Tag Archives: photography

Citizen Scientists: Researchers in the Wild

This morning someone shared an article about kids as citizen scientist researchers–observing and documenting ladybugs in their place, and learning about research and data in the process. I love engaging students in real work as part of the learning process…and teaching them that all of us, as part of our daily lives, can and should continue to learn every day.

On our rain hike in Yellowstone the other day I got to look closely at the environment around me, noticing details and appreciating the beauty. Our destination was this natural bridge, a work of nature that I’m sure informed the first people who saw it.

And as we walked away from the bridge back toward the car, I noticed bubbles in the puddles as we passed. I was sure I was noticing something in the bubbles…and stopped to watch. It seemed that with the rain drops, a bubble would form with a white insect in it–magnifying the image of the bug–and then pop after it floated a ways.

I had to look closer…what were these creatures? And why do they form these bubbles? Do they only come out in the rain? Are they native to this forested area in Yellowstone?

I haven’t yet found out what these insects (I think they are insects) are…but I am curious to know more about them. I’m hoping that someone will know something more and lead me to some research to answer my questions. Here is a close up view…

There are so many interesting things to learn about when you take the time to notice. As I start to prepare for the beginning of school, I’m thinking about ways to support and encourage my students to pay attention the world around them and then to document and further research the questions that interest them. I’ll also be on the lookout for citizen scientist projects in my area (and would love any information you might have)…what a great way to engage students as researchers!

And if you happen to know anything about these bugs in the bubbles…I’d love some leads!

Weekly Photo Challenge: People

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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!

I recently read an article in Wired magazine about Instagram photographer Daniel Arnold. He is an iphoneographer like I am, only he focuses exclusively on photos of people–mostly in urban spaces. I usually take pictures of things, with special attention to natural beauty. But this week I have been focusing on photographs of people–most of whom I don’t know. I experimented with taking photos that feature people on Monday with my post, Beach People.

Here’s one of a group of Junior Lifeguards that I also saw on Monday at the beach. I was attracted to their yellow rash guards…and that they were sitting in rows facing the surf.

It was hard taking photos of people at first…and most of my photos were too far away to capture what was fascinating about the people in the photo. I don’t want to be intrusive or make people feel uncomfortable…but I am starting to come closer. And there are so many interesting people in the world!

I’ve been in Montana this week, doing work at the Intersection of science and literacy. At the SpectrUM Discovery Area in Missoula we had the opportunity to explore, write, and get reacquainted with colleagues from across the nation–and try out some cool science too! And who can resist taking a picture of a big guy in a super small chair?

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the Clark Fork River flows right in the middle of Missoula. And people with inner tubes, that the locals call floaters, seem to be everywhere. They make their way upriver, get into the water on their tubes and float down the river. Once down, they get out of the water, pick up the tubes and head through town back toward their cars.

There’s also lots of bike riders and dog walkers, even during the heat of the day. Outdoors are clearly important here! (And I can see why!)

Last night we hiked our way up the giant M on the side of the mountain overlooking the university. It’s not a long climb, but it is quite steep and there is steady stream of hikers making their way up the switchbacks to this local sight. Once there the M is huge…too big to fit in the photo frame, and a bit slick to climb on.

But you can sit along the edge, catch your breath, check out the map of the university, and take in the gorgeous sunset from this spectacular vantage place.

So this week’s challenge is to take pictures of people. They can be people you know, or you can try your hand at capturing photos of people who pique your interest as you go about your daily life.

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

There are so many interesting people in the world when we pause to watch and notice. Who will you take the time to photograph this week?

Water on the Brain

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Water: beautiful, powerful, moving, treacherous, life-giving, flowing through our veins, through earth’s veins, taken for granted, precious, tenuous, unpredictable, limited, overflowing…

I feel like I have water on the brain. I woke this morning to images of water flowing–a water main break in Los Angeles had me gasping at the waste of a precious resource. Our drought in Southern California–in CA as a whole (and other western states)–is so severe that I feel the constant of thirst, in my throat, in my heart, for our plants and animals, for our people. Reservoirs and lakes have shrunken to show thick exposed shorelines, creeks are but a distant memory of a trickle. And the flooding in Colorado has me wishing we could share in this bounty rather than experience the extremes of water.

Floods, like their cousins wildfires, remind us that there is much we do not and cannot control.

I spent time today on the banks of the Clark Fork River in Missoula, MT learning and thinking about the indigenous stories of this place. The beauty of the river masks its troubled history and ancient lineage. Indigenous and scientific knowledge swim in these waters that tourists may see as a playground, a place for floating on inner tubes and cooling off in the 90 degree temperatures.

