Last week before the five or six days of rain at one of my favorite fountains and sculptures on Tulsa’s River Parks.
Linking with Skywatch Friday
Tag Archives: Oklahoma
Our World – My Favorite Street
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
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
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.
Shadow Shot Sunday – The Gardens of Philbrook
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.
There is a bridge across a creek that makes a great shadow also.
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.
“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
Wordless Wednesday – The Anarchists of Anonymous
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
The Pope Francis – Oklahoma Connection
Strangely enough, the photo of a banner of Pope Francis at Tulsa’s Holy Family Cathedral is the most popular by far of the 46,000+ photographs I have on Flickr.
NewsOn6.com – Tulsa, OK – News, Weather, Video and Sports – KOTV.com |
We have been having a welcome break from the whole Donald Trump/ Hillary Clinton thing now days. Pope Francis has come to America and America likes it. His message of compassion seems to be touching a core to many of us Americans who are tired of the way things are. It seems to be an emotional experience for many of us, even us who are not Catholic. One of the things that interests me is that an Oklahoma Native American ballet company will be performing a small piece for the Pope Sunday in Philadelphia. The Osage Ballet Company based in the tiny little town of Oklahoma will be presenting a segment of Wahzhazhe a ballet made specially for them. The connection between the Catholic Church and the Osage tribe goes back to 1673 when Father Jacque Marquette evangelized the tribe.
Part of the “Five Moons” installation at the Tulsa History Museum in honor of the give Oklahoma native American Ballerinas known as “Oklahoma Treasures”
The Osage tribe is no newcomer to Ballet. Two sisters, Maria and Marjorie Tallchief, both members of the Osage tribe were important dancers on the international dance scene. She was America’s first Prima Ballerina.
Maria Tallchief’s “Sugerplum Fairy” made the “The Nutcracker” America’s most popular ballet. Maria Tallchief passed away in 2013.
Marjorie Tallchief is Maria’s younger sister and also a great dancer. She was named “première danseuse étoile” of the Paris Opera Ballet. She is retired now.
Both Maria and Marjorie Tallchief are named “Oklahoma Treasures” as two of five Native American Ballerinas who became became famous internationally for their ballet dancing. The others are Yvonne Chouteau, Moscelyene Larkin, and Rosella Hightower. Collectively the five ballerinas are known as the “Five Moons.”
Anyways, I think the Pope is a little over-scheduled in his trip but I hope that he enjoys the brief performance by the Osage Ballet Theater during his time here in the USA.
Skywatch Friday – Spider Island
I had a few hours to myself last week so I went to Oxley Nature Center north of Tulsa’s airport. I only found one cache but the enjoyment is mainly in the looking. I walked up to one of the lakes and too this shot. If it looks familiar it is because it is taken from near where my blog header shot is taken. I’ve probably got two dozen pics of the same scene over the years, summer, winter, fall, spring, cloudy, clear, cold, hot, with Heather and Logan, mostly without. If there is a law against repeat photographs then I’m in for a long sentence.
I’ll have plenty of company though if I’m sent off to blogger jail. The bloggers I regularly read do similar things. A pretty or attractive scene tends to stay that way. What about you, do you repeat yourself a lot? Going back to the same scene I mean.
Linking with Skywatch Friday
Harbinger of Autumn
Oxley Nature Center – Tulsa, Oklahoma Topaz Impressions
It is getting to be late September. Pretty soon the weather will break and Tulsa’s long wonderful Fall season will be upon us. You can already tell that things are changing. Although still hot, the sun is a little lower. The mornings are a little cooler. The sky gets a little bluer. There is something subtle about a cottonwood tree that heralds the coming of Fall. I don’t know if is a subtle change in the color of its leaves or just what, maybe my imagination, but I can tell that things are changing.
How can you tell that the seasons are changing?
Weekend Reflections – Pepsi Lake
This is Pepsi Lake on Turkey Mountain from back in May. Great year on the mountain with all the rain that we got plus it got saved from an outlet mall that was proposed and then cancelled. There was a huge surge in popularity that resulted with all sorts of new people tromping all over the place. Things have died down quite a bit with the heat of the summer and school starting so I’m back to seeing very few people during my weekly run.
Last week’s post on Turkey Mountain was taken from across the lake from this photo and a little to the right.
Where is your go to place to relax?