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Weekly Photo Challenge: On the Street

I wander around my hometown with my camera (Sony a6000) hanging around my neck. And I get asked now and then where I am from. I always think it’s interesting that a camera somehow connotes tourist (of course I do live in a tourist destination–so maybe that comes into play).

With my camera around my neck, I feel like I see this place a bit differently. Sure, I have lots of opportunities to take photos of the beach. But there are other interesting photo opportunities too. Today I had a window of time and set out to wander the streets in downtown Carlsbad.

The sun was settling low in the sky…our days are nearly at their shortest right now. I kept catching glimpses of the sun through the streets when I noticed this fire hydrant dressed in its beach finery (a “woody” with a sign for highway 101…exactly where it is located).

A couple of blocks further west the street opened to a view of the ocean, framed by palm trees. If you look closely you can see the stairs that lead down to the beach…but I stayed up on the street today!

As I looped around to head back to get a cup of coffee before my appointment, I couldn’t resist a few shots of the classic Carlsbad sign. We have signs like this in many of our San Diego communities. (I love the way the setting sun is lighting up the historic building in the distance…it used to be a restaurant and is now a retail store.

Earlier this week I stopped to run some errands on the way to a meeting and couldn’t resist a shot of the way the sun was illuminating this building. You can see how shadowy things are near the ground…and how bright the sun is (again, near sunset) up high.

And we ended the weekend last week with a trip to get a Christmas tree. The tree lot at Home Depot doesn’t have the charm of the one I went to with my son and daughter-in-law the week before, but we did find a nice tree. Here’s my hubby with it hoisted over his shoulder in the yellowy light of the parking lot.

So what are you noticing on the street? How does your camera let you see things you might not otherwise notice? Take a look around and take a few shots to share.

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

So grab your camera and head out to the street…in your neighborhood, downtown, as you go about your everyday life. I can’t wait to see what you find on the street!

Looking Closely to Look Back: December’s Photo-a-Day Challenge

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We’ve reached the twelfth month, the last of the calendar year. Traditionally, it’s a time for reflection, of taking stock of the year in order to make progress in the new year.

So…what if we look to the world around us, paying careful attention to what is currently in front of us–and use those images and related thinking to look back, to reflect on the year?

Just last week I had the opportunity to watch some college students dance (many thanks to my niece, a dance major). Their energy and passion were obvious–and contagious! Looking at this image reminds me that we are not attached to the the ground…we are also in flight, ready to follow our imagination.

We tell ourselves so many stories–including stories that fuel our frustration and impatience. Sometimes we need to reframe a story, view it from a new perspective to change our feelings and perceptions. Traffic can be a pain…or an opportunity depending on how your look at it.

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And sometimes doors don’t look like doors. They might just be spaces you haven’t noticed before. I’m determined to ride the train to Los Angeles one day soon…and this image will remind me to include this on my to-do list.

Those quiet moments of waiting and watching sometimes pay off in a beautiful photo, but always fill my heart with wonder and joy…even when the photo doesn’t happen. I get just enough rewards like this one to remind me to stop, listen, watch, enjoy what is right in front of me.

I see dozens and dozens and dozens of seagulls–at the beach, when I drive down the freeway, at school–and yet I never tire of them. There is a certain elegance about taking flight, gliding on the currents, and over the currents (and waves) below. Does anyone remember reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull back in the day?

Going to different places means seeing things that are familiar…and well, ordinary. I like to notice the new…the magnificent architecture, the iconic art…but sometimes find myself snapping a photo of the familiar, like this walk sign. (Now I find myself wondering if walk signs are really the same all over, maybe I need to take some more photos of them! This one is from Minneapolis.)

And then there is light. Sometimes it is sunlight, sometimes moonlight…and sometimes a wonderful art piece that is all about light. Add dark to the light and the camera creates effects that are even more interesting, reminding me that we can’t always capture images as we see them…sometimes they create themselves right in our own hands in front of our eyes.

