After four years living in Northern California, the seasons of North Georgia are rather seductive. Now I am often surrounded by nature's clues to where we are in the calendar year, and I love the way this orients me. Goofy? Perhaps. But true. I remember feeling a sense of excitement when I began attending the Episcopal church during my college days and joined their pattern of celebrating the Liturgical year. Maybe it is somehow listening to the generations upon generations of farmers in my ancestry --following the calendar, the almanac, and nature's signs to know when to plant, forage, hunt, or harvest. Whatever the origin, it is appreciating and being grateful for the present. It is a way of being in sync with the world around me.
Eli spent most of his life (so far) in a place with milder weather patterns and fewer obviously-seasonal plants, so whole forests of bare-limbed trees full of winter sunshine are new. He doesn't articulate noticing the change, yet our nature walks are now full of bouncing and pointing up at the sky and scrunching in the brown leaves. I want to encourage that. I would like to nurture his sense of appreciation and gratitude for the present as well as help him be in sync with his world.
This line of thinking puts me in mind of the spot in California where we always took St. Paddy's Day photos, and how taking photos of the same landscape over time can help you appreciate how much it changes according to the season and weather conditions. (Click HERE to see the wild, rolling hills of California in varied shades of green.)
Hmmm. Why not go on a hunt for signs of winter and capture them with a camera? We could zoom in on specific effects of winter but also take broad photos of the landscape that we can print out in the summertime and bring back for comparison.
Thus Eli and I embarked on our project. But how to approach it? I could take all the photos, but that wouldn't give Eli the freedom to capture what he sees from his perspective, and I think there is value in that freedom. He has a Fisher-Price digital camera for kids, but it is better for a rambunctious two or three year-old. It can take abuse well yet gives small, low-resolution photos that are blurred unless the camera is kept quite still. Now that Eli is older and more careful, I want him to have better results.
Our old point-and-shoot Sony camera doesn't get used much now that I have an iPhone, so I decided to test Eli on it. I adjusted the padded carrying case so Eli could wear it bandolier-style. So the camera had less chance of falling, Eli had a choice of wearing the camera's wrist strap (in a cow-hitch to make it a little tighter) or attaching it to the case. I admit that I had visions of the camera shattering in a million pieces or my child doing a face-first splat because he was too busy taking pictures to watch for tree roots. But we talked a little about safety before we started and he did great!
Eli took forty photos. (Thank goodness for rechargable batteries and no film needed!) "You can put 'em on the bwog, Mama!" Here are a few of our favorites...
The wood where we walked is a place I walked with my parents when I was growing up. And it has lots of memories from solo adventures and walks with friends as a young adult. Sharing it with Eli on a sunny winter afternoon was bliss. I think we'll be back often, capturing the seasons and the years as we go.
(I think the white wildflower Eli found is an early bloodroot.)
Just plain WONDERFUL!
Posted by: Joan | 01 February 2013 at 12:26 PM
i love when the kids get the camera, always such interesting photos, things might not have noticed. :)
Posted by: heathermama | 01 February 2013 at 12:43 PM
Thanks so much, Joan! And Heathermama, you are so right! It is also a sharp reminder of how small kids are when I see familiar things at funny angles through their photos.
Posted by: Valerie J. Frey | 01 February 2013 at 01:35 PM
beautiful! And I love that there is such a happy and dear picture of you, my friend!
Posted by: Katy | 13 February 2014 at 02:34 PM
Thanks, Katy!
Posted by: Valerie J. Frey | 14 February 2014 at 02:23 PM