A Day in the Life of a Live Oak

Here’s a sneak peak into what went on last week in Crestmont’s Second/Third Grade classroom…

The Live Oaks recently read a book about photographer Ansel Adams called Antsy Ansel. The book describes his challenges in a traditional, early 20th century school and how his parents allowed him to spend time outdoors doing his own research instead. Eventually Ansel was given a camera and that was the beginning of his long and fruitful career.

We looked at some of Ansel Adams's images in class and then I brought in a 4x5 field camera so the kids could look through something akin to the camera that Adams used. Because there is no mirror in a field camera, the world appears upside down, just as it does when the lens in our eyes inverts what it sees, prior to our brains making that correction for us. It's fun to see the world upside down, to look at things differently than they normally appear and to think in different terms about what constitutes a compelling image.