Category Archives: Weekly Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: Food

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!

I don’t cook…but I’m lucky to live with a wonderful cook. And he’s patient enough with me to let me capture some of his beautiful cooking with my lens. Earlier this week he was experimenting with a new recipe that included chickpeas, spinach, and sun-dried tomatoes. I love that my photo captures the heat as well as the beautiful colors.

The Summer Institute snack table is often a work of art. I captured this rainbow of cut peppers last week sitting on the table.

To celebrate the 4th of July, my husband went all out with his cooking. We started with chicken and fruits and veggies on skewers on the barbeque.

And he made a cherry pie from scratch! Here’s the “before” with the pitted cherries.

And the after…pie a la mode!

And sometimes I just can’t resist snapping that picture of a guilty pleasure…like these yummy taquitos with guacamole from the local Roberto’s. (These are the pictures I love to text to my sons to remind them what they’re missing now that they no longer live in our place!)

So this week’s challenge is to use food as the inspiration for your photos. It can be your ordinary breakfast…even if it comes out of a box…or a culinary masterpiece. You can snap a guilty fast food pleasure, a fine restaurant meal, or even the raw materials at the grocery store or in the garden!

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

This is your week to be a food documentarian. What do you eat or what do you see others eating? Capture some images of food through your lens!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Light

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One of the things I love best about the summer is the light. Days are longer and filled with warmth and flooded with light. I find myself noticing how light shines from different angles, how different objects catch light, and how some light seems harsh while other light feels soft somehow.

I’ve been messing around with selfies (and subjecting my husband to them too!), trying to capture different angles and places and light too. I love the sky in this one and the way the light catches my hair and shoulder.

During a late afternoon glance around the back yard I noticed the way the light and shadow played with this succulent.

And I was drawn to the burr on this weed and the way the light served to highlight the prickly spines. I had to get my macro lens to capture it’s miniature beauty.

Yesterday was Hack Your Notebook Day, which meant we were playing around with lights and writing and notebooks…and I captured Henry testing the limits of his parallel circuit, lighting up one, two, three, four…

Today I was craving the outdoors and sunshine and solitude…so I took a lunchtime photo walk out on the UCSD campus.. There are so many interesting art installations (part of the Stuart Collection) on campus…I found myself heading off toward the rock bear and noticing the light bouncing off the boulders that are the bear.

And if you look closely into the light and shadow of this shrub you might just see the little bunny rabbit that froze when it saw me…allowing me to snap a photo (although I couldn’t get close enough for a great shot of the rabbit).

So this week’s challenge is to find the light in your photos. Indoor light, outdoor light, dim light, bright light, direct light, diffuse light…take advantage of all the light that summer has to offer!

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

Chase the light with your lens…can’t wait to see what lights up your life!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer

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Summer officially arrived last week, with the longest day of our year. Coincidentally, it is also the same day as my wedding anniversary…and this year we celebrated by heading off to a “secret” speakeasy downtown. It was fun to dress up and spend time exploring my own city–and slip into this hidden specialty bar tucked in behind a wall of kegs that is actually a door to another world. Inside, glass topped tables reflected the interesting photos on the ceiling and bartenders created magical libations that I might not otherwise try.

Summer also means time on the beach. Living close to the coast, I spend time on the beach all year round, but the summer brings out different dimensions. There are lots more people on our beaches in the summer…last week, when the tide was low, we came across this group of people enjoying the tidepools. And it seems that someone created a still life arrangement…with the green bucket carefully arranged atop the pile of kelp. A little app magic turned it into a beautiful painting.

Summer also means a lot more activity. More walks and more runs, playing in the water and on the sand. It seems that the same holds true for the egrets too. I caught this guy in midstride as he played in the surf.

And the beginning of summer also announces the start of our SDAWP Invitational Summer Institute. We spend 4 weeks together on the UCSD campus…writing and reading and thinking and talking…with some making and playing thrown in too! With only 3 days under our belts we are already making connections and taking risks, sharing and learning with each other. There’s no better way to spend a chunk of the summer! The Geisel library is an iconic image of UCSD and always conjures the intense days of writing and learning with a community of dedicated educators.

