Heather and I went to eat at a restaurant on Tulsa’s Arkansas River front. We left right after sundown so we walked to the bank to check out the sights.
The above is just to the southwest. It is a turnpike bridge over the river. The water is very low right now.
Turning a little bit to the northwest we have a slightly different scene.
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One of the ponds on Turkey Mountain late in the afternoon. We have had a good amount of rain on the mountain this spring so many of the ponds are full of water. For some reason, the ponds are called lakes. I’m okay with that. The sky is a little vague in this photo but I like the light on vegetation in the foreground and I like the reflection of the sun also. So I’m going with it and hope you don’t mind.
We have a lot of buildings going up in downtown Tulsa. Hotels, shopping areas, all sorts of stuff. This building oddly enough is a stick built wood structure and only four floors. It is sitting next to the tan colored YMCA building which was recently converted to apartments.
Spring is here, last week, (when Spring wasn’t quite here, I guess) I took the big camera to Tulsa’s Linnaeus Gardens and took a few pics. I loved these flowers in the planter. The flowers seem a little overpowered by the mass of the rocks in the planter and the ultra heavy duty lattice above it but with the flowers, with the bright colors, overcame that mass. At least that is what I think. I used Topaz’s Glow to bring out the grain of the wood and the texture of the rock.
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I used the Whisker Wire filter in Topaz Glow, backed off about two thirds.
So last Sunday it was kind of raining and sprinkling and so Logan and I decided we would go to the local mall and walk around a little bit. So we walked around and mocked the merchandise and left and I snapped the above pic with my cell phone. The sky was very dramatic. After a winter of no drama is was nice to see a few clouds.
What are the skies like where you live?
Son Logan and I were wandering around Best Buy the other day when I was attracted to this strange glowing device. It is an amplifier for a music system and it uses tubes! Those of a certain age remember going to stores with suspect tubes in hand and putting it in the tester to check. That all went by the way side when solid state amplifiers and televisions came about. I still have an amplifier from the 80’s and some massive speakers but I haven’t played anything on them in decades. It has been all about headphones and iphones.
I had heard about purists praising tubes and okay, if it works it works. The recent renaissance of vinyl records has puzzled me also although I do miss the days of rummaging through albums and playing them in the evening with a glass of wine and friends.
Are so called stereo systems making a comeback? I have to tell you the music from the system that included this device sounded wonderful and the speakers were very light.
Anyways, I thought it appropriate to use Topaz Glow to highlight the tubes on this photo.
Topaz Glow – Fin and Feathers
Oxley Nature Center is built on some land nobody else wanted. Just north of the airport, wrapped by Bird Creek, and right next to the police department shooting range, nobody likes it except hikers, families, trail runners, geocachers, and photographer, not to mention deer, squirrels, snakes, lizards, ticks, fish, and lots of birds. The marshes of Oxley is what gives wildlife its space against us humans. I’ve been out here and have seen deer run across the marshes and swim the sloughs and leave guys like me trying to get good pictures behind.
The marshes give Oxley a lot of its mystery. I used Topaz Glow to emphasize that mystery. I like how it brought out the reflections of the trees and the texture of their bark.
A Spartan Aviation C-2-60 Monoplane. A two seater with a three cylinder 60 horsepower engine built by Tulsa’s Spartan Aviation in 1930. Spartan was trying to deal with the reduction in market by building a cheaper lighter plane but only sixteen were ever built. I think it is sleek and beautiful. This one is on display at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. Spartan is still in business as an aviation school.
I used Topaz Lab’s Glow software with the “Squiggly Lines” backed off about 50 percent. I like how the background colors faded to monochrome bringing the aircraft out of a very busy background.
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True Confessions – I used Topaz Glow
A shot to the southeast off my front porch a week or so ago. Sometimes you don’t need to drive a long ways to get a photograph.
I hope that everybody had a good Christmas. I know I did. I’ve been very lazy, read some books, watched a few movies, stayed up late, slept in late, getting really fat.
So now we have New Years. Everybody have a good time and stay safe. I wish everybody a great and prosperous New Year!
Son and I went on a walk around a local park in Tulsa last weekend. I liked the look of many of the trees that lost their leaves. You can see their arms now and their arms look like they are dancing.
I used Topaz Lab’s “Glow” software to emphasize the “arms” on this tree.
Linking with Digital Art Meme