Journal Entry

As soon as I got the nod to head south this December, I bought myself a new camera – a Canon 80D. It's really quite marvelous. Here's a slideshow of our day touring last week outside Oaxaca, Mexico.

We went to a wool rug manufacturer, a giant tree, a Mixtec ceremonial site, a mineral spring, and a mexcal factory. What a great day.

I've added some stills from the trip as well.

My previous trip to the pole really marks my serious entry into photography. My students and I developed a kite aerial photography project, and there's a semi-famous photo of me standing at the pole, taken from about 100 feet up using a camera hanging from a kite. I'll put that up later. I did a lot with photography for about the next 10 years – a lot more kite photography, and photography shows. But drones came along (I have one now, too), and we ran into some family problems and I couldn't keep my cameras up to date after about 2012. So my new 80D is one of those technology upgrades you might yourself have experienced – not one step up, but about 7 steps up. I'm really looking forward to using it at the Pole.

All that photography had a profound effect on my teaching physics & astronomy, too. Ever since, with the initial encouragement of photography teacher and mentor Cecelia Otto Roosevelt High School, I've ended the school year with a pinhole photography project. There's a lot of deep physics in pinhole photography. I'll devote an upcoming blog to this subject.

But, check out some pix!

Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs at Monte Alban for the first time in 30 yearsThis is a spectacular archeological site near Oaxaca, on a mountain surrounded by valleys surrounded by mountains.

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