To get you started, here are some prompts for the month:

Spaces
Places
Movement
Relationships
Home
Outdoors
Family
Story
Favorite
Gift
Memory
Dozen
Night
Nature
Quiet
Rhythm
Sharp
Warmth
Flame
Moment
Light
Sky
Doors
Ground
Celebration
Water
Delicious
Hands
Reflect
Dance
New

As always, our challenge will allow us to learn from each other as we shoot our own photos and study the photos others shoot. The prompts are there to help you pay attention to your world and reflect on the year and your experiences. You can use them in order or pick and choose as you like–you are welcome to add a new prompt into the mix if you are so moved. You can post every day, once a week, or even sporadically throughout the month…whatever works in your life.

Be sure to share and tag your photos with #sdawpphotovoices so we can find them! You can share on Twitter (follow me @kd0602), on Instagram (@kd0602), in the CLMOOC community on G+, on Flickr, or even link back to my blog here.

Let’s look closely to look back and move forward as we bring 2015 to a close. Enjoy the winter holidays, whatever version you celebrate, and let your camera help you find the joy and wonder of the season.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Through the Window

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Family is everything. And sometimes you do crazy things to make sure you can spend time with your loved ones. Like battling Los Angeles traffic on the day before Thanksgiving, knowing that the drive that should take between 90 minutes and 2 hours will likely be at least double that.

We left early in the morning on our way up to LA, well before sunrise, and were treated to a huge and gorgeous full moon sitting over the Pacific ocean as it got ready to set. I would have loved to have had time to park at the beach and try to capture this rare moon viewing through my camera lens, but this was a day for travel. And since I wasn’t driving, I pulled out my camera and did my best to shoot through the car window. In the dark, my camera shutter was slow–and the car was fast (yay…no traffic yet!), creating a streaking and blurring effect. I was delighted to find this abstract portrayal of light as I shot the moon.

After a wonderful day with my son and daughter-in-law, we got back in the car to head back home knowing that traffic would be heavy–but wanting to get home not too late so my husband could start baking his pies for Thanksgiving. And heavy was an understatement. After inching along the I5 for about 30 minutes and covering less than 10 miles, we decided to let Google maps on my phone take us on an adventure.

As we moved from one freeway to the next, we glimpsed views of downtown LA, watched airplanes and helicopters in their own freeway in the air, and noticed public transport rolling by on raised platforms. All along the way I pointed my lens out the window, trying to capture the interesting and beautiful things that caught my eye.

With the drought on our minds, we’ve been noticing the aqueduct system running below the power lines. Without the ability to stop and frame shots, I had to focus and shoot quickly hoping that I captured the image I was envisioning. This is my personal favorite, a serendipity of light and shadow and composition.

Part of the time we found ourselves on city streets, deep in an industrial area. Street art decorated the walls of buildings–some sanctioned (like the mural on the Farmer John compound) and some probably not. As I looked up, I noticed the graffiti-laden train overpasses and snapped a few more shots.

Heading onto yet another freeway (we found numbers we didn’t even know existed in Southern California!), I noticed tons of white birds sitting in a nearly empty aqueduct. Since I couldn’t see over the railing, I shot through the cement openings hoping to capture what I was seeing below. I’m pretty happy with the effect!

As the sun began to sink, the sky took on a gentle glow, silhouetting another of the miles of power towers that line the freeways.

And while our adventures in LA were fun and interesting, we were not alone or without traffic. Brake lights glowed red, lighting up the freeway like Christmas decorations.

Our trip ended much like it began as we watched the full, huge moon rise into the sky. It played hide and seek, first with the buildings and overpasses and later with the clouds.

It’s hard to know whether our “fastest route” actually saved us any time (we’re guessing we saved about 30 minutes), and it certainly wasn’t fast. But it was such a relief to keep moving and not spend hours inching in stop and go freeway traffic. We explored, we chatted, we noticed, and I took photos. We arrived home tired, yet relaxed. And we might just try that choose your own adventure route through LA again someday. There is so much to see when you take the time to look through the window.

So…what are you seeing through the window these days? Is it a car window, your house, or someplace else? Or is it a metaphorical window–the space between stormy weather conditions, phases of activity in your life, the break between holidays?

