Christmas Morning

Antique Mall

Mother Tree

Aspen Grove

Free Fall

First Christian Church

Light On at the Inn

Sycamore

Silhouette

Wet Web

This abandoned web hung wet in the early morning fog on the Arkansas River.

March Moon

Snow Moon Sunset

Bison

This is my favorite bison picture.  She and I were alone and not very far apart when I took this picture.  I think we were equally intrested in one another.  She stood there for a long time, just watching me.  Bison are usually very docile, and if they do not feel threatened they just go about their usual grazing.  I think she is a very young, adult female here judging from her horns, perhaps seeing a human in her environment for the first time.  It was an exciting moment for me. 

Heavener

A rainiy day in Heavener, OK, four years ago.  I would like to go back and shoot it without leaves. 

Prairie Dawn

I arrived at the prairie just at sunrise and later than I had planned.  Sometimes you have to take what you can get and let nature dominate the workflow.  This old tree standing alone seemed a nice forground to the colors of dawn.

  

Route 20

doppelgänger

This cat followed me all around the ruins I was photographing early Halloween eve.  She was a perfect doppelganger of my own cat Hillary, except for one missing toe.

Country Patchwork

This huge barn in a delapidated state always catches my eye as I'm driving along the winding, narrow road of Route 11, in Washington County.  

Halloween

Road to the Prairie

October




 

Check Out Counter

Golden Delicious

We've just had a taste of fall weather, but its in the air.  All the things I love about it, marathon training, colorful foliage, sweaters, cider, come back to me.  This image from a past year reminds me of how invigorated all creatures are this change of season. 

Eyes on the Prize

Rodeo Bull

An Unguarded Moment

Untitled

Action

Tulsa State Fair

The harbinger of fall, the Tulsa State Fair, opened on September 30.  After a summer that delivered triple digit heat in higher numbers (114 degrees) and longer duration (over a month except for a one day break) than anything I've ever experienced, it seems a dream that fall is finally here. 

For the last four months I have been a slave to the weather.  Running in the pre-dawn hours to escape the heat and sunlight, watering my plants and garden religiously, dealing with the jungle of my back terrace (weeds of every description, voluntary trees, and poison ivy), Asplundh coming into my back yard and cutting down three of my shade trees because they have grown too close to the power lines, and resigning myself to living in constant air conditioning, has made me want to move further north and have a smaller eco-footprint.  Deal with different weather problems.  I haven't been to the Tallgrass Prarie at all this summer.  I can't even imagine how the bison have dealt with the intense heat in their shadeless landscape.

Then, just as incredibly, after three months without rain or respite, the temperature dropped suddenly into the eighties and stayed there.  As I ran my usual route in the dim light, I felt chilled by the cooler weather.  I picked up my pace to stay warm.  I caught my first cold in years.

So, I was excited by the prospect of breaking my photography hiatus with the Tulsa State Fair.  Picking up my 7D with a 50mm lens on the front, I went to the fairgrounds around noon Saturday, October 1.  Thousands of trucks and cars, semis used to haul animals and equipment, communication dishes and trucks, all were parked in the fairgrounds parking lot.  Additional  land had been cleared to provide parking on smooth, clean, packed ground.  And a charming shuttle wagon hauled by a giant truck provided transportation to the front gates.  All for free: parking and shuttle.  Entry into the fairgrounds was only $10 for adults, small children enter free.  

OMG.  The Tulsa State Fair has to be the best fair in the world.  There are rides galore, food venues of every stripe and then some, and then there are the animals.  Seriously, how often do you see an animal that weighs TONS, is spotlessly cleaned and groomed, and docile enough to be petted?  And there are whole arenas full of them.  They put all the white cattle together, all the red cattle together, all the black cattle together, and all the fantastically spotted Belgian Blue cattle together.  New mothers are displayed with their calves.  It is pretty unbelievable.  People are super friendly.

Well, I've probably said too much.  A picture is worth....etc.  Here are a few of mine.          

Americana

It seems fitting this 4th of July to take a look back at some of the photos from a series called "Americana".  This series spanned a time from the mid-nineties to about 2006, and locations in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri.  It harkens back to a rural America not yet part of the great consumerism that spawned sprawling shopping malls and cheap, mass-produced, throw-away items.  Its what most people think of when they hear the word "Heartland", and it is quickly vanishing.  Almost overnight, it is being replaced by Bed Bath and Beyonds, Barnes and Nobles, Walmarts, and the ubiquitous development of MacMansions.  It makes me feel sad for the displaced wildlife and the countryside in general.  And, isn't this where all our food was being grown?  I hope they have that part worked out.