Archive for the ‘photography’ Category

Today is the reading and signing party at Lemuria. We’re looking forward to seeing young readers and their grownups at 10 a.m. for some Fibonacci fun!

After being on a blog tour all week (thanks to all of the hosts), we have the featured attraction right here. I interviewed Richard about his unique contribution to Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature.

This is the fun portrait I took of him when we were doing our publicity photo shoot. The powers that be at the publishing house wanted a straight (faced) shot for the catalog so I decided we’d use it here.

Today, the blog tour continues at My Log Cabin Life by Julie Owen. Because Julie and I share a passion for photography, today’s post centers on the images.

If you missed previous posts, check them out at:

Monday: Joseph D’Agnese’s blog.

Tuesday: Live. Love Explore. by Irene Latham.

Wednesday: Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog.

Tommorrow’s post will be at Dori Reads by Doraine Bennett.

Read about how I got the idea to write a picture book featuring Fibonacci Numbers in nature at today’s stop on the virtual book tour: Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog. An author and illustrator, Elizabeth has a lot of cool stuff on her website so poke around a little after you check out the post.

Monday’s stop: Joseph D’Agnese. Tuesday’s stop: Irene Latham.

I began my artist-in-residence work today at Davis Magnet School. I am team teaching a unit titled, “Davis on the Map,” with second grade teachers Beth West and Kim Hansen. I introduced myself (many of these students were familiar with Wolfsnail because I read it to them last year on Read Across America Day), read my new book (Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature), and introduced them to the work of Roland Freeman. We broke the students into four groups so we could have more interactive discussions. This meant I went through my talk four times back-to-back. I was tired by the time it was all over, but I enjoyed the students’ observations and questions.

How do you get a good picture when people are moving? (I actually misunderstood this question). I told the student that taking a good (clear, focused) picture of moving people depended a lot of having enough light. But that with enough light, the camera would be able to capture an image and freeze the action. He pushed me further, pointing out that in one of Roland’s photographs a drummer’s hand is blurry, making it a good picture of movement. In that case, Roland wanted the blur and made sure the aperture was open long enough for the camera to capture the hand in different spots along its movement.

Why did you use a drawing and a photograph in your book to show the spiral on the nautilus? I used the drawing because I wanted to make clear the connection between the Fibonacci numbers I had introduced at the beginning of the book and the way the spiral on the nautilus grows as its shell grows. I think the diagram of different colored squares makes it easier to see the how the Fibonacci sequence relates to the spiral in the photograph on the following page.

I do like the teaching/learning/inquiry practice the teachers at Davis employ. They have t-charts all around that have two columns labeled with two columns: I notice …. and I wonder …. As we talked, the teachers wrote down the students’ observations and questions on sticky notes and placed them in the appropriate columns on the chart. We will reflect on these as we go along in the unit. The students who weren’t with me spent their time working on two activities with some other teachers (gifted teachers and teachers’ assistants). They made frames and simple how-to manuals for the digital cameras they will use to photograph their neighborhood.

The next time we get together we will be taking a walk in the Davis neighborhood, gathering ideas about the people and places we will photograph.

We awoke to a beautiful blanket of snow. And it’s still coming down. Though we’ve already had snow this year, it is still rare enough to prompt whoops of joy from my sons. Of course, the joy has something to do with the fact that school was called off. They don’t really have the proper gear for this kind of thing so they never stay out for long. I went along with my camera because I wanted to get some pictures of the snow and of them enjoying it. I thought about calling the grandparents, but I thought I’d better let them sleep in. Stomping around in the snow in my boots (the ones I bought a few years ago to attend Writing From Nature in Honesdale, PA, in April), reminded my of childhood trips to Cincinnati to visit my grandparents. We borrowed gear from cousins had lots of fun.

I lifted this photo from my friend Julie’s blog. This is one of her students reading my book. I get a great deal of satisfaction from watching kids read my books. Julie’s a mom, part-time librarian, part-time writer, knitter, and crafter. Just an all-around kindred spirit. I love her blog because it has lots of photographs and she uses colors and images so well. You can read the post she wrote about photographing student engagement here. We are partnering on some work at her school (St. Therese Catholic School) this spring. I’m sure I’ll be sharing some about that in the coming months.

