Tag Archives: photography

Fooling around with Poetry! NPM 2019 Day 1

It’s April 1st, the first day of National Poetry Month and a perfect day to “fool” around with some poetry! Since my students are I are taking a poem-a-day challenge, we needed to generate some inspiration today to get us in the poetry frame of mind.

We started by reading Tiny Perfect Things by M.H. Clark, a book that focuses on the wonder and beauty of the ordinary. Then we headed outside (it was an almost-summer day, 75 and sunny) with our iPads in search of tiny perfect things to photograph as inspiration for our poetry. My students found lizards, beetles, and roly polys. They found apple blossoms shaped like stars, California poppies peeking through the chain link fence, and cotton floating down from the cotton plant in the school garden. They chased the monarch butterfly across the field in hopes of a viable photo. And when we returned to the classroom, they wrote.

It’s conference week, so the days are short. But I’m already loving their first drafts…and their willingness to share. The variety was impressive…and the playfulness so satisfying! Here’s a couple to give you a taste.

Luke’s first draft poem played around with a repeated refrain:

Rose

You catch my eye

how white you are,

with yellow in the middle

and your pod red.

You catch my eye

on a pointy bush

and a soft flower.

You catch my eye,

you stand out.

Of all the flowers,

you are as white as snow.

You catch my eye.

And Alice couldn’t resist playing around with the idea of April Fool’s Day, inspired by her brother’s prank on another student:

Red Rug of Sap

It can be red,

it can be black,

my little red rug of sap.

It lays upon a tree

resting

til it is the day.

Check the calendar!

What is today?

April first! April first!

April Fool’s Day!

Time to stain my finger

red or black

with my little red rug of sap.

My own first draft poem was inspired by the rusty chain and lock around the gate on the side of the school.

Looped and Locked

Metal

weathered, rusted, oxidized

days, years, decades

outside

exposed

to fog

to rain

to sun

to briny sea air

still strong

linked like children holding hands

safety in numbers

comfort in connection

looped around the gate

and snapped shut

with a tiny, perfect

Master lock.

©Douillard

I’m looking forward to reading others’ first day of National Poetry Month entries today!

Reflections on SOLC 2019: Day 31

2 Replies

Thirty out of thirty one days in March I wrote a blog post and made it public. (I missed a day somewhere along the way because I was sick.) Today is the day to think about just what writing a slice of life each day has meant.

I know that writing every day makes writing every day just a bit easier. Early in the month it felt hard to come up with topics, each day felt like a stretch. And then, just like I tell my students, I started to live more like a writer. Each and every experience I have during the day becomes fodder for thinking and writing. I like that writing makes me pay more attention. I notice details, make word associations, connect seemingly disparate parts of my life as I write and reflect.

I know that photography helps me generate writing. It is yet another tool for paying attention to the world around me. With my camera around my neck, the world slows down allowing me to notice what I might otherwise overlook. When I go back later to view the images I captured, new thinking floods my brain, filling in the stories between the shots. I re-view the things I noticed that I wasn’t able to capture through my lens and I see my experiences anew.

lrg_dsc02463

I know that the Slice of Life Challenge community is a gift to me as a writer. As I posted my permalink each day, I knew someone would read and comment on my writing. This community is accepting and generous. Encouraging words keep a writer moving forward. As I read slices from others, I shared my thinking with them and learned from their words too. I posted because I said I would, and because I knew that a community was there to listen. That encouraged me to write, to revise, to push myself to continue to grow as a writer and as a responder.

And I love that writing each day creates a record of my thinking and my experiences. I can return to my thinking later, reconsider those thoughts in light of new insights and experiences. And as someone who tends to be an introvert, it invites others into my life in ways I don’t often make space for verbally or in casual in-person interactions.

March and my daily slices end today, but tomorrow I am taking on a new challenge. My students and I will be taking a 30 day poem-a-day challenge for National Poetry Month. So look for a poem from me…and if things go well, poems from some of my students as well, each day of April!

