Inspired by Leave No Trace principles to leave the environment as you find it and to take only pictures for memories, the STRIVE Prep – Westwood  CAP students gave their cameras a workout during their spring camping trip to Cal-Wood Education Center!

“Bryan, take a picture of this!”
“Sara – did you catch a shot of that?”

With so much beauty and nature to explore – from landscape views of the mountains and clouds, to close-ups of flowers and insects – there was no shortage of subjects to photograph. The STRIVE Prep – Westwood students could have spent the entire day taking pictures of things seen along the hike up Longview Trail. Almost as soon as they started their hike, they spotted a small herd of deer, then a Raven, then several bees and butterflies, a chipmunk, adorable tiny succulents, and OMG(!) a Mountain Bluebird! It’s amazing how much you can see when you take the time to look – and take a picture!  Thank goodness we had a couple of photographers along.

As the photographs poured in, delighting us with each new click, the group discussed the many uses of photography AND the possible jobs you can get working with cameras. Of course there’s the obvious job as a photographer capturing a portrait of someone or something. There is also the exciting career of photojournalism where you use the camera to catch scenes of an event to tell a story. Less obvious however are the growing number of jobs where you use the camera to document something for later study. For example, scientists use powerful cameras to photograph things far away (like from space or at the bottom of the ocean) and then use the image later to identify what they’ve found.

Which is kind of what these students started doing – okay maybe not taking images from space(!) but using their cameras to collect data.  When the group noticed a small purple flower blooming all over the place, they took a picture and showed it to another instructor who said it was a Pasque flower – so named because it blooms in early spring and Pasque refers to Easter. Cool! Of the many different insects seen, one photograph of an interesting beetle had enough detail to let them identify the insect as a May Beetle. And when they found the backbone of a dead animal, they took several pictures with a ruler next to the bone for scale so they could check later to see what it was. They figured from the size of the backbone and orientation of the hips, it had to have been from a small deer. They started scouring the area for more bones, only to discover the jaw bone of a deer, with all its teeth!! Given how unworn the teeth were, maybe this was from a young deer? One thing was certain, at least one or two of these students has a future in forensics science!

But perhaps the best of all uses of the cameras that weekend was to record memories of a great outdoor adventure –making a campfire with flint & steel lighters, cooking hot dogs and s’mores, sleeping in tents, and sharing stories, crazy laughs and good times. Oh, and celebrating birthdays.

Happy Birthday, Breeazy!

Written by CAP Instructor, Liz Goehring

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