Category Archives: Weekly Photo Challenge

Weekly Photo Challenge: One

When I’m out taking pictures I tend to depend on two cameras–either my trusty and ever-present iPhone 6s or my mirrorless Sony a6000. And although I have more than one lens for that Sony, I mostly use my 16-55mm lens. So on Sunday, I broke out of my usual and put my zoom lens on as we headed out onto the beach for a walk.

I noticed right away that I was looking at things differently. The change in focal length meant that I had to look into the distance for my subject. As I walked down the ramp from the parking lot, this kite caught my eye. I was able to zoom in on the single image…a butterfly on a string!

And sometimes it’s just about timing. I looked up and this seagull flew right into my line of sight. Just one bird on the edge of the frame.

Later on my walk, I spied this pink bucket sitting solo. There was something about this bucket, alone that had me zoom in and focus.

But as I looked at this week’s photos, I realized that I didn’t need my zoom lens to focus on one. As we stopped by the botanic gardens to enjoy the sunny afternoon, I found myself mesmerized by this swallowtail butterfly. It’s hard to take pictures of butterflies. In my experience, they seem to want to fly away as I am trying to get them into focus. But this guy seemed to want to pose. He let me come closer and closer as I snapped away–so I could see the intricacies of his wings as he sipped nectar.

Geoff and I decided to visit a new outlet mall on Saturday evening–one some distance away from home. As sunset grew close, we grabbed a coffee and headed to a nearby beach. He walked the rocks, searching for sea glass and picking up trash and I snapped photos of the sunset. Here I captured a single lifeguard tower silhouetted in the setting sun.

And Tuesday’s foray away from the most traveled path took me to the Mt. Soledad park. There’s a veteran’s memorial, a controversial cross, and amazingly breathtaking views of the coast and the city. I noticed this one American flag fluttering against the puffy white clouds.

So…what one subject will you capture in your photo(s) this week?

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

Head out with your camera and look for one…and capture it in a photo (or two or three…). What one will you choose?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Here

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Exotic photo shoots just don’t happen very often for me. Most of the time I take pictures here…right where I am. And most days the only camera at my fingertips is my phone, so I take it out and look for something interesting or just ordinary and snap away.

On Monday when I stopped to check the mail on my way home from work, the magnolia blossoms caught my eye. In particular, I was drawn to this one that seemed to be unraveling–well past the prime of the bloom. I pulled out my camera and captured this.

Light traffic on Tuesday meant that I arrived for an appointment with plenty of time to spare. So I headed to the beach nearby to take in a breath of two of salty air. Right here I found a secret pathway down to the beach. I love the way the ocean peeks through.

But right here I also found an abandoned mylar balloon. These things are simply too common on our beaches. I picked this one up and placed it in the trash.

This week has been beyond busy with too many meetings, too much to do, and Open House! (I love Open House–the perfect celebration of learning, but it definitely involves a push to get ready and to help students be ready too!) With a few minutes to spare before I needed to get back to school for Open House last night, I stopped by the beach (you might notice a theme here). I didn’t have enough time for a walk…but I did have enough time to stack up some rocks and watch the waves roll in. Sometimes balance means taking available minutes here and there to let my mind wander and refresh my perspective.

My students got some of those minutes today. Our third graders had won extra PE by averaging the greatest number of laps at our school jog-a-thon, so here they are enjoying the parachute with our PE teacher.

And right here, outside the classroom door, the monarchs are back! The butterflies we saw last week obviously laid some eggs and now the caterpillars are munching away on the milkweed. This is a favorite place for students to stop and study the caterpillars in action. No chrysalis yet…

So, what’s happening in your here this week? Where’s your go-to “here” for a mental break, for a moment of relaxation, to enjoy the moment?

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

So here you go…find here with your camera and give us a glimpse! I can’t wait to see what you find.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Alive!

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Some weeks I take pictures of buildings and places…but a look at this week’s collection of photos suggests…alive!

I love the way that springtime is all about new growth and flowering. And while our persistent drought is far from over, about average rainfall this year means that things are blooming. I spied this beauty peeking through the chain link fence at school.

With no kids or grandkids–or even my mom–home for Mother’s Day, my husband and I decided to visit the Birch Aquarium. I had been a number of times with students on field trips, but my husband insisted he had never been! It’s a small aquarium, but it is alive with interesting sea life. These jellies are so much fun to watch as they pulse through the water.

And I am always amazed at the size of this sea bass! I love this kelp forest tank, it is such an accessible view of the intricacies of the kelp forest ecosystem that sits right off our coast.

I had a more eventful than usual walk on the beach last weekend. In addition to spying some sandpipers in action in the low tide, I managed to step on a bee…ouch! (It was alive when I stepped…dead after it stung me!)