So this week’s challenge is all about summer. What evokes summer for you? How will you represent the carefree days, the warm weather fun, or even your summer learning and work? It can be travel, staying at home, time with family and friends…start capturing those images of summer in your world! I know that summer is a busy time for me…but there’s always time for a photo or two or three…

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

Let’s see summer in all its glory…through your lens!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Two

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This weekend is the summer equinox, the first day of summer…and it is my wedding anniversary. I’ve been married a long time, but it seems like just yesterday that I stood in that white dress on a beautiful first day of summer afternoon and vowed to join my life with my husband’s. So this week I’ve been thinking about the number two and all its connotations. I’ve often heard marriage described as two lives becoming one, but that doesn’t seem true to me. It seems more like a braiding of lives…or maybe even a weaving or tapestry–becoming inextricably linked, yet still each maintaining their unique features and substance.

So I started to look for photos that represent two…and some were easy and quite literal. There’s my two cats. They spend lots and lots of time together…but check out their facial expressions here. They take turns being the one who begs…obviously it’s Jack’s turn here.

And then there are these two up in handstands…showing off their balance and strength. They just happen to be my teaching partner and one of our students when we were at the rock climbing gym a week ago.

Here’s a less obvious two. This is actually two separate photos I took and then combined using the app union. It was interesting to figure out what to put in the background and then what to put in the foreground and what to mask…much more complex than I thought when I began. (It’s a picture of a piece of driftwood and an LED light, both shot with my macro lens) I did add some filter effects as well to create the unusual coloring.

And here are a couple of bikes nuzzled up to each other while parked at the bike racks.

And I better add a picture from nature…here’s a double blossom taken with my macro lens during a walk last weekend.

So this week’s challenge is to represent two…two of something, twice as much, double the fun, two of your favorites (like my cats and kids and blossoms)…you get to interpret two in ways you find interesting.

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

It’s time to document the twos in your life…can’t wait to see them through your lens!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Doing

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Tomorrow is my last day of school with my students, so they’ve been thinking a lot about summer and what they will be doing. And we’ve been doing a lot in the classroom this last week, taking advantage of our mild sunny weather and the incredible independence the students have developed over the course of the school year. Monday was a field trip to the NAT–the San Diego Natural History Museum–where students were busy doing a lot of inquiring and thinking about all the science learning they have done this year.

Here’s one of my students using his hands to pedal to create the energy to cause water to run in a sink. And then I couldn’t resist snapping this picture of a group of students busily writing in the pirate ship at the NAT.

Yesterday we had our second annual rock climbing event with third graders. It’s bittersweet to get to June when you’ve taught students for three years and know that they will be leaving and moving on to 4th grade and a new school too. So we spent yesterday afternoon rock climbing at a climbing gym. I got many shots of kids doing climbing. I love watching them gain confidence as they try again and again. This little girl had no fear…she climbed to the very top again and again!

This one isn’t my student, but I love when students take the initiative to make a difference in the world. I found these informational signs around our school, attached to fences with pipe cleaners. I did manage to track down the authors so I could congratulate them for their earnest efforts to improve the world.

And I’ve been doing some doing too. Just recently we put on an Advanced Institute at our writing project (SDAWP) focused on paper circuitry. It’s such fun to play around with writing and science and all the connections between the two. Here’s a fairly rudimentary parallel circuit I made playing with conductive thread instead of the copper tape I’ve used before.

And over the weekend I was exploring our local botanical gardens when I came face to face with this little guy. A lot of my doing is related to photography…and it takes me to interesting places and seeing (and photographing( interesting things.

And all this thinking about doing has me thinking about the CLMOOC (which begins tomorrow) and the making and doing I will be involved in there. I hope all of you will join in the fun as well!

