Image fun from 2008 & BigHugelabs!

Holiday break, for an educator for sure, is a time to spend time with family and friends…  regroup, and just relax.  It is a time for reflecting on the previous year (if you haven’t already) and planning for the year to come.  It is also a time for indulging in fun.  Fun food, fun drink and even some just plain…  silliness.

So before I return to my three young ladies for the evening, allow me to introduce you to a very fun time-waster.  Really-  if you are a bit more motivated, this site could really even be a valuable marketing tool for your classroom or department.  As I said-  this certainly isn’t a post to turn your educational philosophy on end.  This isn’t definitely not a post that will add significantly to your pedagogical repertoire.  Forgive me, for I too, am on holiday break.  This post is to educational technology as cheesy spinach & artichoke dip is to nutrition.

If you have read this blog for even one day, you know that visual literacy is fundamental to my core.  I can’t write a paragraph without an image helping my cause.  Perhaps this is an homage to my realization that human words cannot do justice to a carefully crafted photograph. Perhaps as well, this marks one more post on this blog as of late that isn’t so grippingly “instructional” or “edtech.”  However, hopefully you have checked out my About page by now.  That  -in a very indirect way-  explains the hierarchy here.  I hope that works for most of you…

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Enough blabb.  If you are unfamiliar, allow me to introduce you to the fun of BigHugeLabs as one last cheesy nugget of 2008.  Not only is this site a potentially fun time-waster, it can also be a valuable relationship-builder in the hands of the enlightened.  In fact, it can also be a “Christmas gift creation tool”  -if you have both the images and the verbal initiative to pull it off.  I say that with utmost cockiness after having delivered these two gems (framed) as Christmas gifts for my parents.  Toss in the birth of their newest granddaughter and you have the makings of a sweet little gift.  Seriously, would you not prominently display these?  Also-  have I yet mentioned how amazing my parents are?  They are.  To me, these images immortalize that fact.

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I have used the BHLabs website in the past.  In the past five months, I shot the first two weddings of my life.  The fact that a good friend from graduate school and then her friend trusted me with their wedding day photography was…  frightening.  Conclusions?  I doubt I can even be a wedding photographer on the side.  Why?  1) Way too much stresss.  2)  I hate weddings.  (to clarify: marriage is treating me splendidly.  weddings are just most generally not a guy’s thing)  A million other moments are more important throughout the course of a life, and few hire a photographer for those.

Sad.

That said, I used BigHugeLabs to add a sheen of fun to the disk of images delivered to my two new brides.  Whether highlighting the beauty of a bride in splendid excess, or laughing at a groom as sex symbol, all is great fun.  Whether it is the “motivator” tool, or one of the other “you don’t eeeeven need Photoshop for this” -style images, you will almost always find something fun and fitting.  I mean, hey-  not everyone loves me…  but foreign leaders somehow seem to.  Well, foreign leaders and models.

All of these images, as well as 95% of those I post on this blog to both highlight the ideas I am selling or to celebrate the work of amateur artists (usually both), are hosted on my Flickr site.  Flickr is currently the place to store your photos online.  At one time, I housed hundreds of photos at the now-defunct Clubphoto.  One fun day a couple of years ago, management walked into the offices and told folks to pack up their **it and *it.  I, of course, had backups of all images on my hard drives.  What I didn’t have were the countless hours of captions (lengthy explanations) I had invested in each image for many years.  I once used these as educational blurbs for my students, and especially for the parent of my students  -and prospective students of a very unusual and expensive class (for public school).

Happy New Year to you all.  May you find a thousand photographable moments headed your way in 2009.  By the way-  this marks the ninth year I have been disappointed by the “F” volume of the World Book encyclopedia from my sixth grade year.  I remember that future entry which showed transportation in the year 2000 to prominently feature svelte little rocket cars zipping about to-and-fro a la George Jetson.

Oh well.  You can’t win ’em all, right?  Right??

Sean Nash

Biology teacher in the great state of Kansas. Back at it in the classroom after a 30-year career in Missouri. Former District Curriculum Administrator, Instructional Technology Coordinator, and Instructional Coach. Biology instructor since 1993. Find more about my passions and my work at http://nashworld.me

2 Comments

  1. So I’m not a baseball fan (too slow for this ADHD Queen), but I know the game & can appreciate the metaphor. As a teacher, my goal is not the final score in the bottom of the 9th. Rather, my worth and value are a culmination of my “at bats.” What do I achieve when it’s all up to me? Do I play it safe and take the easy bunt? Sure a few kids in the middle of the bell may benefit, but what happens to those (most) hanging on to either side of the rim? They’re lost… Playing it safe in the classroom is not my style. Not my philosophy. I swing for the fence every time. If not, then why bat? You should sit behind a desk, complete a daily task list and be satisfied. However, if your calling, your passion, is education – you must go for it all each and every day. That is how we make an impact. That is how we change a life.
    “Bunting – playing it safe … a winning strategy?” Not in this gal’s world. With my students, playing it safe gets me NADA! I’m swing for it all each and every time. When it’s my turn to show ‘em what I’ve got, I swing hard ‘n heavy. I don’t always score the home run, but the kids appreciate the effort. They have seen too many teachers roll over & play dead…I mean “play it safe.” Just glad I’m not one of them.

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