A Noticing Day: SOLC 2019 Day 30

2 Replies

With reports cards written and parent conferences ahead of me, today was low-key. Sandwiched between errands, lunch out, and a chiropractic appointment, we fit in a noticing walk on the beach.

Today is part of a warming trend in our parts, sunny and clear, breezy with temperatures in the low 70s. Beach goers were out in full force, taking advantage of a beautiful spring weekend. (This has definitely been an in like a lion, out like a lamb March!)

Some days at the beach I have no idea what I’ll take a photo of. I have tons of beach photos from all seasons, so I’m always alert to something new or unusual in some way. We walked a different beach today, one further north than my usual Moonlight Beach, just because it was on our way from one errand to another. As I walked my eyes were drawn to the maze of stairways from multimillion dollar homes on the cliffs zigzagging their way down the steep bluffs. I took several shots, trying to capture that effect in my photo. (There are more–I was wishing to get an even wider view through my lens!)

lrg_dsc02384

As I pressed the shutter, my husband called out to me. “Do you see that? Right there on the ladder…see the osprey?” I didn’t at first (even though I had just photographed that very ladder!), my husband had to direct my gaze to see the bird in the distance. We carefully moved closer, picking our way across the stones in our bare feet. We photographed and watched, mesmerized by this majestic bird of prey. After a few minutes of close observation, we walked back closer to the water’s edge. As we took a last look over our shoulder, we saw it flying away in the other direction. I am so glad my husband saw what I hadn’t noticed!

We continued our walk, and I found my eyes alternating between watching the brilliant cobalt blue sky where sea birds soared and searching the sand and rocks for sea glass. Looking up, I saw a variety of gulls and terns, ravens, and even an egret in flight. And always a favorite, pelican squadrons made their runs up and down the coast.

lrg_dsc02381

As we headed back the car I couldn’t resist a close look at the wildflowers growing along the beach path. I noticed the bees busily buried in the centers of these native yellow beauties.

lrg_dsc02413

While I ended up spending the majority of my day out and about, it was a day for relaxing and noticing rather than hurrying and worrying. I watched and wondered, taking time to breathe deeply and enjoy time out with my love on this perfect spring day. I can feel my energy levels charging–just what I’ll need for the week of parent conferences that are just around the corner!

Blue #19: SOLC 2019 Day 29

3 Replies

I often find myself taking the same photo over and over again. Obviously my eye is drawn to the subject. I do try different angles, shifting every so slightly to capture the best light, something different in the background, or looking from another direction.

Sometimes I’m not even aware that I’m taking the same photo until I’m reminded–by a scroll through my images or a reminder of a memory from Facebook or my photo album.

But today I knew.

My Friday schedule let me take advantage of a nice low tide at midday. I could feel the sun’s warmth as my bare feet traveled over the wet sand and was glad for my light sweatshirt in the low 60s early spring sea breeze. When the tide is low and I don’t feel rushed for time, my turnaround point is lifeguard tower #19. #19 is also a favorite local surfing spot and a popular dining spot for sandpipers.

lrg_dsc02365

If you look north from #19, you can see Swamis–another popular (and famous) surfing spot with its iconic palm tree topped hillside. I often take a photo or two with that view…like I did today.

lrg_dsc02370

And as I looked through my photos, also back in November and December!

Preset Style = Vibrant Lightness = Auto-Exposure Size = Large Border = No Border

Occasionally, I find myself taking another perspective, giving yet another view of #19. (The tide was too high on this day for my usual perspective, I was forced up the hillside to avoid getting wet!)

lrg_dsc00060

I’m not sure what all this says about either the lifeguard tower or me as a photographer. But I did find myself thinking about William Carlos Williams and The Red Wheelbarrow. (April is National Poetry Month and I’m planning ways to motivate my students to write a poem a day for the 30 days of April!) So, using The Red Wheelbarrow as my mentor text, I played around with thoughts of the blue lifeguard tower. Here’s my attempt:

Blue #19

I keep photographing

a blue lifeguard tower

sprayed with sea mist

watching the sandpipers and surfers dance

©Douillard

Something Fishy: SOLC 2019 Day 27

4 Replies

Just when we thought the week couldn’t get any fishier, it did! You already know about the angle fish and the wire fish…today was all about real fish.