In the meantime, I find myself doing lots of paperwork related to the business side of being an author and illustrator. I am checking each of the 1099’s as they come in against my own records of last year’s income. So far, of the three that have come, I have found mistakes in two. I am setting up spreadsheets to record 2010 expenses, income, mileage, and sales tax. I am famous, or infamous, depending on how you look at it, for the piles of papers on my kitchen desk and my “real” desk. I would always rather be creating, blogging, editing photos, writing, anything really, than doing paperwork. But such is life.

It’s ready to view! See the book trailer for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature. I’d love to hear what you think.

It’s also available on my website and on my Amazon author page. (Look in the far right column at the bottom.)

At long last, the weather and school schedule were both good on the same day. I led groups of fifth graders at McLeod Elementary School on a field shoot. We were in search of living things in the schoolyard. Each student carried a digital camera. Each group chose a different section of the schoolyard to shoot in. I am sharing some of their photographs here. As we went about our work, the students and I generated lots of questions. “What is it? Why is it that color? Will I find these where I live? Will it bite?”

My work on this project is funded by the Ask for More Arts collaborative of Parents for Public Schools of Jackson. McLeod is an Ask for More Arts school and participates in the JumpstArt program, which brings artists of all kinds into elementary classrooms across the city for arts instruction integrated with traditional academic subjects.

I promised I would post a photograph of this amaryllis blooming so here it is. In a post back in December, I showed what it looked like when it had just been planted. I love the bold color and bodacious blossom. Wow!

Richard and I added compost to our raised beds two weeks ago, and yesterday, we planted seeds. We planted lettuce, spinach, kale, swiss chard, beets, and leeks. Richard got a rain barrel for Christmas so some of our watering will be collected rainwater. We have plans to add a few raised beds this year. The zucchini and yellow squash need their own boxes.

Our marketing package for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature includes a  book trailer. This is a new venture for us — book trailers not being as much of a “thing” when Wolfsnail came out. Since we got grants from the Mississippi Arts Commission and the Greater Jackson Arts Council to support marketing efforts, we were able to hire Mosaic Media, a pr and video production company owned by Ron and Kathryn Rodenmeyer. After looking around at other book trailers and reading some reviews of trailers, I decided I wanted a trailer that would address two ideas: first, that despite the somewhat intimidating sounding name Fibonacci, the number sequence at the center of my picture book is pretty simple; and second, that examples of Fibonacci numbers are all around us in daily life. I set the desired length at 1 min. & 30 sec.

With these key parameters set, Kathryn told me the next step was for me to write a script. She told me I would need to write more informally than I was used to. The words would have to flow like conversation. I put something together. Ron and Kathryn liked the concept, though they suggested I needed an intro. We came up with an intro and then Kathryn developed a list of video and still shots, music, and voice/over and on-camera audio. Then, we started talking about talent. I asked my friend Julie to play herself (mom and librarian); I asked Ron and Kathryn’s kids Ben and Kate to play Julie’s kids; and I engaged Tanner the dog as himself.

We decided to shoot the indoor scenes at my house and the outdoor shots at my parents’ house. I bought flowers for the inside and the outside (we had the worst cold snap in the state’s history last week, which zapped all the pansy blossoms).

I can’t tell you how great it was to be working with people who knew the video medium. There are so many things to think about with video that us still photographers don’t have to think about. Most of these have to do with time and audio.

Besides bringing Ben and Kate to “star” in the book trailer, Ron and Kathryn also brought along their oldest, Eve, to engage the younger ones after their work time. When the Rodenmeyer kids were off camera, they played ping-pong with my boys and then we played bananagrams. Ron, who was working the entire time (directing, shooting, recording), had to shush us when we forgot we were on a set.

We had a few last-minute script changes. I woke up with the idea that Julie should record some of the lines that had been slated for me. She was a good sport. I wasn’t in on her recording session, but I know it went well.

Ron was good at coaching. He had me read a few lines to check the audio levels. Then, as soon as he said, “We’re good to go. Ready when you are,” I belted out the lines like I had to project to the bleachers. Woa! You never know what you’ll do in front of a microphone. I’m trying not to think much about appearing in my own book trailer. It goes with the territory and getting nervous just makes it harder. We left Ron and Kathryn with all the raw footage, some still images from our family archives, and some bags of pasta. I will be giddy with anticipation until I get to see the rough cut. This is fun!

(Richard documented the whole thing by taking the photographs in this post. He also helped with set-up, provided a back-up tripod, and offered critical opinions.)