and make connections in unexpected ways. What have you noticed lately?

On Noticing

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One of the reasons I love taking pictures is that it helps me notice. Instead of going full-speed-ahead about my life–checking this thing or the other off my ever growing to-do list and worrying about whether I will ever get caught up–noticing helps me slow down, appreciate interesting things around me, and then I find myself asking questions. When I watched this caterpillar wiggle its way into a chrysalis, my curiosity about everything related to monarch butterflies became insatiable. (This incredible process happened in the planter box right outside my classroom. I was also experimenting with using a macro lens on my phone–as seen in the top two photos–helping me to really look closely and focus carefully. More on focus to come!)

As a result of what I had noticed and photographed, I wanted to know more. I researched on the web, found and read non-fiction books, watched some incredible videos, talked to people around me, and enjoyed reading some fiction as well (Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver came out at the just the right time for me!). I think that everyone around me also learned–whether they were interested or not–about monarchs and their life cycle! But most importantly, this event heightened my noticing behavior. Everywhere I went, indoors and out of doors, I was noticing: paying attention to patterns, colors, numbers, textures…subtleties in the world around me.

This article a friend of mine who works at the San Diego Natural History Museum referred me to reminded me of the importance of noticing–not just for me, but also for my students. My favorite question to my students is always, “What do you notice?” I ask that about text, about songs, about pictures, about math and science and social studies…about just about everything!

And even though we do a lot of noticing, I wonder if there is enough time in schools for noticing, for curiosity, for inquiring into things that are interesting. As I photograph and write my way through the summer, I will also be thinking about that question–and the actions that I will take to make sure my students have ample opportunity to notice as part of their learning experience. What do you do to help yourself (and the young people around you) notice?

Milkweed is not a Weed it is Important Monarch Butterfly Food (earthelixir.ca)

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