#Earthschooling365: Day Forty-Four
Inner Work Meditation (Heart): Usually I find myself walking through the woods and watching birds flitting from branch or branch or squirrels scampering up an oak tree. Many times I will even stop to watch a butterfly or bee on a patch of flowers. But today I spent an hour just watching the life beneath the creek. The creek is always a fascinating place to explore because of the different perspective it gives on life. It is like a window to another world that I cannot touch or enter (as I can the world of the land) without disturbing it. Take some time today to consider how presenting a different perspective in a conversation or classroom could perhaps help you hold the attention of others more effectively. Sometimes all it takes is a change in perspective to cause the person or group you are talking to to pay attention and become engrossed in what you are saying even more deeply. This can be very helpful in all situations – from private conversations to classrooms or public speaking. You don’t need to get underwater but simply changing the way you are dressed, how you are standing, where you are standing or how you present can make a difference. Effective storytelling techniques are another option.
Nature Walk Idea (Head): For the first time today I am starting to see some life in the creek on the nature walk. Today this little catfish stared at me a while through the water ripples. That is actually a raindrop next to him. It was raining a bit on my walk today. Today the creek was sparkling in the sunlight and gentle rain and the first signs of life were starting to emerge. I spent almost an hour just looking at what was under the surface of the creek. There were tiny little minnows swimming in circles and a few small catfish coming out into the open for the first time this spring. Today on your nature walk find some water. It could be a creek, lake, ocean, pond, or even a puddle or birdbath outside your window. Observe what kind of life is in this little bit of water. To take this lesson farther you can talk about the differences between water-life and life that lives on land.
Photography Notes (Hands): Today we will learn a bit more about aperture. Remember our lesson from yesterday? We learned that the lens in a camera functions like the iris of your eye and that when the camera needs more light the aperture opens more and when the camera needs less light (during the bright daylight hours) it should be open less (smaller). If you need a review of this lesson you can look at the picture from yesterday. However, this part of aperture is usually easy to comprehend as it is very logical. More light = larger opening and less light = smaller opening.
Where it gets confusing is that when we try to translate this to the camera itself the lower openings actually have the higher number and the larger aperture openings have a smaller number! By understanding why this is you can remember this tricky little bit of information more easily. N is the f-stop in the formula below, f is the focal length of the lens and D is the diameter of the opening. Just by being able to visualize this you can see logically that the f-stop number is always going to be less than the diameter of the opening (the diameter is what we saw in the pictures from yesterday and is how wide the diaphragm is opened) because to get the f-stop (N) we are ALWAYS dividing by the diameter. If you want to really get into the mathematics of this there is an entire page about it HERE. I’m usually not a big fan of Wikepedia. However, in this case they did a great job of working out all the mathematics of it.
Most photographers and photography books will just tell you, “memorize the fact that low F-stop = wide opening = more light and don’t worry about why”. However, I find it much easier to remember when I know, somewhere in the back of my mind, that there is a logical explanation for it all. So today’s assignment is to find a way to practice and learn and remember that low F-stop = wide opening = more light. You could even use memory tricks if you want. Let us know if you come up with a great memory trick that works for you. I used to trick myself into remembering it by thinking to myself, “A low f-number is low because of low light so I need a bigger opening” so I would just think “low f-number for low light and high f-number for lots of light”.
Verse: Catfishy
Copyright Kristie Burns
There once was a catfish from creek
Bugs, minnows and flies he did seek
Until this day in a brook
His meal came with a hook
And he was fried up with onions and leek
*These poems have been created for many purposes – from early childhood circle time verses to inspirational or expressive. They vary from day to day so you may find the way you use them or enjoy them also varies. If you would like to set these poems to music consider our tutorial: Creating Your Ow Waldorf Verses or Finding Your Inner Voice.
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What is #Earthschooling365?
This series takes you through an entire year of our nature walks and is part of our non-profit project #Earthschooling365 at www.Earthschooling.org. The photos and posts in this series are all copyrighted. Please do not share or re-print them. Instead, share the link to this blog with your friends.
Along the way I will be sharing our favorite photo of the day, an inner work meditation for the day, photography assignment/tip for the day, nature walk theme for the day and a short verse for circle time (children) or meditation (teens/adults). We invite you to “walk along with us” this year, take some time to use the inner work meditation, be inspired by the nature walk theme of the day and perhaps even start a photo series of your own. To join the community on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram please tag your photos #Earthschooling365. To receive these inspirations in your e-mail inbox daily please subscribe to our blog alerts HERE. Don’t worry about missing days – you can join us as many days as you want this year!
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