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

What are you seeing through the window? Take out your camera and give us a glimpse through your lens!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Service

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This week was Veteran’s Day–that odd mid-week holiday to honor our service members from all branches of the military. It seems to be a day of lots of free breakfasts, lunches, and coffee for veterans…a few parades and some visits to cemeteries for some people. And I found myself thinking about the idea of service.

My dad is a Vietnam vet. He served in the navy as a medical corpsman. His high school diploma and military training allowed him to take care of all of the medical needs of a ship full of servicemen. He was gone for months at a time when I was a young child and made the decision to leave the navy while I was still in elementary school. It’s obvious that his years in the military made a lasting mark on his life…and I am proud to honor him for his service to our country. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of this old snapshot that hangs in a photo collage on the wall. Taken before I was born, this shows my parents as 19 year-olds, shortly before their wedding. It was this #digiwrimo blog post by Michelle Pacansky-Brock that sent me in search of the photograph…there is so much about photos that evoke stories and memories and emotions.

And then I started looking around and thinking about service…how do I express service in a photograph? I know that I take my car’s service for granted–expecting it to take me where I need to go, to work when I turn the key. I had a couple of days last week when the sensors in my car signaled that my car was not functioning as usual…and I was lucky, thanks to my husband, that a visit to the mechanic took care of the problems. But even the little things like the rear-view mirrors are tools whose service I depend on. I use them regularly, not always appreciating the service they provide.

I spent my day off from work in LA with my son. We spent time exploring LA’s new art museum (that will be another post) and then wandered into downtown Burbank to explore an industrial area. I noticed this padlock, another of those ordinary tools that provide an important service.

I was surprised to find the drainage canal with water in it. We are already getting a hint of the potential of the expected El Nino conditions–and these canals will be of great service if we get the rain that is being predicted.

And there’s that dreaded freeway, unpredictable, persistently overcrowded…except in the early afternoon on a holiday. The 5 spans the state…a major north-south route. It can make my travels to see my sons easy–or a nightmare! Veteran’s Day was a good travel day on the 5.

These old telephone poles are becoming a thing of the past. And just below them are some large tanks emitting some kind of smoke or steam. I’m not certain about the need for the service these items provide but they are an interesting find just outside a suburban neighborhood.

So where do you see service? Will you photograph people: the local grocer, your favorite barista, the fireman you hope you never need? Or will you look to things: your car tire? The stove burner? The stoplight that keeps traffic moving smoothly?

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

How will you depict service? I’m looking forward to seeing service through your lens!

Re-Imagining Oneself Through the Lens of the World

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This post was originally posted at Digital Writing Month: http://www.digitalwritingmonth.com/2015/11/09/re-imagining-oneself-through-the-lens-of-the-world/

A few years ago I noticed a colleague of mine taking photos with her iPhone. They weren’t the usual photos of a group of friends or of your cute child or even the requisite selfie to document a moment in time, instead, she took photos to a prompt…and posted them on Instagram. I was intrigued.

Photography was always something that interested me, but I simply couldn’t be bothered lugging around all that equipment, setting up for perfect shots…or even knowing what made a perfect shot. But with my phone (and camera) in my pocket, it was handy…and I was ready for a challenge.

So I found a photo-a-day challenge with daily prompts and set out to give it a try. Prompts like one, logo, spoon, and inside sparked my imagination and I started looking at my environment through different eyes. I not only took at least a photo a day, I also posted at least one photo a day to my Instagram account (you can find me @kd0602). I took photos for a month, then a year…and now I continue to take and post photos regularly to Instagram. Somehow the more I took photos, the more I started thinking about the idea of blogging—an opportunity to write and share my writing in a public way.

When I started blogging in July of 2013, my goal was to write a blog post every day for 30 days. I knew that was ambitious and I also knew that I needed to challenge myself and keep to it to create a sustainable habit. Even as I picked a theme for my blog, I already knew that making a connection to my photography would motivate me. I called my blog Thinking Through My Lens–a play on the double meaning of the camera lens and my own perspective on the world. What I didn’t realize until I started to blog every day was the power that the images I was snapping would have to stimulate my writing and help me frame my thinking. A yellow sign I photographed at a gelato shop featuring locally sourced ingredients became inspiration for a post about the importance of growing and valuing local leadership in writing projects and educational settings. Each image I took filled my head with language as I sorted through my thinking.

