Window Seat (iPhoneography)

When I travel, I am as captivated by looking at the scenery as any other tourist. But if the situation allows it, I also like to take photos of people looking at the scenery. I guess I'm a bit of a voyeur in that sense.In this case, I was on a plane flying over the Grand Canyon on an amazingly clear day. I must have taken 50 photos with my iPhone before I noticed a young girl in the window seat ahead of me who was also captivated by what we were seeing 30,000 feet below us.And so I snapped this photo.

Twentieth Century Classroom

In the early part of the last decade of the twentieth century the overhead projector was pretty high tech for me. Having students present in my AP European History class was something I allowed from time to time. But I generally was the center of the classroom. I call that teachercentrism.I was looking for something else when I found this today. I remember the photo and I remember taking it. I was using Tri-X Pan film - thus the grain. The only light in this photo is the bulb from the overhead and I think I am lucky I got good exposure on the student's face and on the screen.But where are the pictures in his presentation?

Fairy Tale

This is not your every day walk in the park; it's Brian and Katie walking in the park. Overdressed? I don't think so.

Minneapolis Moline

Being a city kid, I hadn't paid much attention to tractors but I'm not surprised that, just as there is with makes of cars, there is tremendous brand loyalty to certain kinds of tractors.If you asked Carl Tesch, diesel instructor at Lake Area Technical Institute, which tractor was best, I'm sure he would say, "Minneapolis Moline." Evidence of this is that he's got a multitude of them on his farm north of Watertown.Last night we were invited to his place for a gathering of several past and present LATI instructors and he let my wife, Deb, drive one. I'm not sure that she had ever driven a tractor solo but she seems to look like she's done this before. Maybe in another life?Check back tomorrow for a post about our cuisine at the gathering: it's called "pitchfork fondue."

Captain & Crew

The captain is Scott, who is standing in the back of this photo. The driver and driver's supervisor are the famous BZ and CZ. We are cruising on Okoboji in Iowa and though BZ looks confident at the helm, I think it had been a while since he had driven a boat.

The Princess Bride, Part II

This is another example of serendipity in a photo shoot. In the days before my photo session with Brian and Katie, I had imagined some of the photos I would like to take. Unfortunately, few of those worked the way I had planned.But I did manage to take a photo or two that were totally impromptu. One has already appeared here. And now here's another. I was getting my camera ready for something and one of our many assistants held out Katie's veil to straiten it and this is what I saw. I said, "Hold it!" and Katie stuck a pose.I rarely use on-camera flash but this photo needed it, since strong sunlight was coming from behind the subject.

Portrait of the Artist With A Grey Beard

Once a year (when I'm traveling in Europe) I quit shaving for a week or two. And then I take a self portrait. Narcissism? I don't think so. Rembrandt did 90 self-portraits. And I'm certainly no Rembrandt.

The Girls of Rothenburg

This was a nearly candid photo but one girl spotted my camera and acted uncharacteristically -- she smiled at me! This is not normal dress for children in this town; it just happened that on the evening we were there, There was a dress rehearsal for a pending religious pageant. Rothenburg, by the way, is in Germany and is a wonderfully preserved walled medieval city.

Princess Bride

This is Katie, of course. This was one of my warm-up photos in the bridal shoot we did. There's nothing about this that says "bride" but I like the portrait anyway.The lighting here is very simple - she is sitting in the opening of the doorway leading to our deck, which, in the late afternoon, is in shadow but which is open to perfect, soft ambient skylight. One of my many assistants was holding a white reflector below the frame of this photo. (I don't actually have many assistants but Katie had a retinue, including a sister, a cousin and her mother.)The light was beautiful and so was Katie.

Runaway Bride

My son, Brian, and my daughter-in-law, Katie, came to town yesterday for a photo session. They were married almost a year and a half ago but they weren't altogether satisfied with the photos they got on the day of their wedding. And so we spent 4 or 5 hours doing a variety of fun things.This photo is one of the last photos I took and it was totally unplanned. Katie wanted to run in her beautiful wedding dress and so, as she ran into the setting sun, I snapped a few photos. This is one of my favorites from the whole day.

This Is It

On the last day of the first semester of my first year of teaching at Watertown Senior High, a girl raised her hand and said, "Can I ask a personal question?"Curious, I said, "Sure.""Why were your hands shaking so much on the first day of class?" she asked.I laughed and said, "That's easy to answer: I was scared to death."In my 35th year of teaching this year, there were many days that I felt the same fear. There were even a couple days when I parked my truck in the school parking lot, turned it off and took deep breaths to fight off waves of anxiety before picking up my computer bag and walking into the school.What was it that was so scary about teaching? For me the "fear factor" was caused by the belief that what I did every day was essential to the intellectual development and success of a room full of teenagers. Every day I spent at least 2 hours preparing for a 90 minute class because I felt that the future of civilization depended on it. Delusions of grandeur? Not at all. Frankly, I think that every dedicated educator feels the same way.Every day I felt the pressure to have the right questions and the right activities because if I failed, I would be letting down more than just my own standards -- I would be failing on a much grander scale. I happily accepted this sense of mission every day I taught. But, yes, it did cause my hands to shake from time to time.I am writing this today because I am leaving the high school classroom after 35 years. I am not retiring, though. Instead, I am moving to a new full-time job at Lake Area Technical Institute where my primary assignment will be to teach photography.And who are the people in this photo? They are the happy members of my first block Accelerated World History class. I don't normally take a class photo but this was a special day. And this is a special group.Why are they posing with their laptops? In my classroom, the laptop was a central tool in the teaching and learning process. More central than the laptop, of course, was the curiosity and the need to learn that my students brought with them when they entered my classroom.It's been a great gig at Watertown High School. There is very little about my experience there that I won't miss.(Photo by Chris Swiden)

Saturday School

In the school I teach at, Saturday School was a form of punishment to students who had misbehaved. But at KIPP Minnesota, where my son Brian teaches, things are different. Once and a while, if the 9 hour weekdays in school aren't enough, they work on Saturday.

It's not about punishment; it's about excellence. What a concept . . . .