I’m cheating this week. This one is from the archive a couple years ago.
Signs, Signs, – The Vault
The Vault is a new restaurant in downtown Tulsa that opened up in a re-purposed motor bank. It has a mid Century Modern theme. I don’t know if the food is any good but I love their sign.
Signs, Signs
ABC Wednesday – “Z” is for …
My favorite Z is the Zoo
Here is pic from the Saint Louis Zoo on a Fall break trip a few years ago.
Ruby Tuesday 2 – Big Red Lens
“Big Red Lens” by Frederick Eversly
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Bentonville, Arkansas
Our World – Oklahoma’s Natural Falls State Park
Saturday, SuperPizzaBoy and I took a road trip about 75 miles east of Tulsa into the Ozarks to Natural Falls State Park. It used to be a private park called Dripping Springs and when Oklahoma took it over they renamed it because we already had a Dripping Springs Park.
We pretty much had the park to ourselves because of the cold and windy weather. One of the things we did was log an Earth Cache named “Dripping Springs.” Earth Caches are part of Geocaching except that you don’t look for a container. They are more educational in nature and lots of fun.
The star of the park is of course the waterfall. You can’t tell it from the photographs but the water falls about 77 feet.
Down in the canyon where the water lands it was much warmer. No wind of course but I would guess the temperature seemed at least five degrees higher than up top.
There is something about falling water that is very peaceful. The park was used in the filming of the 1974 version of “Where the Red Fern Grows” based on the book by Wilson Rawls.
There is a bridge across the chasm. Hey, who’s that kid up there?
SuperPizzaBoy, that’s who. I wondered where he got off to.
There is more to the park than the falls. The creek flows from the falls to a small lake.
You can tell this dam has been here for a while. Full disclosure, to keep the falls falling, they pump water from this lake back up to the falls. We have been having a drought here and the falls would probably be a trickle if anything.
Son and I did a big part of all the trails until we called it quits.
I love the goofiness found in some of the State Parks.
We only went about two and a half miles but it was fun.
The trails vary from easy level hikes through the woods to “where did the trail go?”
You can follow our very slow route on Garmin Connect by clicking on the green tag above. It will take you to another screen. Click on the button that looks like your “play” button on your dvd player.
Anyway a great time was had by all.
The Gas Company’s Gas Lights
My employer’s gas lights at dusk in downtown Tulsa.
Weekend Reflections – Blue Whale
Skywatch Friday –
Wordless Wednesday – Cute Cuddling Yellow Cats
New Camera for a New Year – Lomography La Sardina Marathon
Well here we are another New Year. I don’t know what has happened but it seems like we fast forwarded from 1986 or so to now awful danged fast. So lets make the most of the time we have and have a Great New Year.
The world’s greatest MIL, Nana gave me another Lomography camera, the La Sardina. I think there are over 50 models of this camera. (Lomography is a fancy name for capturing images with “toy” film cameras.) The basic difference besides metal or plastic is the design. Mine is the “Marathon” that is decorated like a sardine can. There is one model that is just white plastic, the “DIY” and the intention is that you decorate yourself with Sharpie pens for those of us who just have to be us, and are gifted artistically which is so not me.
Lomography is just one of those things that one either “gets” or you don’t. The photographs are not anywhere near the quality of the most inexpensive digital cameras. You pay money for the film and then you pay more money to develop the film, and to top it off I don’t even get prints, the lab puts the images on a cd. Also, there is no view finder so you can’t see what you got until it is developed, there is no zoom, very little if any in the way of exposure or focus settings. It is also very east to forget to take the lens cap off. It doesn’t make any sense at all,I fully admit.
I love the pictures that they take. I can’t explain it and I’m not going to justify it.
Every shot counts and if you put too much foreground in, that’s too bad! I know that digital photographs are so much more superior.
I love playing around with the Camera. Most Lomography cameras make it very easy to make double exposures. Above is son, SuperPizzaBoy walking one of our dogs.
So anyways, I’m liking my new camera. We haven’t had decent weather to do much with it.
Lomography has their “Ten Golden Rules“, as follows. They work. The best Lomo photos are the ones that are up close and spontaneous.
- Take your camera everywhere you go
- Use it any time – day or night
- Lomography is not an interference in your life, but part of it
- Try the shot from the hip
- Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible
- Don’t think (by William Firebrace)
- Be Fast
- You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured on film
- Afterwards either
- Don’t worry about any rules
Anyway, I hope that everybody has a great 2013. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy visiting everybody’s blogs and the visits made to mine. We certainly occupy a the great side of the internet. Thanks Al Gore!
I put many of my Lomo photos on my tumblr blog (along with digital photos). It is just pure images, no blah blah blah but you’ll see some of the same images. Check it out if you have time.