When I’m out viewing the world through my camera lens, I find myself thinking…about teaching, about life, about the world. My photos stimulate my thinking and my thinking sets me out in search of images.

Recently I was out in the mountains of Alabama, looking for the foliage that represents autumn in so many places–and that is mostly missing in my place (San Diego). Although the unseasonably warm (high 70s) and cloudy weather made the colors less vibrant, I noticed trees of gold and some touches of red. As I walked along some forest paths, I spied this brilliant red leaf among the brown, crunchy leaves and stooped to photograph it.

And as I look at it, I find myself composing the writing…about standing out in a crowd…about being different…about risk taking. t’s not written yet, but it’s brewing. I also found myself composing the photo, leaning in close to capture the details. And then later, maybe I’ll crop it, moving the red leaf away from the center of the frame, add a filter to brighten the red and increase the contrast… As with the writing, composing is a process and the framing, the editing, the balance of color and light all impact the ways the image will be read and understood. The images speak to me…and I hope they also speak to others, telling them stories that are likely different from mine.

Some images capture moods…the quiet introspection of a traveler with pant legs rolled up and his feet in the surf,

or the somber quality of birds silhouetted in a tree on a cloudy day.

And sometimes when it seems that there is nothing interesting to see and photograph, I head outside and explore. I push myself to play and re-imagine possible images. On one of those days not so long ago I picked a dandelion from my front yard (those glorious weeds seem to bring out my playfulness—and oh, does my husband rue their existence in our lawn!) and wondered how to photograph it in a different way. I noticed my car in the driveway and considered how I might capture the image if I blew on the dandelion near the rear-view mirror, but I didn’t seem to have enough hands for that. But as I was contemplating that idea, I noticed the reflection of the dandelion in the paint of the car…and I started snapping. I continued my play with some apps…and created this image.

And by embracing the ordinary, I experienced the exhilaration of exploration and play, which also led me to composing a teacher-artist manifesto using my photographs and my words to express the importance of play in the learning process. You can see it here.

So what comes first? The image or the words? It’s that age-old chicken and egg dilemma…it all depends on how you look at it, and the particulars of any given situation. And it seems to work that way for my students too. Sometimes they have a full blown idea that appears in words on a page and other times they see something, maybe even something they have seen many times before, and the image inspires their thinking and words. Even more fun happens when they start to really look closely at an image and they start to talk with each other and build on ideas presented by their classmates.

An Activity: Make Writing … Digital

Head out with your camera in hand (the one on your phone or iPad or a “real” camera) and take a look around. Let your camera lens give you “new eyes” and seek out the extraordinary in the ordinary around you. Get low, find the light. Tilt your lens up, try a new perspective. Watch and wait, take more shots than you think you’ll need. Then spend some time with your images, let your images release your imagination. Let yourself soak in them, let them wash over you, splashing you with inspiration and wonder. Then pick one. You can let it speak for itself and post it naked. Or you can let it whisper in your ear, guiding your words and your thoughts–framing an idea that you didn’t know you were ready for.

For inspiration, we encourage you to add a photograph of your “sky” to a collaborative project we are calling “Our Eyes on the Skies” — which uses an open Google Slide format. To add yours, just take a photograph of your sky. Head to “Our Eyes on the Skies.” Grab a slide. Upload your picture and label it. We hope to create a rich visual documentation of the world above our heads. You are invited. We look forward to a collection of skies from all over the world!

(Go to slideshow for collaboration)

We hope you will share out your work across the various Digital Writing Month spaces that you inhabit. That could be right here at the Digital Writing Month blog; at your own blog or writing space; on Twitter with the #digiwrimo hashtag; in the DiGiWriMo Google Plus Community; at the DiGiWriMo Facebook page; or wherever you find yourself writing digitally.

Mini Bio:

Kim Douillard is a teacher-writer-blogger-photographer who also directs the San Diego Area Writing Project. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram @kd0602 and on her blog at http://www.thinkingthroughmylens.wordpress.com

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sky

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I’m not a fan of the return to standard time. There is something about dark descending before I even get home from work that is exhausting! It seems that the dark sucks away my energy and motivation…I just want to be home, curled up on the couch or snuggled in my bed.

