Tag Archives: writing

Weekly Photo Challenge: Action

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!

School started this week for me…and now my world is full of action. Five, six, seven and eight year olds bring energy and action to everything…even sitting still! (If you can call it still.) And with just three school days under our belts, we are busy making, thinking, talking, reading, computing, planning, performing, and writing. Here’s a tiny glimpse of a student actively writing and drawing.

And while this picture is not at my school or one of my students, I am fascinated by watching children seriously engaged in learning and play. (And those terms are mostly synonymous when it comes to kids!) I love the earnestness of this child at play building.

Over the weekend I spent some time on the beach. It’s been hot here (for the coast, anyway), and there is lots of action on the beach as people try to stay cool. Here’s a shot of a sandpiper in flight. I was lucky enough to snap just as he took to the air.

I also came across this family at play…using a piece of kelp as a jump rope. It was fun to watch them take turns turning and jumping and encouraging each child to try jumping in. Kelp is pretty amazing stuff!

The end of summer is also the perfect time for grilling food outdoors, especially since we don’t have air conditioning. I’m lucky…my husband is both a great cook and great at grilling!

And I love that action doesn’t have to involve people or animals. There is lots of action in nature. I was excited when I noticed that I captured this wave in action as it crashed against the rocks.

So this is the week to look for the action in your life…whether you find it in shots of people, animals, machines, nature…or something else.

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

Where will you find action? I can’t wait to find out!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sky

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As a photographer I find myself obsessed with certain things at different times. Sometimes I am looking closely at ground level, my attention on the details of plants and walkways. And lately, I find that my eyes are on the sky. I’m noticing clouds (when there are clouds) and even the differences in color from deep saturated blues to the barely visible sky on those gray, marine layer mornings.

My time in Yellowstone offered a variety of sky views. This one captures the darkness of the afternoon storm along with the steam rising from the geyser.

And in this one with the waterfall, I find myself interested in the echo I feel between the waterfall and the clouds above.

On another day in Yellowstone, filtering a horizon on an overcast day brought out colors that the camera lens had a hard time capturing, revealing more details of the sun breaking through.

Coming home from Montana meant the opportunity for a fairly low flight in a small jet. In my combination window/aisle seat I snapped picture after picture. This one captured clouds from above rather than my usual vantage below.

A trip to Los Angeles meant more opportunities for photos…and again, my eyes were on the sky. I loved the way the blues and whites of this conservatory suggest the blues and whites of the sky and clouds.

As I drove home that night the big, bright super moon watched my progress. As I pulled into my driveway after the long drive I couldn’t resist taking time to snap a shot of the moon peeking through the palm.

In our effort to stay cool and still hike, we headed off to Cabrillo National Park last weekend. The proximity to the air station on Coronado meant the opportunity to watch airplanes take off and land. If you look closely, you will see the plane in this photo with the San Diego skyline shrouded in a bit of marine layer below.

I couldn’t believe the deep, dark indigo of the sky in this picture of the lighthouse. This is the image with no filtering or editing.

Yesterday morning I awoke to flashes of light in my bedroom window and booming rolls of thunder. My cats cowered and the neighborhood dogs barked. As I was getting ready for work, my husband called for me to come out and bring my camera (phone). I walked out to a sky full of rainbow! Here’s my best attempt at capturing it!

So this week’s challenge is to look up. What will you capture when you look to the sky?

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.

So look up and notice what the sky has to offer. I can’t wait to see surprises your sky holds!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Play

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Unofficially summer is over for me tomorrow…I head back to work to prepare for the new school year. I’m not dreading going back–I’m lucky, I love my work. But I do want to be reminded to continue to include play in my life, even when I am working.

Sometimes play is as simple as taking a photo of my cat and then messing with it in a photo app…like this one of Phil. The intensity of his look in this photo just cracks me up…looks like he is saying, “How dare you…”

It’s also fun to play around with the framing of shots like this one using the prickly pear as a way to frame Lake Hodges in the background.

There’s other kinds of framing that is fun to play around with too. And sometimes it’s designers that create playful features like this one at the Huntington gardens where you can walk behind the waterfall…what a perfect opportunity to take a photo of the backside of water!

Other features like this decorative opening in a wall became a playful way of looking at the gardens beyond.

And then there is play beyond the camera too. Visiting my son and daughter-in-law meant the opportunity to spend some time playing with their little dog Elli. She’s a cute long-haired chihuahua and she loves to play! She likes to sneak some licks, bring her toys, race around the room… And of course, she is adorable!

And sometimes I like to play with my little magnetic lenses. Today I had the fisheye lens out…one I don’t use too often. I wanted to capture the flowering of the tree in my driveway. Here’s the fisheye version.

So this week’s challenge is to do some playing…with your photography or without photography…and then document it with a photo.

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

Be sure to squeeze some play time into these last few weeks of summer! Can’t wait to see what you are playing around with!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Explore

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As summer winds down and the new school year looms and beckons, this is a perfect time for some exploration. Exploration can happen anywhere and anytime…you just have to take the time to pay attention to your environment. Last week when I flew into the Missoula International Airport I immediately noticed the taximdermy heads of animals decorating the walls of the airport.