I was greeted Monday morning by this fellow…just hanging out on my car door! (Anyone know what kind of insect it is?)…and yes, it was definitely alive! I love how it is also a selfie of sorts as I found myself reflected in the paint of my car.

I love the days when I get a chance to walk around campus when I’m at UCSD. I was noticing the rows of eucalyptus trees. I remember these trees from my years as an undergrad. I wonder who decided to plant these trees on campus?

And today’s adventures took me out and about in Burbank with my son and grandson. This yellow butterfly caught my eye…and I tried my best to catch it with my camera.

So, with so much life all around, what will you chose to represent alive this week? You might choose plants or animals…or people engaged in something that makes you feel particularly alive. Can something inanimate be alive?

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

What is alive in your life this week? I can’t wait to see what you find!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves

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When your week throws you curves…take photos of them! It’s been one of those stressful weeks. Our third graders grappled with the mandated state testing, tensions are running high as decisions are made about staffing for next year, and the oft-promised rain actually came yesterday…the day before our annual (outdoor) ice cream social!

In spite of wanting to go home after work and just sit…I stopped by the beach to walk. I’m so glad I did. The rhythm of the waves and the wind in my face seemed to wash the stresses of the week away. I didn’t walk far or fast, but my walk was deliberate and healing. I went as far as this “corner,” and looked back on the beach from the curves in the wall.

There are plenty of beach warnings after the rain–the surf is rough and unpredictable and the run-off from the storm drains introduces bacteria into the ocean water. I sat for a few minutes watching the water run through the large curved drain pipes that allow water from the watershed into the ocean at the beach where I most often walk.

Lucky for us, the rainy morning turned into a glorious afternoon and allowed students from our other school to come down for the promised band concert. It’s fun to watch former students play their instruments…and then stop by afterward to give a hug to their past teachers! The towering piles of curved clouds suggested there still might be storm to come…

Our school is a place of much natural beauty. While I was on playground duty earlier this week the curves of these roses caught my eye. I love the hint of pink…

And I continue to love the way the late afternoon sun comes in through my dining room window. That light even makes the curves of a dying sunflower beautiful! I love the contrasts of darks and brights, reminds me of paintings of “old masters.”

When I did finally get home last night and took some time to sit and do nothing, I noticed this shadow and the curved lines of light and shadow. Was it a reflection from the blinds? A recording of my brain waves? Abstract art?

So, what curves were thrown your way this week? Grab your phone or camera and start snapping!

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.

What curves will you document this week?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Between the Lines

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Open an book and you will find words on a page…but there is so much more to reading than decoding words on a page. There is meaning behind the words, under the words, and between the words. We often refer to reading between the lines, the act of interacting with text–both inferring and bringing our own experiences and understandings to the texts we read.

And while photos are not made of words, they too can be read. We can do a literal reading of an image or read between the lines. Playing with this idea this week–here are some of my examples of reading between the lines.

In a literal sense of the phrase, I found myself playing around with looking through the spaces in the steep stairs at Swami’s beach. You can see the lines of the wooden planks going in different directions, and looking between them you can also catch a glimpse of the sea, the sky, and even a person down below.

Last weekend out near the Oceanside pier, I played around with capturing the sun between the lines of the pilings, railings, and deck of the pier. As the sun set, it flirted in a game of hide and seek between silhouetted lines.

I love the storytelling element of the idea of between the lines. I have my own version of street photography that I call #beachpeople. As my attention was drawn to this couple having wedding photos taken near the pier, I found myself imagining the narrative that went with the wedding dress, the bouquet, the bare feet, and the football. (And I loved capturing the couple “between the lines” of the pier structure…with the beautiful lighting provided by the setting sun!)

I was also drawn to some more traditional lines…like these of the classic neighborhood sign in Encinitas. Because a street fair was going on and the streets were closed to traffic, I was able to walk into the street and approach the sign from a different angle than I usually am able to. I am also fascinated by the lines of the tree branches intersecting with the lines of the street sign.

I noticed all the products hanging from lines at the street fair. These bags are not only hanging from lines, they are also made of lines–intersecting, crossing, weaving here and there. And what is between them? The lives of the makers? Do they reap the fruits of their labor?

And the unexpected often lies between the lines. I wouldn’t have been surprised to look up at the telephone wires and find shoes hanging from their shoestrings. But when I looked up this time, I saw birdhouses hanging from the wires! What is the story of the birdhouses? What narrative lives between these lines?

Then, sometimes lines are not lines at all. Instead they are wings, clouds, waves, and cliffs; the lines of the seascape that are both familiar and new each time I see them.

So your challenge this week is play around with the idea of between the lines. You can be literal and find lines to capture with your lens, or interpret something you see between the lines of your photo.