But…there is an upside to the early arrival of darkness. Sunsets are readily available…they are happening as I drive home. I’m noticing the changes in the sky as I drive. Just last night as I drove to an evening meeting I couldn’t resist pulling off to take a few shots of the city with the sun setting…as viewed through a eucalyptus tree.

Earlier in the week, I stopped by the beach on my way home. We had rain this week (an event in San Diego) and the skies were cloudy and interesting. And with a little filter play, the sky lit up (it was beautiful without the filter, but striking this way). If you look closely, you can see the chopper crossing the bright spot in the sky.

I had seen photos of the Salk campus–of polio vaccination fame– (not far from the writing project office at UCSD) and had always wanted to stop and take some photos. With white puffy clouds and blustery winds, I stopped to investigate on my way home. What a reward! The views are breathtaking…with the sky and ocean framed by dramatic buildings and a long fountain-like structure (that the seagulls were enjoying). Off in the distance I spied some hang gliders (not visible in this shot). I’m sure I will go back for some more shots in the future!

And on Halloween last Saturday I spent the day in Catalina (an island off the coast–you can read more about it in this post). The trip home offered views of the city of Long Beach lighting up as darkness fell. I’m still working on my nighttime photography, but I love the colors in this shot.

And who can resist this fellow? Not quite of the sky–but of one who spends a lot of time there. This pelican seemed to enjoy posing on the railing. I like the way he stretched his pouch in this pose!

So with darkness falling early these days, look to the sky. What will you notice? Is the light different? How does it affect what you notice as you look at the wild blue yonder?

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

I’m looking forward to seeing the sky as you see it…what does your sky have to offer?

The Trick of the Treat

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For the first 20+ years of our married life we celebrated my husband’s Halloween birthday either by taking our sons out trick-or-treating or answering the door to hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood (or both). For the last decade or so, we’ve carefully avoided trick-or-treaters by planning dinner out and have learned to linger over our food and enjoy the mostly empty restaurants on Halloween evening.

This year, it seems we have been celebrating all month. We headed off to Disneyland earlier in October (see here), spent last weekend in Alabama with his family, and yesterday set off for an adventure on Catalina Island (about 26 miles offshore from southern CA). To make this treat less of a trick, this year Halloween fell on a Saturday. We’d talked about exploring Catalina for a while now…and when we learned that the boat ride over is free on your birthday, it seemed like the perfect solution to our Halloween/birthday celebration dilemma–we turned the trick into a treat!

We headed out from Long Beach and were accompanied by playful dolphins as we neared Avalon. They jumped and dove, surfing the wake of the boat. I wasn’t able to take any decent photos, but the view was majestic…and unforgettable! We arrived in the Avalon harbor to a beautiful, warm and sunny day making the blues brilliant and the whites crisp as you can see in this unedited photo.

After breakfast we climbed into a military hummer for a tour of the interior of the island. We maneuvered over rocky, dusty, steep unpaved roads as we explored the history and the topography of the island. We learned about the native plants and animals, the conservation efforts, and how they are dealing with the drought. And the views were breathtaking!

You can see San Clemente Island in the distance, almost seeming to float on the sea. The sky was so clear we could see for miles! We also took in the prickly pear as well as other native plants, and learned about the Catalina fox and the bald eagle–both which faced near extinction on the island and are now recovering. We also learned about the only non-native animal on the island, the buffalo, brought originally by a Hollywood movie maker at the turn of the century and then encouraged by the Wrigley’s who owned the island. In its native beauty, the island is spectacular, now mostly owned by a conservancy that protects and maintains its natural state.

Hot and sweaty from our time in the back country (it was an 85 degree day!), we treated ourselves to some ice cream and spent some time exploring the city of Avalon. The iconic building is the casino, but it isn’t a gambling hall, it is the home of a movie theater, a small museum, and we hear…a magnificent dance floor. We hoped to go inside, but alas, it closed quite early on a Saturday. We did explore the outside.

