Tag Archives: dandelion

Playing with Cyanotype

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Early this year I decided on play for my one little word.  And I have been making time for play on a pretty regular basis.  A lot of my play is related to photography and making time to take photos has me seeking out opportunities to explore that I might not have done otherwise.  I’ve explored places in my community that I have never been before…and I am definitely spending lots of time outdoors, especially on the weekend, rather than doing housework or even reading!

For Mother’s Day this year a manilla envelope arrived in the mail from my son and daughter-in-law.  As I opened it I found a typewritten note and a smaller manilla envelope.  I love the note, knowing that it was typed on a typewriter that my son found left next to the dumpster near his home…and that he typed it.  The note explained that I would find specially treated cyanotype paper that he had prepared for me.  It gave me step by step instructions for using the paper…and included a few “negatives” that I could try if I wanted.

I played around a bit…and then got busy so it has stayed in the envelope until last weekend.  I started thinking about that cyanotype paper and what I wanted to play around with.  As I headed out for my beach walk on Saturday, I purposely looked for shell pieces that would work with this positive/negative kind of exposure (a rudimentary kind of photography).  As we walked I noticed so many different kinds of shells and rocks…and sea glass!  I seldom find sea glass on our beaches, but for some reason pieces of sea glass kept presenting themselves.  We also found quite a few shell structures with holes and openings.

beach finds

When I got home, I pulled out the paper treated with the cyanotype chemicals and laid the shells out.  I took them out for about five minutes of sun exposure, brought the paper back in to rinse to stop the exposure…and here is the resulting cyanotype shell study.

shell cyanotype

I love the dimension of this print.  The way the shadows create an almost three dimensional effect.

This attempt excited me, so I gathered some plant pieces and created an arrangement on another piece of treated paper.

This created an interesting result, but I found that the lightweight plants blow when I put them outside…there were pieces of lavender on the lower left…and they left a faint impression when they blew away.

Then I grabbed a leaf branch from a tree in my backyard and created an arrangement with the beach glass as the grounding.

I like the way the beach glass produced an interesting effect when placed in the sun.  I tried another one today…and won’t subject you to the results.  Playing around with this printing technique is tricky.  Objects that are too dense or too thick create big light splotches that are less interesting and pleasing than those that have opacity or cast interesting shadows that create dimension.

I have only a few pieces of treated paper left…but my son tells me it is easy and relatively cheap to create my own.  I’ve had fun playing with this technique and created some interesting pieces. I think the shell study is my current favorite…although I do like this early piece I did with some dandelions and other weeds from the yard.

dandelion cyanotype

I like that I have been playing enough that others are giving me encouragement and opportunity to play more.  And I know that taking time to play is good for me, good for my family, and good for my students.  I’ve noticed that lots of my play is about making…making photos, circuits, art, movies.  And I’m looking forward to some more play and making when the CLMOOC begins again on Friday.  So maybe this post is a preview of another summer of making…and playing with others through social media and connected learning.  Will you join us and do some of your own connecting, making and playing?

Weekly Photo Challenge: In Flight

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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!

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.

glider at La Jolla Shores

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.

geese on parade

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.

bee on sunflower

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.

balloon rockets

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!

dandelion fluff

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!

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 #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.

 

 

It’s the Little Things

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Yesterday I dug out my macro lens and started playing with it again.  It’s one of those things that I love, but I have to stop what I’m doing, take the cover off my phone, unscrew the macro lens from the wide angle, attach it and then lean in to photograph my subject.  Using the macro means coming close, taking time to steady myself and my breathing, and holding still for the perfect shot.  It’s easy to get the focus wrong and come away with a blurry shot.

And in spite of all of that, I love the vantage the macro lens offers.  I get to see small things in new ways.  Things that are easily overlooked suddenly come into focus, creating a stunning new way of understanding the subject.

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A familiar TED talk also crossed my Twitter feed this morning.  Angela Duckworth talking about her research about what makes students successful…was it intelligence or something she calls grit?  She found in case after case, holding all other variables steady, that grit made the difference.

This 6 minute video is well worth your time.  But it’s also important to think about not just students and how hard they work, but also how teachers view persistence and effort.  A growth mindset, as described by Carol Dweck, means that errors are seen as part of the learning process.  Mistakes are an opportunity for learning, not an indicator of lack of effort or lack of intelligence.

So back to the macro lens and the little things.  With the help of the macro lens I can appreciate the beauty of things I hadn’t paid much attention to before, like this half blown dandelion in my yard.

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And with a growth mindset I can also appreciate the little things about my students as I notice how they approach a math problem or understand a science concept or even where their struggles are with decoding.  Instead of seeing what they can’t do, I pay attention to the beauty of what they do know and help them use their strengths as tools to make progress where things seem hard.

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Like these tiny, ethereal dandelion seeds, learners can take the seeds of understanding from one subject and plant them in others.  And as teachers paying close attention, we can help our students identify their strengths and repurpose them in other situations.

When I went outside this morning the cactus flower blossom in the pot near my front door was closed…looking droopy and like it might be ready to fall off.  But since I was playing with my macro lens, I leaned in and got close…and captured this.

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Without the lens, my eyes did not capture the beauty and colors that my camera could see (all of these photos are unedited originals).  I noticed later in the day when the sun had reached the door that the blooms opened, yellow and vibrant.

I’m glad that I took some time with my macro lens today…and with Angela Duckworth’s TED talk.  Tomorrow I return to my classroom after a week away for the Thanksgiving holiday. And I’ll be looking closely and leaning in to notice all that my students bring to the learning…even when it seems hard…to appreciate their strengths and re-view their mistakes. We’ll be developing our grit…together.