So this week’s challenge is to focus on doing…your own or the doing you see around you. You can be watching doing in action, capture things you are doing, or any combination that works for you. As always, you are the one who gets to decide what counts as doing…so have fun, and start doing, especially if you are having fun!

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

So get going and get doing! Can’t wait to see what you are doing this week.

Weekly Photo Challenge: In Flight

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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!

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.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Get Close

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Just yesterday I noticed some unusual mushrooms growing in the garden box outside my classroom door. I snapped a quick picture (you can see it on my instagram feed) and went into the classroom to prepare for the day. Later in the day when I looked into the box, the mushrooms were no longer there. Did someone pluck them out? This morning I looked in the box and noticed just a couple of these same mushrooms growing. I decided to take the time to attach my macro lens and get close to these mushrooms. And I’m glad I did…once again, they seemed to vanish as the day began to warm.

And sometimes I like to get close even without the aid of the macro lens. The pines I met while I was in Ohio were different from the varieties I am used to. I got close to this one as I looked through at the green beyond…and green like this is very unusual where I live!

Sometimes there is an unexpected invitation to get close. I couldn’t resist this sign asking museum visitors to lean in and pick up the items in the box…to really examine them closely. It’s such a different message than the “look only with your eyes” message that is so common.

I’m not sure about this fence. I got close to the fence…but is the message of the fence to stay back, don’t get too close?

And sometimes I use cropping as a way of getting even closer than I’m able to with my ordinary camera lens. In this case I took a photo of my oatmeal and coffee in the carry tray…and then cropped to make it fill the frame. The other photos above all are unedited…but this one has been cropped (but no filters applied).

So this week’s challenge is to get close. You might pull our your macro lens and try your hand at magnifying something small…or you might lean in and see how close you can get. You might even think about getting close more metaphorically…how else might a photo “read’ close? You can also consider using an editing tool to create the feeling of getting close from a photo that wasn’t all that close.

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

So snuggle up and get close! I can’t wait to see what you find when you get close with your lens.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Up

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Have you ever found yourself with your head in the clouds, looking up, noticing what is above you rather than what is beneath your feet? It’s been that kind of week for me, maybe residue from last week’s fires and the sky watching that goes with it. As our weather cooled and returned to May-like temperatures, puffy white clouds began to appear. I found myself taking pictures of the sky, trying to capture the lightness and depth and roundness. I noticed on Instagram that others were also noticing the sky and the clouds.

I stopped on my way to school yesterday because i was mesmerized by the blueness of the sky and the way the clouds were sitting low and near the ocean. There’s this spot with a row of tall palm trees that begs me to stop and take a picture or two. Yesterday’s was of these tall trees with the clouds sitting low, beneath them. If you look closely, you can see the sliver of the moon up above.

But I know that I’m not always looking at the clouds with I am looking up. I couldn’t resist the “up” shot of this tall church in downtown Nashville. I love the way it seems you can look up forever as the building narrows the closer it gets to the sky.

I’ve discovered amazing ceilings by looking up. I noticed some interesting ceiling tiles in a restaurant last weekend…and shot this picture of the gray on white structure looking up inside the atrium of the San Diego Natural History Museum.

And sometimes up means catching a glimpse at the sun reflecting off a bubble. This one happened to be a big bubble that a guy was making at the beach…not by blowing but by using a big rope-like wand to throw out giant bubbles. He stood up high and the bubbles floated just above the heads of children who couldn’t wait to poke a finger at them.

So this week’s challenge is to figure out how to capture “up” with your photos. You might be up high looking down or be on the ground noticing something up above. Maybe it’s an image that makes you feel up…or like me, you might just have your head in the clouds. 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 #up for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

Have fun with up this week. I can’t wait to see what’s “up” through your lens!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Going Places

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Enjoy taking photos? Love to share them with others? Welcome to this week’s photo challenge! (I post a new challenge every week…check in each week and join the fun!)