Inspired by the water, I wrote with others as part of a mini writing marathon at our Intersections meeting today. The writing was rich and layered with stories of experiences with water…or no water. And changing the lens…through the indigenous stories and science…prompted our memories and connections, letting the stories pour like the water itself.

Like water, there is power in writing. Power to connect, to heal, to think and reflect. We sometimes forget that writing in unexpected places, creates new urgency and agency for our writing. So go outside, find a place by a river, on the curb, under a tree, or even sit on the car bumper and see what writing comes when you change your lens.

Sunshine on a Stem

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I spied it from afar as I was heading to my car this morning. And I had to stop. Right in the middle of our gasping-for-water, drought stricken lawn a dandelion stood tall and yellow, sunshine on a stem.

I’ve definitely become obsessed with dandelions…in all their forms. They represent the tenacity, resourcefulness, and strength I want to help cultivate in learners and teachers. Learners as hot house flowers that have to be carefully controlled and cultivated seem too fragile to become the innovators and explorers we need in the world. Teachers are often portrayed as gardeners, nurturing their crop of learners…but I’m wanting to reject that image too, it seems to take all the energy and agency away from students in that scenario.

Like dandelions, I want learners to thrive where they live. I want them to land in places where they can dig in and grow tall. And I want teachers to be like dandelions too, not dependent on specialized tools but instead drawing on the processes that honor writers and tinkerers and explorers. And when they happen to be plucked by the curious child who takes a big breath and blows on the puff, I hope the wishes fly far and wide and land on fertile ground so that these tenacious and resourceful survivors populate our classrooms and our world.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Light

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #light for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

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

Blog Birthday: A Reflection

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Today marks one year since I began this blog. I began with a 30 day blogging challenge for myself–creating an urgency to blog every day for 30 days in a row. And in retrospect, that was a smart move to help me establish a habit of writing every day, day in and day out, even when I wasn’t feeling like I had anything to say. In the last 365 days, I posted a blog post 293 of them…that’s a little over 80% of the days in the year!

This morning I had plans to read all 293 posts and then create some kind of reflection based on that reading. And while I think it’s a good idea to go back and read all my posts, I only managed to get through the first 30 days before my life called and I was off to the beach and running those errands that just don’t get accomplished during the work week.

(Making time to photograph and play pushes me to create more balance in my professional and personal life…a good thing, I think!)

I’ve noticed lots of bull kelp on the beach in the last week. There is something beautiful and fascinating about these large floats…definitely evokes the wabi sabi for me!

So instead of reflecting on the year’s worth of posts, I decided to highlight five from those first 30 days that continue to speak to me…and I know that I returned to their themes throughout the year–and may continue to return to them.

1. Dandelions: A Photo Essay – I noticed that I had a number of posts about my fascination with the ordinary, and what I learned about myself and my students by paying attention to small details. This particular post continues to be one of my favorites.

2. Fireflies – This is another post about something little–that many people take for granted. I loved learning that fireflies are the most ordinary of insects, and the most extraordinary! We southern Californians miss so much by not having these lights in our everyday lives!

3. Spaces for Learning – Hmmm…I just discovered I have two posts from last July with the same title! I like this one that talks about “third spaces” for learning, outside the spaces claimed by hierarchies and organizations. These are the spaces we claim for ourselves as learners. I’m not done thinking about this idea… and it keeps emerging over and over again in my life…as a teacher, as a learner, and as a human. (The other post was about Genius Hour, which is related…)

4. A Small Orange Bead – This post is really about the power of connections and connectedness as a learner. Opportunities to learn in a community create deep pathways and provide support that matters to learners.

5. Boys and Bears – There is a physicality to learning that we sometimes forget as adults. My observations of boys at the polar bear exhibit pushed me to think about how physical interactions have the power to pique curiosity and deepen learning experiences.

A year of blogging has taught me so much about myself as a writer, as a learner, as a photographer, and as an explorer in the world. It has heightened my senses as I lean closer to my surroundings to understand them and myself through my writing and photography. When I chose the blog title, Thinking Through My Lens, I wanted to play on the word lens to represent more than a camera’s eye…I also wanted it to represent my own biases, questions, and goals.

I look forward to another year of Thinking Through My Lens…and hope you will continue to bump your thinking against mine, sharing your insights and discoveries so that we can learn more about our world and ourselves, together.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Summer

To Meme or Not to Meme

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I learned about memes a few years ago…and kind of take them for granted now as commonplace, especially in places like Facebook and other social media platforms. And I never use them…or at least I don’t think I do!

But this week, the “make” for CLMOOC is a meme. In fact, the same person that I learned about memes from is part of the team that is inviting memes this week. So I started out the week actively resisting participating in meme-making…why would I want to take someone else’s image, put some words on it and publish it as commentary on teaching or summer or some aspect of popular culture?

