Our World – My Favorite Street

Cherry Street Fall Neighborhood

Most mornings after I go to the gym I head up to the Panera on Cherry Street for a bagel, coffee, and the morning newspaper. Afterwards I drive past this street on my way to work. Friday I looped back around to take a pic. It was pretty bright with the morning sun on the autumn leaves. Me, being me, couldn’t leave well enough alone so I ran the photo through Topaz Impressions backed off about 60%. The photo quite a bit off level and after correcting it, I I undid the correction.  I love all those tall trees right on the street.

So that was Friday, Saturday was cold and windy and I bet many of those leaves are down on the street now.

Linking with Our World

Geometry on a Rainy Day

Geometry on a rainy day

Last week I was coming out the Subway on Denver Avenue when this bicyclist came riding by and I snapped the pic. Later on I realized how much I liked the geometry of the pic the stripes in the road, the curbs the cars lined up, the lines of the parking garage across the way with the rectangular openings. The trees even have geometry. The bottoms of the canopies are lined up and the tops of the canopies form a big wedge and the white Oxy Building with its lattice design.  Against this we have the bicyclist with his green helmet, the bright red car, and if you look carefully, the gas lights across the road.

Have you ever liked a photograph but then had to figure out why?

Courthouse Shadows

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Friday mid-afternoon I took a break from work by walking down past the courthouse. We are having a slow transition from Fall to Winter here in Tulsa and as part of that the sun keeps getting lower and lower which makes for more interesting shadows like these as I went walking by the Tulsa County Courthouse. I love those big trees but I know that theoretically they shouldn’t even by alive so at some point they are going to be cut down and replaced with something smaller. Until then, I’ll enjoy them.

I’m linking with Shadow Shot Sunday 2 today.

Skywatch Friday – Early Morning

Mohawk Park in the morning

Last Friday I had the day off and after dropping Logan off at school I drove up to Oxley Nature Center for a hike. Across the road the dew was still on the grass of Mohawk Park Golf Course. A beautiful day was starting with not a cloud in the sky. So I violated all the rules and decided to shoot into the sun. I liked that big ole tree and was too lazy to wade across the canal and get on the other side of it.

Linking with Skywatch Friday

Ruby Tuesday – Vintage Cadillac Ambulance

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A pristine vintage Cadillac ambulance in Tulsa’s Veteran’s Day Parade last week. It really does look an ambulance for the country club set.

Linking today with Ruby Tuesday

Topaz Labs has come out with their Texture Effects software and I used it in the making of this photo. I like it but the software almost overpowers my laptop so I don’t know if I’ll get it or not.

Shadow Shot Sunday – The Gardens of Philbrook

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I spent part of my day off Friday roaming around the Philbrook Museum of Art Gardens there are lots of shadows there. One of my favorite trees is above. It has a very long branch that snakes horizontally and then splits. It makes for a great shadow.

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There is a bridge across a creek that makes a great shadow also.

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American Hippo by John Kearney

There is this car bumper sculpture of a hippo. For this I used the “In Camera HDR” function on my Nikon. I had an “aha moment” while working in the gardens on how it is supposed to work. This sculpture was kind of lost in the shadows and the HDR was able to pull it out so we can see it.

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“Negative Tree” by Menashe Kadishman

This is one of my favorite sculptures in the Philbrook Gardens but it is a bear to photograph on the shady side which is what I wanted to do because I wanted to put a real tree inside the negative space. The HDR function has maybe five settings so what the heck, lets max it out and I did. Maybe next time I’ll back it off a little bit. Maybe not though. Moderation in all things is itself excessive is what I say. Plus I can honestly say that this is SOOC.  I am not sure that means much in this day of super capable cameras. 

Linking with Shadow Shot Sunday

My other Philbrook Posts over the years

Packing it All In – A Very Full and Busy Day Off

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I had a day off today. I had it all to myself because Heather went off to an Autism Conference in Norman, Oklahoma and Logan had to go to school. So I kissed Heather goodbye at 6 am and made the kid breakfast and made sure that he was dressed and ready to go and off we went to his school. After I dropped him off I headed up to Tulsa’s Oxley Nature Center. Turkey Mountain gets all the press, and the people, but Oxley is a gem also and its North Woods Loop Trail is wonderful and deserted. In all the years I have been going there I have seen somebody else there once. I love Turkey Mountain, but the problem is so does everybody else.