We spent some time watching the divers who enter and exit the water from behind the building. While I was watching them, I noticed a couple in what seemed to be brilliantly colored wetsuits (most wetsuits are black). As they swam up, I noticed that the Hulk and Aquaman (I think) were emerging from the sea…and was ready to snap a few shots as they headed for dry land. They were definitely diving in the Halloween spirit!

Further exploration led us to discover the local radio station, this small green building. We also talked to a woman who has resided on the island for 45 years and was eager to close her shop and accompany her grandchildren to the Halloween parade.

As we got ready to head back to Long Beach, we came across a friendly pelican who was more than willing to pose for photos. I took a number of shots and managed to snap this one as the pelican took flight.

As the sun began to set, we said good bye to Avalon and headed back to the mainland.

This adventure was quite a treat and a fun way to celebrate Geoff’s birthday. By the time we returned home, the trick-or-treaters were back home sorting their haul and we enjoyed a spectacular Halloween filled with wonder and play. Now the big question…how do we top this for next year?

In Appreciation: November’s Photo-a-Day Challenge

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It’s so easy to take the beauty, the generosity, and the wonder around us for granted–or let them go unnoticed and unappreciated. Like the service that this car carrier ship provides. I’ve never needed my car to be shipped via a car carrier, but as I visited Catalina Island (26 miles off the southern California coast), I wondered how they managed to get cars to the island (there is no car ferry). I did learn that they depend on barges rather than car carriers–but I noticed this car carrier in the Long Beach harbor as I headed out toward Catalina. (Notice the seagull flying overhead!)

Then there is the inexplicable connection that happens when people are playing. This couple was in full costume for the Halloween festivities in Avalon. They were just walking along until they saw me with my camera…and then they stopped and posed, making eye contact, so I could snap a photo of them in character!

And there is so much to appreciate about the almost invisible efforts of those who take care of our public outdoor spaces. I arrived at the beach last week to find this tractor driver hard at work scooping up sand and creating a berm to protect the beach behind it (and maybe preserve the sand too). The added bonus was the beautiful sky and ocean in the background!

I love this unexpected birthday “treat” from one of my students to her classmates to celebrate turning 8. Instead of cupcakes or trinkets, she gave each of her classmates a milkweed “bomb” to plant to hopefully grow into a milkweed plant–the host for the monarch butterflies we have been learning about and working to help in our classroom. What a delightful treat!

Sometimes I have to work on my own patience and persistence, and appreciate the outcome when my fascination with this pelican resulted in the snap of my camera shutter just as it took flight!

It takes a community to make sure our water is healthy and safe. These often unappreciated signs on our storm drains are reminders that the water that runs down our roads and into our drains ends up in the ocean. My students have been singing a song called Storm Drain (by the Earthworms), making me even more alert to the dangers we can impose on the ocean if we are not paying attention.

And a visit to the local water treatment plant the week before made us all aware of the work that goes into the water infrastructure we often take for granted (you can read more about it here). We learned all about how the water is cleaned and the bio wastes are trucked out to be used as fertilizer for non-food crops.

So this month, let’s spend some time being thankful and appreciative by taking photos to document our appreciation. And to get you started thinking, here’s some prompts to consider:

Nature
Gifts
Energy
Light
Texture
Sound
Friendship
Innovation
Color
Effort
Service
Ordinary
People
Connection
Unexpected
Music
Growth
Water
Place
Travel
Wonder
Home
Health
Kindness
Warmth
Family
Relax
Persistence
Empathy
Love

As always, our challenge will allow us to learn from each other as we shoot our own photos and study the photos others shoot. The prompts are there to help you pay attention to your world and think about all that you appreciate. You can use them in order or pick and choose as you like–you are welcome to add a new prompt into the mix if you are so moved. You can post every day, once a week, or even sporadically throughout the month…whatever works in your life.

Let November be the month to document and share your appreciation through your photos! I can’t wait to see all that you appreciate…and to share my thankfulness with you too.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Orange

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October is nearly over and the weather has finally cooled a bit, so I’m starting to feel the fall vibe in the air. And I’m noticing tones of orange in my photos.