It was Anna who drew me back in with her post today:

A comment on that thread from Scott sent me off to the PBS Idea Channel, adding to my understanding of memes.

And questions from both Terry and Scott, “What about photography?” “Images without text?” got me thinking and wondering… I headed over to Peter and Kim’s invitation and then clicked on James Gleick’s article, What Defines a Meme? and came across this passage in the text:

Images. In Isaac Newton’s lifetime, no more than a few thousand people had any idea what he looked like, even though he was one of England’s most famous men. Yet now millions of people have quite a clear idea—based on replicas of copies of rather poorly painted portraits. Even more pervasive and indelible are the smile of Mona Lisa, The Scream of Edvard Munch and the silhouettes of various fictional extraterrestrials. These are memes, living a life of their own, independent of any physical reality. “This may not be what George Washington looked like then,” a tour guide was overheard saying of the Gilbert Stuart portrait at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “but this is what he looks like now.” Exactly.

And I admit, I haven’t yet read the entire article…because this got me thinking about a photo I took not too long ago at my nephew’s wedding. I included the photo in a post back then…and will include it again here. Is this a version of a meme? Does it require text? Does it only resonate with a certain audience of art lovers?

What do you think? What caption might you include?

Play and Games

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This first week of CLMOOC has reminded me again of the power of connected learning. Don’t get me wrong…I am a connected learner all year long, but there is something about the intensity and playfulness of the CLMOOC that amplifies the effect. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to serve as a coach for an upcoming make, and when I learned the topic would be games I wondered just how much help I would be. In online spaces when someone says games, I immediately think of Minecraft and Halo and other video games.

Instead, our conversation went to stories about games from our childhood…games we made up, unstructured time when we were left to our own devices and “forced” to entertain ourselves. Terry brought up some research about the lack of games in children lives and I wondered how that could be true–aren’t people complaining that kids are too obsessed with gaming? That’s when our conversation got really interesting…when we realized that game had different connotations in different contexts. What we all worry about is how little time children seem to have that is unsupervised and free for imaginative play, exploration, making, and doing…not pre-structured by adults. (Many thanks for a rich, thought-provoking conversation Terry, Joe, Christina, and Michael!)

Here’s a link to the talk Terry had referred to:

My husband took today off from work and after we treated ourselves to breakfast out, we headed to the beach for a leisurely low tide walk. It was warm and sunny, but not too hot, perfect beach weather. And as we started walking I realized that my husband and I often make up our own games to keep our beach walks interesting. Our latest “game” has been to search for beach glass as we walk. It’s like a scavenger hunt, eyes tuned for the gleam of the glass worn by the tides. We have very little glass on our beaches–probably in large part because glass has been banned on our beaches for a decade. But when we started playing this game a few weeks ago, each find has become a treasure. Here’s today’s haul.

And Christina reminded me that my photography is a game. And it’s become even more so managing both #sdawpphotovoices–a monthly photo a day challenge and a weekly photo challenge that I post on my blog and for the NWP iAnthology. This week’s Weekly Photo Challenge is #two…and I couldn’t resist snapping this photo of my husband fitting our flip flops in his pockets so we don’t have to carry them on our walk. He puts one of each of our shoes in the pocket since mine are smaller (two of his shoes won’t fit in one pocket!).

I also took some photos that I knew I would use to play around with filters and effects. This “still life” seemed perfect for trying out a new app (thanks Bonnie for pointing to it) called painteresque. I love the effect!

And then today I added yet another game to my photographic repertoire. I’ve been wanting to take photos of “found alphabet” letters. My rule (self-imposed) is that I have to photograph it as it is, I don’t get to arrange it. Here’s a couple I found at the beach today.

Here’s a Y from kelp:

An M I found in the cliffs:

An O formed by a sea anenome:

And who can resist the i made of bird poop! (And it was washed away by a wave right after I snapped it!)

And part of the fun of these games is playing them with others. It’s fun to search for beach glass with my husband, celebrating each find. And taking photos is even more fun when others play along and we can share with each other and learn from each other.

I’m hoping that others will join me in the found alphabet fun. I’m thinking I have two different “sets” I am searching for: found in nature and found on the beach.

What I love best about the CLMOOC is the spirit of playfulness and the ways we build on each others’ ideas and makes. We are free to explore, to play, and to hack the structures presented. The connections are essential because they motivate and encourage and urge us on to try one more thing. And thanks Terry, Joe, Christina, and Michael and the rest of you CLMOOC-ers for reminding me that I do know about games. Now I can’t wait for the game-focused make cycle! I’m already making up new games!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #two for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

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