Black & White Weekend Reflection - Glacier Bay, Alaska

In the summer of 2006 we went on a cruise that visited Alaska's Glacier Bay.  Only 10 years ago the bay was solid ice.

Skywatch Friday - Rain Over Tulsa

Last Sunday afternoon we took granddaughter Molly to church camp at St. Crispin's in central Oklahoma.  On the way back we watched a thunderstorm brewing near Tulsa.  I was driving so Sue was our photographer.  We got home with only a few sprinkles but later that night we had some very hard rain.  Poor Smokey.  He hates storms.

CDPB Theme - Blue / Thursday Theme - Reflections

The Trump Tower seen from the Chicago River.

The City Daily Photo Theme for July 1 is "Reflections", and the weekly Thursday Theme for this week is "Blue".  The last time Susan and I visited her son and his family in Chicago we took the river boat tour on the Chicago River and took lots of pictures.  It would seem that this one should work for both themes.  Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday - Doors to the Dawson School

The Dawson School is on the Northeast Corner of East Ute Place and North Kingston Place.

Dawson was one of many small communities established after the land rush in 1889. It was annexed into the city of Tulsa in 1948. Present day Dawson is bounded by Apache on the North, Pine on the South, Yale on the West and Sheridan on the East. It was the location of the Smith Brothers coal Pit, a strip mining operation.

The Dawson School was constructed in 1908 and served as both school and community center for Dawson. The Dawson School is a sandstone, Romanesque style, two-room building. It is an excellent example of a schoolhouse built after the post-statehood school building boom. (Excerpted from Tulsa Preservation Commission)

Ruby Tuesday - Fresh from the Garden

These nice tomatoes came from our garden.  They are not quite fully ripe but if we wait any longer the birds peck holes in them and the squirrels eat them.  They are best chilled, sliced, and served with a little salt.

Macro Monday - Skipper on a Daisy

While at the Arboretum looking at trees I found a little Skipper feeding on a Shasta Daisy.

Sunday Jigsaw Puzzle / Weekend Reflection - Midtown Tulsa

Midtown Tulsa north of Edison High School has several small lakes bordered by lovely old homes.  

Black & White Weekend - Pecan Root

This is a section of the gnarled roots of a very large native pecan tree in the Tulsa Garden Center Arboretum.

 I like the look of  it rendered in black and white.  When I started taking photography seriously in 1965 I shot everything in black and white.  I had a Pentax Spotmatic with an F-1.4 lens and I used tri-X mostly to allow decent available light photos.  Since migrating to the digital age everything is shot in color and what used to take hours in a dark room now takes minutes on the computer.

Recently some of the blogs I admire have encouraged me to go back to rendering photos in black and white.  Converting the digital color image to monochrome is a little more than a one click process.  Getting the balance and contrast just right requires some doing.

You might ask why one would want to convert a color photograph to sepia or black and white.  Consider the magnificent photographs of Ansel Adams and ask if they would be as powerful in color.  A monochrome photograph lets us see textures in a way that color does not, and gives emphasis to the larger composition without the distraction of blocks of color.  In the end it is probably a matter of personal taste and I admire a well rendered monochrome photograph.

Skywatch Friday - Stormy in Stroud

This is Stroud, Oklahoma. The downtown area is very typical of small Oklahoma towns. The prosperity of the 1920s looks frozen in time. These towns derived income from traffic of Route 66 passing through. Now they are just exits off of the interstate.

Theme Thursday - Three Little Paw Paw Trees

Today I spent several hours going through the Arboretum at the Tulsa Garden center. In the 3 acre wood are Examples of over 100 trees and hardy shrubs, mostly native to Oklahoma or at least very hardy here. These are large well established trees for the most part, and the visitor is able to see the health and mature appearance of the tree and evaluate its suitability for possible use in the visitors home of business. Each tree is identified by a plaque set in the ground near the tree. The Arboretum is a valuable free resource for anyone who cares to use it.  There are far too many trees to try and share at one time.  I imagine that the remainder will show up as posts to this blog over time.


The Common Paw Paw Tree, Asimina Triloba, has a number of local names such as prairie banana, Ozark banana, or the poor man's banana. The pawpaw is native to shady, rich bottom lands, where it often forms a dense undergrowth in the forest.

The large leaves are alternate, simple, oval shaped, ten to twelve inches long, four to five broad, wedge-shaped at base.   Where it dominates a tract it appears as a thicket of small slender trees, whose great leaves are borne so close together at the ends of the branches, and which cover each other so symmetrically that they appear to be part of the same tree.