Wednesdays are our science lab day and our science teacher always goes to great lengths to make things relevant and hands-on for the kids. I knew that she’d gone to a grunion run last weekend…and the grunion were running. If you’re not from coastal southern California, you may not know about grunion. They are small silver fish, about the length of a dollar bill…and they’re pretty special. They are the only fish who come onshore to lay their eggs in the sand and they are found only along our coast from northern Baja to southern Santa Barbara. They spawn from March to June, riding high tides onto the shore to lay their eggs. A couple weeks later, at the next high tide, the eggs are washed back into the ocean, requiring the wave motion to hatch.

I remember grunion runs from my own teenaged days. Since grunion only surf onto the beach late at night, it was the perfect opportunity for groups of preteens to head to the beach, hanging out in the moonlight, trying not to scare off the grunion. (I don’t know who talked the adult drivers into that duty!) If you’re under 16 you don’t need a fishing license to pick up the fish…not that I can ever remember wanting to pick them up! Lucky for us, our science teacher was able to collect some grunion (and eggs) on her grunion run last weekend for our students to study.

Students were able to touch the fish (yeah, they were dead), measure them to determine their age, and gently squeeze them to determine whether they were female (if reddish eggs came out) or male (if a milky liquid came out).

As you can see, they were eager to handle them, some with gloves and some with their bare hands.

We also took the opportunity to present our science teacher with a gift of fish from us. Each student contributed one of their wire fish (Calder inspired) to our collective fish mobile. The best part was that each student figured out their own fish’s balancing point, tied a piece of fishing line to that point, and then small groups hung their fish together. We tied each string of fish from a piece of drift wood that I found on one of my beach walks. The result was stunning! I’m including a photo–although it doesn’t begin to do it justice!

Next week students will string their own individual fish mobiles…and continue their study of grunion. If we’re lucky, we will be able to get some of those grunion eggs to hatch…right in front of our eyes!

Dad’s Camera-a mini book review: SOLC 2019 Day 26

7 Replies

Tonight I asked my students to write about a book they have read recently for their entry in their Learning at Home (LAH) notebooks. I asked them to tell a bit about what the book is about, include big ideas and concepts the book brings up, and make a recommendation about whether or not their classmates (or me) should read the book.

So…I think I’ll take that same writing invitation. I’ve been carrying a book around in my teaching bag that I plan to use with my students one of these days. Dad’s Camera by Ross Watkins grabbed my attention a year or so ago, before it was available here in the United States. I’m always interested in books about photography, so when this one became available, I was quick to purchase it.

While this book is a children’s picture book, it is not really a book for children. This book tackles the heavy topic of Alzheimer’s disease and the confusion and devastation that families face as they deal with it. The author describes this book as a tool for opening up conversations with children…and with adults to talk about Alzheimer’s.

I love the idea of photography as activism. In this case, the book uses photographs as a way to talk about memories and memory loss. The dad photographs ordinary things, things most people don’t photograph. “Dad took photos of the things he didn’t want to forget.” What he didn’t take photos of were his family, much to the frustration of the mom in the story.

Disease, memory loss, confusion, and frustration are all strong themes in this book. Communication breaks down and the dad does things the mom and kid don’t understand. The dad’s deteriorating memory makes it hard for him to explain the whys behind his actions. And while the book does not tie up in a neat package, the ending is satisfying. (No spoilers here!)

