Sometimes math brings despair to the surface. Fuji X10 at f/6.4 1/20 ISO 400

I teach math now but I know how this feels. When I was in high school I hated math and I was not really any good at it, not until grade 12 anyway. Then I met Mr. Geddes. Mr. Geddes was not your typical “Dead Poets Society” kind of teacher. He was strict and demanding but I connected with him in a way that I hadn’t with any of my other Math teachers. He helped me to see that there was a beauty and a truth in mathematics that could not be replicated anywhere else. My parents still laugh when I talk about teaching math, they only remember all of those long and disappointing parent-teacher interviews with my former math teachers, but I think that that experience has helped to make me a better teacher. One who understands how bone-crushingly confusing it can be to get your head around it all.

I had a student this year who loved art but hated math. She would come to class with the most amazing drawings and sketches and one day she drew a skeleton in ink on her hand. It was absolutely remarkable that her love of art and hatred of math would come to the surface in one wonderful moment so I took out my little X10 and shot a couple of photographs of her. I processed the image into the dark tones and with greater contrast to heighten the mood and to pull the skeleton drawing up off her hand. I then added a vignette to the edges to help remove distracting details and tighten the focus on to my subject.

-Russell Berg