The fruit is a large edible berry,up to 6 inches long and 3 inches broad, weighing up to 1 pound, with numerous seeds; it is green when unripe, maturing to yellow or brown. It has a flavor somewhat similar to both banana and mango, varying significantly by cultivar, and has more protein than most fruits. The fruits are quite popular, but the shelf life of the ripe fruit is almost non-existent, for it soon ripens to the point of fermentation. Those who wish to preserve the fruit for the future do so by dehydration, making it into jams or jellies, or pressure canning by using the numerical values for bananas. In southern West Virginia pawpaws are made into a native version of banana nut cake or fruit cake, and baked inside canning jars, the lids heat-sealed to keep the food for at least a year.


The Thursday Theme for this week was something related to the number 3.  Since these  common Paw paw trees are planted in a group of three, and since this Asimina Triloba has leaves which typically are clustered 3 to a bud, I think we should qualify.  Please enjoy and comment.

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Wordless Wednesday - Doors to the Philtower Building

The Philtower Building at 520 South Boston Avenue is one of Tulsa's grand Art Deco treasures.

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Ruby Tuesday - Linnaeus Teaching Gardens

The Tulsa Garden Center provides a good deal of information to anyone wishing to plant ornamental flowers, shrubs or trees that will prosper in Oklahoma's hot dry summers and cold wet winters.  The Linnaeus Teaching Gardens provide examples of the best plants to grow here.  You can walk through at any time and see what is doing well and get ideas for your own garden.  Part of the garden is taken up with a hardy variety of bright red geraniums which should qualify this for Ruby Tuesday.

This lovely garden displays a variety of flowering annuals and perennials along a nicely landscapes covered walkway.  Nearby is a long bed of Iris in every conceivable color.

A very short walk away is a 3 acre arboretum where you can look at 96 shrubs and trees of which 80 are native to Oklahoma and all will do well on our challenging climate.

Adjacent to the Garden Center is the extraordinary Tulsa Rose Garden.  The Tulsa Municipal Rose Garden was constructed with hand labor and teams of horses as a W.P.A. project in 1934 and 1935. It Contains approximately 5,000 rose plants representing nearly 250 varieties that bloom from May through October.  I could spend several days talking about these excellent gardens and since this is my blog, I probably will.

For other shades of red from all over check out Ruby Tuesday.

Macro Monday - Yellow Cannas

Canna variety Richard Wallace, from Horn Canna Farm, Carnegie, Oklahoma.


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Sunday Jigsaw Puzzle - Conservatory and Sunken Garden

One of the features of the Tulsa Garden Center is the "Lord & Burnham" Conservatory and accompanying sunken garden built  between 1924 and 1926.  It provides a warm and humid environment year around for exotic tropicals and orchids.

Monochrome Weekend - Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright

Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  The tallest structure designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Detail of Price Tower.  The Price Tower is a nineteen story, 221 foot high tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the only realized skyscraper by Wright. The Price Tower was commissioned by Harold C. Price of the H. C. Price Company, a local oil pipeline and chemical firm. It opened to the public in February 1956. Bartlesville is also home to the Phillips Petroleum Company, now merged with Conoco.


More Monochrome Weekend

Skywatch Friday - Oklahoma Sunset

West on I-44.

Thursday Challenge - Urban Tulsa

Looking down Boston Avenue, the heart of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma.


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Wordless Wednesday - Doors to the Philcade Building

The Philcade Building is located at 511 South Boston Avenue in Tulsa Oklahoma.  Built by Tulsa oilman Waite Phillips, original groundbreaking was in 1929 and the building was completed in 1931.


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Ruby Tuesday - Red as a Lobster

We received a LobsterGram for a Christmas present.  With my apologies to those who have ethical problems with such things, may I say, "it was delicious"!

For other shades of red from all over check out Ruby Tuesday.

Macro Monday - Butterfly on a Coneflower

This is some variety of Fritillary but just which one I do not remember.   I should know because I had a big entomology project then I was in high school.  Living in a small town I had country friends who belonged to the 4-H club and raised show calves, lambs, chickens or rabbits and entered them in the county fair.  I didn't have space enough in town to manage livestock, but the 4-H club offered other things as well, one of which was an Entomology project. I had a lot of fun with it and made some good friends.

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