Although this is not a typical children’s book, it is one I plan to use in my classroom. I want to use it along with some other books about photographers, including Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange who both used photography as a ways to shed light on issues they were passionate about. How can we use our own passions and art, like photography, to make the world a better place…in ways big and small? I think I’ll have more to say about this book and what happens in my classroom once I take this ideas from seed to implementation!

dad's camera

Sky View: SOLC 2019 Day 23

1 Reply

I couldn’t take my eyes off the sky. Our usual monochromatic blue or gray skies were replaced by deep blue textured with white. My first view this morning was as we headed off to run errands. We have this quirky spiky tree near the driveway that I am obsessed with photographing. It always makes an interesting backdrop to photos of the sky. This morning I noticed the tree was beginning to get leaves (again–this tree gets terribly confused with year-round spurts of spring and summer weather) as I looked up into sun infused clouds, with the neighbor’s palm tree in the background.

Later, after the errands and some shopping at the outlet mall, my husband offered to stop along the coast in San Clemente so I could get out and take some photos. My eyes were drawn to the contrails playing with the clouds against the brilliant blue of the springtime sky.

lrg_dsc02288

The coastline is always beautiful, and today was no different. It was high tide when we stopped and I picked my way down close enough for photos–but trying to avoid another oops like I experienced yesterday! The sky appeared to have stripes…and you can’t really see it in this photo, but the sea had dozens of sailboats in the distance. I like the way the white of crashing waves echo the white of the contrails and clouds in the sky.

lrg_dsc02290

Even the traffic couldn’t ruin the day. Accidents and heavy weekend traffic made a 30 mile trip take more than 90 minutes, something that is unfortunately all too typical. (I suppose it is a price we pay for living near the coast.) Our too-often-brown hillsides were wearing their springtime best and bursting with lush and vibrant green and so many yellow flowers…you can almost feel the softness with your eyes!

Although I missed the photo opportunity as we left Costco and headed back home, my eyes took in yet another playful interweaving of contrails and clouds. I looked up and noticed an enormous hashtag in the sky. #skyview

Oops! SOLC 2019 Day 22

4 Replies

Ah! The briny air filled my lungs as the gentle spring sunshine warmed my back. There is nothing better than a walk on the beach at the end of the work day.

I wondered at the beach goers in bathing suits more than waist deep in the still cold Pacific ocean. (Even in summer, 72 degrees is warm water–refreshing when temps are in the 80s. Today’s water temperature of 60 degrees is hardly balmy.) Low 60s do not constitute bathing suit weather in my opinion. I was thinking about how San Diego is really not a spring break destination. We’re often mistaken for a tropical location, with warm weather year round. In reality, we are a temperate climate. It’s seldom too hot here, and we don’t even know snow unless you drive high into the local mountains. But March is predictably sweatshirt weather–and I almost always wear shoes on the beach at this time of year because of all the rocks.

I digress. I walked quickly, trying to have this clear-my-head walk count as some kind of exercise in a week that left too little time to move my body. I found myself on the uncomfortable slope of rocks thrown high by the surf as I climbed to avoid the waterline, slipping and sliding on the uneven piles.

I’m never bored along the coast, there is always something to see. Today I watched surfers, dressed in their black wetsuits, as they headed out into the glistening sea. There is seldom a day without surfers around here, even when the weather and waves are less than ideal.

lrg_dsc02282

Looking up I noticed a modern day pterodactyl, our native pelican, gliding on the currents.

lrg_dsc02280

At my turn around point, I got bold, walking further out away from the rocks. Walking on the sand just felt so much better than slip sliding on the rocks. I knew I was taking a calculated risk–walking in my jeans and relatively new tennies so close to the water. I know all about rogue waves and watched as I was walking. About halfway back to my car, I could see it coming. Just as I reached the point of no return, I saw the wave rushing toward me. I spied a rock jutting up higher than the sand and jumped on it. Seconds later I felt the cool salty water rush over my feet, my ankles, wicking up my pant legs. With nowhere to go, I stood, waiting for the water to recede.