Just yesterday when I took a calming after-work walk on the beach, I saw this guy on a very large tractor creating a big berm along the shore to protect the beach from the fall and winter tides.

And with the sun setting earlier (I know, next week will be crazy dark with the time change back to standard time…it will be dark before I get home from work!), I’m noticing the golden orangish glow of the sunset too.

Over the weekend I was in Alabama (celebrating my mother-in-law’s 89th birthday) and got to spend some time in the local mountains exploring the changing leaves…the reds, golds, oranges…

A visit to the Huntsville Botanical Gardens brought me eye to eye with this wonderful Halloween blossom of orangish and black! (I have no idea what its true name is, but I love the slightly crumpled look of it.)

Here’s another orange beauty from the gardens.

And we’ve been studying the monarch butterflies that inhabit the garden box outside our classroom. Like my students, I am fascinated by this beautiful orange and black wonder. This guy put on quite a performance today, showing off its proboscis as it sipped from the milkweed blossoms…and it posed patiently for me to snap a few shots with my phone.

So as October ends, head out with your camera and take a look for orange. What will you find?

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

I can’t wait to see all the orange that you find as you explore your world this week through your lens!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Something I Learned this Week

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I’m lucky. As a classroom teacher I have opportunities for learning all the time…from my students, out in the community, from my colleagues, with my “colleagues at a distance” (on MOOCs and social media), …and at home, from my family… I am surrounded by learning.

On Thursday, we had the opportunity to take our students to the local waste water treatment plant. We’ve been studying water (something we don’t have enough of here in San Diego!) and have a parent in our class who happens to be the deputy mayor in our community. She was eager to make the connection between the study of the properties of water and the water cycle and the municipal responsibilities of getting water to our taps and then treated as the water heads back out into nature’s cycle. So when she asked if we’d like to have her arrange a field trip to the water treatment plant just a couple of miles away, we were eager to go.

And even more fun, the water plant manager and the other employees were delighted to have us visit. They had us break into three groups and then took us on a tour of the plant, carefully explaining and describing all the processes in the treatment cycle. We started at the huge digester tanks, filled with the solid waste being cleaned by natural occurring microorganisms. We learned that the temperature of the tanks is about the same as our body temperature when we have a fever…up to about 102 degrees.

After spending 15 days in the digester, the now activated sludge is sent through a process that separates the water from the solids. We watched the belts squeeze out the water and send the dry activated sludge into a truck to be hauled off to Arizona where it is used as fertilizer for livestock crops (alfalfa and the sort).

We saw the big overflow tanks…where waste water collects under these big sheets (the water you can see on top is some accumulation as the result of the rain we got last week). There is an inflow of 3 million gallons a day! (And they have a duplicate tank just in case there is a problem with one–they explained the importance of redundancy to keep the operation moving.)

After than, we got to walk through the lab…and take a peek at all the science equipment in use. We noticed test tubes and vials, everything scientists need to test hypotheses, collect data, and carefully examine what is going on with the water they care for. We also got to see samples of the different stages of water cleaning. (They use a three-part process to get water to the recycled stage) Dale carefully explained each step in the water cleaning process to our young students.

We learned about the way that air is used to clean water…and watched the water bubble with the air pumped through it.

And this student was enthralled with all she was learning…she took pages and pages of notes in her little reporters notebook. (She proudly announced that she filled 17 pages!)

I hadn’t thought about the technology of keeping odors at a minimum, but this space ship looking thing cleans smells from the air before it goes back into the air.

Once water goes through the primary, secondary, and tertiary processes, it gets to the recycled water state…for use in landscaping and on golf courses. This stage flows into the purple pipes that carry this water throughout our community, but at the plant the water flows through these white pipes that will eventually meet up with the purple ones!

And whatever recycled water is not needed for the purple pipes is piped out into the ocean, joining the salt water and becoming part of our natural water cycle once again. The ducks have decided that this is a great place to hang out…right across the street from the lagoon! I think they see this place as their own private spa!

So…what have you learned this week? Maybe it’s a longer story of a particular place…or a snippet that caught your fancy and taught you something new.

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

I’m looking forward to learning from you this week…pinpoint something you learned this week and share that learning with the rest of us through your lens!