As I think about a photo challenge for this week, my mind is also on the horrendous fires burning in my community. (If you are interested you can read more about it in yesterday’s blog post.) Schools were closed today and most, including mine, are also closed tomorrow. The firefighters are amazing and the flames are fierce. At one point yesterday we had at least 9 separate fires burning in San Diego county. And while there is still danger and fear around…it’s time to think about a photo challenge for the week. I had one all ready to go…and then changed my mind and decided to go in a different direction–literally and figuratively.

Seeing the sky fill with smoke creates an urge to move…to check on your home and neighborhood, to see what is going on, to make sure children and animals are safe. This photo was my “going” photo yesterday…as fires moved into my area.

But earlier in the week, I had done some other versions of “going places” as I headed up to the Bay Area to attend a conference and visit my son…and took advantage of the opportunity to ride the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit).

Sometimes going places is as simple as taking the dog out for a walk around the neighborhood. (You can see I fell a bit behind as I stopped along the way to take photos of other interesting things in the neighborhood!)

And then there’s this little guy who is genetically programmed (I think) to determine his travels based on eating his way through all available milkweed. I love how the butterflies who lay the eggs seem to be always going places and somehow know how to find milkweed…this particular box of milkweed is outside my classroom.

So this week’s photo challenge is to capture an image or images that show someone or something going places. As always, you are welcome to interpret “going places” in ways that suit you best! Post either the photo alone or along with writing inspired by the photo. I also invite you to use others’ photos as inspiration for your own writing and photography. I often use another photographer’s image as “mentor text” for my own photography, trying to capture some element in my own way.

I like to share my images and writing on social media…and I invite you to share yours widely too. (You might consider Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+) Use the hashtag #goingplaces and include @nwpianthology to make it easy for us to find and enjoy. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @kd0602. I’d love to follow you if you share your handle.

You can also share your photos and writing by linking to this blog post or sharing in the comment section below. How will you show going places through your lens? I can’t wait to find out!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Chasing Shadows

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Enjoy taking photos? Love to share them with others? Welcome to this week’s photo challenge! (I post a new challenge every week…check in each week and join the fun!)

Inspired by the Daily Create (and a little nudge from Kevin), I’ve been chasing shadows today. Actually, when I first saw the daily create prompt for today, shadow guessing, my thoughts immediately went to a photo I took over the weekend.

I’m sure you know by now that I love to walk on the beach. Something you might not know is that my husband (who often accompanies me on my walks) loves to walk with a trash bag in hand to pick up trash from the beach. About a year or so ago I discovered the #litterati movement–people taking and posting photos of trash they come across, especially in nature, and then throw away. By posting these photos on social media using the #litterati hashtag, they hope to bring more attention to the importance of taking care of our world. This shadow is my husband as #litterati.

And then I remembered this photo of a sign in Ocean Beach that projected a wonderful shadow of itself…perfectly positioned for a picture!

But I wanted to find photos to take today…hence, the shadow chasing rather than shadow guessing prompt. Luckily we had some sun this afternoon, and as I headed to my car after work I came across some interesting shadows.

And I love that the light stays out longer these days. The sun was still present even when I got home this evening. I captured this interesting shadow playing with the railing on the stairs in my house.

So this week’s photo challenge is to chase some shadows…or create some shadows. You can play shadow guessing or chase some interesting shadows that you just can’t resist snapping up with your lens. Post either the photo alone or along with writing inspired by the photo. I also invite you to use others’ photos as inspiration for your own writing and photography. I often use another photographer’s image as “mentor text” for my own photography, trying to capture some element in my own way.

I like to share my images and writing on social media…and I invite you to share yours widely too. (You might consider Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Google+) Use the hashtag #shadow and include @nwpianthology to make it easy for us to find and enjoy. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @kd0602. I’d love to follow you if you share your handle.

You can also share your photos and writing by linking to this blog post or sharing in the comment section below. Go out and chase some shadows…who knows what interesting images the shadows will help you create!