My walk the rest of the way was of the squelchy variety as my wet socks and wet shoes squished with each step. I was less careful at that point. I was already wet, so I took the easier, if wetter, pathways on my way back to the car. I had to laugh at myself, maybe I should have just taken my shoes off and walked barefoot for the entire walk. If I were more like those bathing suit wearing beach goers, I wouldn’t be squelching my way back to my car!

lrg_dsc02285

But neither wet pant legs or squishy shoes could take away my pleasure and delight in my beach walk. There is something healing and rejuvenating about a walk on the beach!

lrg_dsc02279

Now back home, my shoes have been rinsed, the insoles removed and are sitting on the spare bathroom counter drying. I wonder how long til they’re dry enough to wear on my next beach walk?

Team Bird: SOLC 2019 Day 15

7 Replies

Today’s walk had me watching pelicans. And as I observed their precision maneuvers, I started to think about how birds compare to sports and their athletes. Pelicans are like synchronized swimmers, matching their moves and depending on the precise movements of each to create the desired formations as a group. I sometimes see one peel off, slowing down or heading off in a different direction, but most of the time they are working the V, adjusting position and speed to ensure that the entire group gets where it is going with speed and efficiency.

lrg_dsc02232

Seagulls are more like that pick up game of basketball or soccer. They have shared interests, but there is always plenty of squabbling and trash talk. There are definitely leaders and followers and lots of jockeying for position (and food). Seagulls seem to laugh a lot (at least in my mind), they love to play in the wind currents and hang out together on the beach.

lrg_dsc00735

Osprey are those elite individual athletes–the Mikaela Shiffrins or Serena Williams of the bird world. They are strong and independent and ferociously focused on their goals. Osprey are beauty in motion, each muscle toned, each movement made with grace that makes the nearly impossible seem easy.

Egrets are steady, patient and observant. They wait for the perfect opportunity, a lot like the utility players in football or basketball. They have that grace of movement, but they don’t draw your attention until you look away from the shining stars of the game. But when you do look…oh la la, they are poetry in motion!

lrg_dsc09977

Sandpipers are team players all the way. They move together, eat together, and watch out for each other. Like a finely honed World Cup soccer team, they seem to read each others’ minds, moving separately almost like one.

lrg_dsc03164

I’m always encouraging my students to be a team, reminding them that we need to support each other and create a space where we all can learn. But after watching the birds, I’m wondering if I need to refine my language. What kind of team do I want them to be?

What Does it Take to Thrive? SOLC 2019 Day 14

1 Reply

I walk below these cliffs all the time, noticing the canyons and wrinkles wind and water carve along their faces. I see evidence of human interference, the places where lawns and ice plant hasten the natural erosion of sandstone along the beach. I’m mindful of walking too close to the cliffs, remembering days when huge chunks let loose and fall to the shore. I wonder about the multimillion dollar homes perched on the edge–the ones with the incredible views of the Pacific Ocean–that are in danger of dropping into the sea during the next big storm. Are those homeowners insured for cliff erosion?

Today’s blue was intense, blues that need words like cerulean, azure, and cyan to begin to describe the richness of the color. And the blue was punctuated with thousands of small orange butterflies…on a mission headed north. It was almost as they were emerging from the sea, flying straight for the cliffs, then up, up , up.

lrg_dsc02210

Oddly, though, my eyes were drawn to a small bunch of yellow flowers high on the wind-blown cliff, a tiny patch of blossoms flourishing in hardscrabble sandstone. I’m reminded that some of us make the best of where we are planted and take advantage of whatever resources are available…not dependent on soil amendments, special fertilizers, and protection from wind and other elements. What does it take to thrive in sandy soil and harsh conditions? Sometimes the blue skies, mild temperatures, and more plentiful than average rainfall is enough.

lrg_dsc02218