Crossing the Clark Fork River, I stopped to explore these locks connected to the bridge. I’d heard about locks like these on bridges in Europe, but this was my first encounter with locks carved with initials and names locked to a bridge here in the US.

Also, in my Montana and Wyoming explorations I was amazed at the giant dandelions. The fluff balls were easily as large as my fist!

I’ve also been interested in buildings. In Bozeman when we stopped for dinner, I was immediately taken by this old building and couldn’t wait to capture it in a photograph.

I also got to explore the history of homesteading through the Tinsley House, a living history exhibit at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. They had spectacular gardens, a working blacksmith shop…aiming for authenticity from the 1890’s.

And of course, exploring Yellowstone was an amazing experience. I have posted extensively about my experience in the park…and there is more. Living in San Diego, I seldom have the opportunity to explore the majesty of rivers–but Yellowstone was filled with them. Here’s one example.

Even the construction in the park caught my eye.

On the last leg of my trip home I had the opportunity to fly on a small propeller plane…and to have a window and an aisle seat all rolled into one. At a relatively low altitude of 9000 ft, I had a wonderful view to explore the southern California coastline from the air.

But there is lots to explore even at home. Today I took a four mile walk near my house to a bridge near a golf course where I took a shot of the surrounding area from the top looking out. With a little help of the application Painteresque, what some might see as ordinary becomes extraordinary.

So this week’s challenge is to explore, and then to capture some aspect of that exploration in a photograph. It can be from your travels, your work, or even the ordinariness of your everyday life. Let your photographic eye explore the world around you…wherever you are!

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

Have some fun exploring as summer begins to wind down. I can’t wait to see the photographs your exploring leads you to!

Beyond Old Faithful

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Today’s Yellowstone adventures took us well beyond Old Faithful and the thermal features that marked our first day in the park. Today we set out in search of wildlife and waterfalls and found so much more.

Geoff loves bears…and has his heart set on seeing a bear in the park, so we headed toward the northwest entrance and the Lamar Valley where folks at the Yellowstone Association recommended for possible wildlife viewing. And while we didn’t see bears, we did see some other wildlife.

We followed a road we didn’t travel yesterday, and not far into our drive Geoff saw this amazing bird of prey. He quickly turned the car around and passed by it again…as it sat and posed while I took its photo through the open car window. A bit of research has us believing it is a golden eagle.

After such a great beginning we were optimistic as we headed off the beaten path and followed a dirt road for 6 miles in search of other animals. We saw beautiful meadows and listened to the songs of birds as we drove the bumpy, dusty path at about 10 miles per hour with the windows open…but nothing beyond birds and squirrels showed themselves. As we headed into the Lamar Valley we were feeling much less optimistic when we noticed cars pulling off the side of the road. In Yellowstone, that is a signal that someone has spotted something of interest. And sure enough, there were buffalo…a lot of them in the distance. Over a stretch of about 10 miles we saw several herds and some big bull buffalo right up close to the edge of road. We watched them wallow in the mud and listened to them grunt. The calves frolicked as the adults ate and rested. This guy was pretty uninterested in the traffic, people with cameras, and even noisy motorcycles going by. And he made a great photo opportunity for me. If you look closely, you can see the rest of the herd in the distance.

Later in the day, with the help of a photographer with a huge telescopic lens, we located an osprey in a nest with chicks out on a rock formation in the canyon. If you know what you are looking for, it is barely visible in this shot. Geoff was able to get a shot where you can see the birds using a camera with a more powerful zoom than my iPhone.

Toward the end of our day, we also caught a glimpse of some elk and some mule deer…but not close enough for photos.

In addition to wildlife, we also saw amazing waterfalls and canyons today…and spent some time at over 8800 feet! There is still evidence of the devastation of wildfires in some areas, but there are also spectacular forests and green meadows. Here’s a view across the meadow at well over 8800 feet.

I was surprised to learn that Yellowstone has its own version of the Grand Canyon. As we headed out to Artist Point, we saw both the spectacular Canyon Falls and canyon views to take your breath away! I was lucky and glimpsed a raptor in flight, catching the dark wings and white head. I think it may have been an osprey in flight. Catching the just right light to bring the colors to life in a photograph is challenging, but I think this one begins to catch the beauty. This particular spot makes it clear why the park is called Yellowstone.

And a little unexpected treat…way up high on an overlook above Canyon Falls a couple asked me to take their photo. And after I did and handed them back their camera, as I was about to walk away without taking a photo of my own…I was feeling uncomfortable way up high and feeling like I had taken photo after photo of these falls, I noticed a rainbow!

These few pictures are only a scratch on the surface of today’s adventures. It was another day filled with the unexpected and the wonder, beauty and majesty of our natural world. We have another adventure planned for tomorrow…what more will we find in this amazing place?

Weekly Photo Challenge: People

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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.

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?

