This is my last post about dragonflies, I promise! But this morning I felt I could not move on from commenting on our film’s dragonfly sequence without describing how it first entered the picture. The source was Cal DeWitt. He spoke about the in-flight capture of mosquitos in the marsh behind his house, excerpted in the clip below. This is pure Cal, celebrating his sense of wonder.

Posted on October 30th, 2009 in

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We achieved decent results with the RED camera, and its maximum frame record rate of 120/ sec. I am looking to bump this frame up to 1,000 or more, when we have access to dragonflies again. At this latitude, we are well past that point. Our next dragonfly shoot will be with a PHANTOM camera and lots of sun. We now know our subject. More from Cal DeWitt on the dragonflies of his marsh in the next post.

Posted on October 28th, 2009 in Christians, Environmentalists, Indie Film, Scientists

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Barb M. is a friend of my mothers and sent me the comic below, posted here with acknowledgement and thanks to the Walker artists. Also underscores the ongoing work of Richard Louv and the Children and Nature Network. Thanks, Barb.

Posted on October 21st, 2009 in Parents

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I absolutely love that period of the late-1800’s… and it’s reach hits this film.
From Walt Whitman’s LEAVES OF GRASS. STANZA 1

“There was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of
the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.”

The child starts in the spring at dawn… by day’s end (I imagine autumn)… the child reaches the LAST STANZA

“Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the tide–the little boat slack-tow’d astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away
solitary by itself–the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.”

Posted on October 16th, 2009 in

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We did not get all the way to our goal before the weather went cold, the leaves started turning color, and the adult dragonflies (Aeshna…Darners) reached the end of their lives when their food supply dwindled. I’m ready for winter, but excited about next spring. I’ve heard that males travel repeatable paths within a very small territory, and do so much more in the spring than at season’s end. We’ll see. In this photo, Ella S. studies the local talent.

Posted on October 16th, 2009 in Parents

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