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

So grab your camera and start reading between the lines! What will you find when you are thinking through your lens?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Floral

Weekly Photo Challenge: Along the Way

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I’ve taken lots of photos this week, but most of them are of my precious new grandsons, which means I am not able to post them on social media. But I have taken a few shots along my way here and there this week. Today was a rare southern California rainy day, the perfect day to head out for a trip to an indoor mall–and allow my son and daughter-in-law to have an outing with the baby (getting out of the house is still a challenge). When we arrived back home after a few hours out, I noticed the white roses in the front of their house with raindrops on them. I rushed inside to grab my macro lens and snapped some raindrops on roses (yeah, that song runs through my head whenever I see raindrops on roses!).

I love this view of one perfectly focused raindrop–it’s not a great view of the rose, but the raindrop…

And the Bob Hope airport is a funky retro place. When I arrived on Wednesday, it was unseasonably warm (over 90 degrees)…just to have a 20 degree drop of temperature today along with rain! As I waited for my son, there was something about this sign that caught my eye, especially when planes took off in the background (although I missed those shots!).

At my other son’s house earlier in the week, we took the twins for a walk to the nearby park. As I pushed the stroller I also noticed the enormous trees, brilliant green against the blue sky. And I found this line from a Pablo Neruda poem that captured the feeling I had when I looked at it.

What did the tree learn from the earth to be able to talk with the sky?

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Sometimes when I take a photo and later look at the results, I notice that the focus is not where I intended. In this shot, the flowers in the background were focused, but the ones in the foreground were not…I played around a bit in Vintique to see what I could do with the image. Here is my result.

And as I headed to my car to leave (oh, how hard it is to leave those sweet babies), I noticed this thistle. A weed…prickly…and beautiful, growing along the edge of the yard.

The beauty of carrying a camera at all times (most often, just my phone) is that you can take photos along the way–wherever you are, whenever you have the chance. So this week’s challenge is just that, take photos along your way to here or there, with an eye for something interesting…or maybe even something ordinary in a new way.

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

What will you find this week along the way? I look forward to seeing what you discover!

Weekly Photo Challenge: In Search Of…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Burst

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Sometimes it seems that life happens in fits and bursts. Things roll along as usual, routines dictate daily activities, and even when life feels busy it still fits into the expected schedule. And then there are the unexpected bursts…of activity, of color, of life itself.

Last week I traveled to Washington, DC for some writing project work. When I arrived it was sunny and warm, beautiful springtime weather. As I walked around capitol hill, bursts of colorful blooms caught my eye. Pinks of all shades contrasted with the white of the stately legislature buildings. You might notice that this is the first burst of spring–bare trees stand in the background, still awaiting their brilliant green dresses of leaves.

When I returned back home on Sunday evening, I knew my week would be filled to overflowing…with parent/student/teacher conferences. I have a love/hate relationship with these meetings. I love talking with parents and supporting students as they share their learning with their families…but conference after conference is exhausting. We end up cramming a full day of teaching into a minimum day schedule, wolfing down some lunch and then settle into afternoons full of these meetings. To help brighten my week I couldn’t resist the daffodil stems at Trader Joe’s…they are like a burst of sunshine!

My schedule was simply too full for my after school walks on the beach, but I did manage to squeeze in a few minutes to stop by the beach on Tuesday just to get a glimpse of the surf. I stopped at a beach that has steep stairs to the shore and as I walked down them I noticed the native bush sunflowers bursting along the railing. They seemed to pose, begging me to take their photo!

To add to my already full week, I had an evening meeting scheduled too. After fighting rush hour traffic, I noticed that I had a few minutes before my meeting and that the sun was getting ready to set so I took a little side trip to find a viewing place. I was treated to a cute little park filled with people, some doing yoga, some with their bikes, others walking dogs, and some just sitting back on benches watching the sun dip into the ocean. My photo captured that burst of activity in silhouette with the sunset in the background.

And I noticed that the tree in my front yard…the one I have documented as #onetree…has had a growth spurt, a burst of bright green leaves. I guess spring is bursting out all over!

I have also been noticing my students interests and learning bursting at the seams. They can’t get enough information about the birds and eggs and feathers and nests we have been learning about. (Our science teacher brought in a collection of nests today for students to get a close look!)

And to end my week I longed for another burst of nature. I talked my husband into a short walk along the beach to watch the sunset after our trip to Costco for some groceries. We wandered down to the rocky jetty and sat for a while as we watched the sun sink lower and lower and the waves rush up higher and higher. I caught this burst of water while I watched.

So…what is bursting in your life this week? Colors? Blossoms? Learning? Or something else entirely? Take a look around and see what you can capture through your lens.

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

Be on the lookout for bursts this week…and share what you find with the rest of us! I can’t wait to see the bursts in your life.