In Search of the Unexpected: August’s Photo-a-Day Challenge

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August means deep summer; those warm, sun-drenched days when energy wanes and you look forward to a light summer read and cool drink, preferably in front of a water source. It’s easy to stop noticing and see each day as a replica of the one before, sameness after sameness lulling your senses into summer-time hibernation.

There’s nothing like a camera lens to wake up the senses…especially if you are on the lookout for the unexpected. Sometimes it is the sound that first captures your attention…this military helicopter came unusually low to the ground as I walked on the beach, swooping in close to the cliffs along the shoreline. Military helicopters are usual—but so close we could wave at the pilot and he waved back is unexpected!

At the zoo, it was the unexpected color—or lack of color—that attracted my attention. Baby flamingos are fluffy and gray, in great contrast to their vibrant elders. These guys almost look like they were photoshopped to black and white.

Hiking can bring it’s share of the unexpected as well. Climbing to the top of Mt. Woodson we found some natural beauty, along with a forest of communication towers!

And on another hike, this phone booth sat along the trail…I guess you never know when you might need to make a call! (I didn’t check to see if it was in working condition.)

Where I live, we seldom find the unexpected in the weather. Night and morning low clouds with afternoon sunshine is almost a mantra for forecasters. So the unexpected rain the other morning created quite a stir at the restaurant while we breakfasted. Lightening flashed and thunder boomed…and the raindrops poured from the sky. Walking across the street to the car had me walking in ankle deep runoff!

At UCSD, I had walked by this metal tree many times…there are a few as part of an art collection there. But until a few weeks ago, I had not noticed the contrast between the organic shape of the metal tree and the angular lines of the distinctive architecture of the library behind it. The unexpected similarities and differences made me pause when I saw it from this new angle.

It was a gathering crowd that drew my attention as I walked down the beach yesterday. A surf class? A party? No…a dead shark with a not-so-dead octopus slithering out of its mouth. The crowd moved in, fascinated by the close up view of this creature. I found myself equally interested in the people in the crowd, the ways their bodies leaned in. And notice the mom holding onto her boys…

And my macro lens can always be depended on to help me see unexpected beauty. I’ve been watching the dandelions in my yard (there are only two or three) and photographing the different stages of their growth. Between the yellow flower and the iconic fluff ball stage, there is a stage where the dandelion looks dead. But through my macro lens, I was able to capture the hint of what was yet to come.

So August’s challenge is to look for the unexpected as you enjoy the last of the long light and warm days (at least in the northern hemisphere). And to help you look, here are some prompts—one per day—to focus your attention and spur your thinking.

1. People

2. Place

3. Nature

4. Plants

5. Animals

6. Horizon

7. Food

8. Transportation

9. Light

10. Home

11. Smell

12. Sound

13. Garden

14. Inside

15. Thing

16. Drink

17. Sky

18. Outside

19. Neighborhood

20. Weather

21. Early

22. Texture

23. Words

24. Interaction

25. Walk

26. Arrangement

27. Trash (#Litterati)

28. Architecture

29. Close up (Macro)

30. Landscape

31. Pleasure

Once you find the unexpected and capture a photo of it, post a photo each day with the hashtag #sdawpphotovoices to Twitter, Instagram, Flicker, Google+ and/or Facebook (the more the better!), so that we can all enjoy the posts. If you are game for some more playfulness, compose a blog post about a photo, a week’s worth of photos, write a photo essay, make a video or slideshow or try a learning walk! You are invited to create a pingback by linking to this url or post your blog address in the comment section. It’s fun for me to see what others are doing with the same prompts I am using!

With summer in full swing, it’s the perfect time for some playfulness and experimentation…look for the unexpected in your world–let it surprise you, delight you, maybe even horrify you! You can post every day, once a week, or even sporadically throughout the month…whatever works in your life. You can play this game by posting your pictures in the order of the prompts or post the one you find on the day you find it. You get to make your own rules! Be sure to share and tag your photos with #sdawpphotovoices so we can find them!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Through

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As I walked near the Tower Bridge in Sacramento today, I was noticing all the things I could see through the bridge: the water, boats, restaurants along the banks, the state capitol building, and the cars driving through the middle.

And that got me thinking about photos that represent through–like this one I took of my niece ice skating through the plexiglass window (which definitely did not keep the cold away!).

We have a really interesting library at UCSD…and I was taking pictures through the buttresses the other day looking out into the distance. It makes it look much more closed in than it is in person.

And high above the San Diego Zoo on the skyfari ride, I looked through my gondola to capture this shot of the gondola coming from the other direction.

To give a bit of perspective…here is one from the ground, shot through the trees.

We came upon this water tower while hiking a week or so ago. I like to experiment with perspective, so stood close to the tank shooting upward. I was interested in this ladder…here is shot through the ladder looking up.

And of course, I have to include a beach photo! This one is looking through the umbrellas out to the water. I’m always surprised with how much stuff people bring to the beach!

So this week’s challenge is to represent through with your lens. Is it something you are through with? Will you look through some things like I did? Or do you have another interpretation of through to explore?

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

What’s going through your mind…and how will you represent it through your lens?