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And this was my first trail run since my injury on Turkey Mountain back in September. I wanted somewhere that was flat with no rocks. Oxley fits the bill. Plus it is just flat out beautiful. Turkey Mountain will always be my favorite but Oxley is my go to place when I don’t want to deal with rocks and and hills, and lots of people.

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I got there about eight in the morning and I have to tell you that I saw lots of deer. I didn’t get a single photo of them. I saw them running through the brush, swimming across lakes and bounding around all over the place. You will just have to take my word for it.

Here is the data on my so called run. I ran quite a bit and walked quite a bit. I went looking for two geocaches and found one.  After my jaunt at Oxley I went home, cleaned up, and headed up to Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum. They have an Andy Warhol exhibit going on and I felt ah, well, so what until I actually looked at it and saw a bunch of art that I had only seen in magazines. Warhol’s screen prints of Marilyn Monroe, Mao Tse Tung, and John Wayne plus a bunch of other works. It was amazing. I always thought of Warhol has a lightweight celebrity artist but I’ve changed my mind. They didn’t allow any photography of the exhibit so you will just have to check out the link to see for yourself.

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After Warhol, I checked out the gardens of Philbrook. I don’t know what I like better, the gardens of Philbrook or its art.  Don’t make me choose is all I can say. The Tempietto above is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

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Villa Philbrook, the heart of the museum, used to be a house. Not for me is what I say.

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Eric Baker’s glass and steel installation, Oklahoma Autumn, is my favorite work in the gardens.

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I was also taken by Theordore Van Soelen and his Tesuque (Dark Houses). You see my folks were living at the Tesuque Ranger Station when I was born. That was in the day before health insurance so Dad called the hospital’s in Santa Fe and Espanola, New Mexico and got bids on getting a baby birthed. Espanola won. It cost like $95 or something like that. I’m not like Ben Carson who is running for president so just take my word for it.

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I love the pottery from Acoma Pueblo.

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And the black on black pottery of Maria Marinez is wonderful.

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And here is something different. A catlinite pipe inlaid with lead. I’m not sure that smoking with that would be good for you. It sure looks like though.

fitbit november steps

So a pretty active day for me, so far about 18,800 steps or over nine miles. Not bad for a guy with a bum knee.  Actually they are both sore right now.

Jesus Wept - Pray for Paris

I didn’t hear about the news from Paris until pretty late in the day. How sad. I really don’t know what the answer is to radical Islam. They seem to have no regard for life.

Skywatch Friday – Neighborhood Sky – Warts and All

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Last Saturday, Heather and I were walking to a craft show in a not so great neighborhood just east of downtown Tulsa when I spotted this tree with the bright yellow leaves set against the blue sky and in amongst garbage carts, a food truck, and the back of a stop sign. I live in a city folks many of my Skywatch pictures have power lines, billboards, and other distractions. But I take the pics anyway. (Amongst is a word in Oklahoma by the way)

What about you, do you ever just take the pic anyway?

Linking with Skywatch Friday

Veteran’s Day

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Today is a day we hold special for honoring our Veterans. I’ll be attending Tulsa’s annual parade. If you live and can make your downtown I highly recommend it.

One of my favorite things about the parade are veteran’s who just show up wearing an old jacket that doesn’t fit them any longer and they just join in. Nobody minds. The other thing is all the Junior ROTC cadets that will be there from area schools.

Thank you Veterans.

Wordless Wednesday – The Anarchists of Anonymous

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Guy Fawkes Day – Tulsa Oklahoma

Anonymous – “a loosely associated international network of activist and hacktivist entities. A website nominally associated with the group describes it as “an internet gathering” with “a very loose and decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives”.[2] The group became known for a series of well-publicized publicity stunts anddistributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites.” (quoted from Wikipedia)

Update: Anonymous has declared War on ISIS after the Paris attacks