Tag Archives: Holy Family Cathedral

Our World – Tulsa’s Downtown Churches

Tulsa is unique for having thriving downtown churches unlike many big cities where they are just barely hanging on. Here are three of them and a bonus photo.

Holy Family Cathedral - Hdr - Topaz Studio

This is one of my favorite churches, the Catholic Holy Family Cathedral with its unusual three spires. This year it is 105 years old.

First Christian Church

Right down the street is the First Christian Church of Tulsa with its unusual tiled roof. It looks a little Middle Eastern to me.

Boston Avenue Church Topaz DSCN9548-Edit

And my favorite, the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church on the very southern end of downtown. An zig zag art-deco masterpiece designed by Bruce Goff and Adah Robinson. It was barely finished when the Depression hit and church legend has it that the leading members had to work like crazy to keep it from being foreclosed and turned into a movie theater.

Arkansas River Bridge Topaz Studio

This is the bonus photo. It is not of a church. It is the underside of the 21st street bridge over the Arkansas River in Tulsa. I caught it in the afternoon late enough to be lighted by the sun to the northwest (to the right roughly) and early enough where the light had some intensity to it. And I helped along a little with a Topaz Studio filter. It kind of looks like the inside of cathedral doesn’t it? Oh throw me a bone somebody!

There are several other very active vital churches downtown with interesting buildings. I’ll be posting about those later, maybe. I don’t plan my posts much.

I am linking with Our World Tuesday. Come join in!!

Negativity and More with my Takashi Special Effects Camera

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Holy Family Cathedral

When I was rummaging around Saturday looking for my generic Go Pro camera and I found my Takashi Special Effects Camera. It is kind of strange little camera with only 5 MP but it has various special effects built in such as negatives, black and white, sepia, and so forth. Check here for a list of my previous posts. Anyway I found it and fed it the AAA batteries it chews up like candy and took it for a walk at noon in downtown Tulsa.

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I love the negative effect. It makes me see old sights in a new way.

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It also gives scenes a spooky feel. I kind of like that.

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The camera also has no shutter. When you press “the button” the camera just scans the photocell. So if you are moving the camera while it is scanning it distorts the image in ways that are pleasing to me. It is called the Lartigue Effect after a Frenchman named Jacque Henri Lartigue who discovered the effect in the early 1900’s. It can make buildings look kind of wavy.

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I went down to the temporary replacement library for the Tulsa Central Library to pick up a book that I had on order and found out that that since they are closing it to move back to the regular library  they moved it to another library, miles away. Oh well.

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I love our library and the staff and have known a couple of them over the years but the present administrator I kind of worry about. The library gave him several months off to finish his PhD and then we come to find out that that he spends a huge amount of time and money flying to conferences here there and yonder. Much more so than libraries of similar sizes both regionally and nationally. He says that is where he found out about automated book checkout machines. Wow, I remember those from the last century. Oh well. I go to one conference a year and I think I’m pretty much up on what is going on in the natural gas industry. Oops, off topic.

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My favorite sidewalk in downtown Tulsa on Denver avenue.

So I walked back to the office taking pics along the way. Isn’t it wonderful that electrons and photons are still free?

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Downtown Tulsa in a negative mode.

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The entrance to a downtown apartment complex.

Anyway I always dragging my lowfi funky Takashi out, feeding it some batteries and taking it for a walk.

Lunchtime Walkabout and an Indulgence

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Lunchtime Monday was cold but I grabbed my camera and went walking for just a few minutes. I got to what I call the “Old Chamber of Commerce Building” and took a photo of some of the Bas Relief sculptures on the facade. They are in kind of an art deco style and there lots of images in the panel.  The one above of a mother and child is my favorite.

Oil Capital Bas Relief

Right next to it is a depiction of Tulsa’s role as the “Oil Capital of the World” way back int eh day. It’s got and oil well obviously as well as refineries, pipelines, tank farms, trucks, railroads, and airplanes.

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I went walking around the corner over to Holy Family Cathedral and saw this door labelled Porta Sancta. Of course, not being Catholic, I had to google it and it has to do with Pope Francis declaring a Jubilee Year of Mercy where believers are to learn about and practice mercy in the daily lives. The Porta Sancta has to do where a believer who meets certain requirements can  receive an indulgence where an “..indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven…” It all starts by going through the door which is open at certain times. The church’s web site describes it.

I don’t really understand it but you know, we could all use a little a mercy in our lives right  and we could all practice a little lot more mercy also toward others. (And by the way if I’ve got any of this wrong, please let me know!)

And then it was time to get back to work.

What did you do today?

Digital Art Meme – Holy Family Cathedral

Holy Family Cathedral

This is Holy Family Cathedral in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. I have taken many photographs of this church over the years mainly because it is a beautiful and interesting building situated in a great spot.

I took a photograph of the Cathedral with my Ipod Touch, crapped it with the Snapseed app and then applied a texture using the Distressed FX app, all on the Ipod and then uploaded it to Flickr for inclusion on this post.

I am linking with Digital Art Meme

It being the Christmas Season and my post featuring a cathedral I am adding a video of While Shepards Watched Their Sheep.