Frozen Food

Here are a few shots from the prairie.  

Wolf Moon

I have been following several of my favorite photographers who have posted links to their winter photographs and couldn't wait for the weekend to try some of my own.  Having no work because of weather cancellations, I headed north to Pawhuska, Oklahoma and the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to scout out photo ops in the snow.  I immediately ran into a large herd of bison near a frozen pond where I had last shot a full moon landscape back near the end of summer.  Many of the babies from that time were just old enough to survive the harsh cold and wind on the bleak prairie.  They seemed energized by the frigid tempertures and the huge full Wolf Moon about to rise. 

2010 -- Year In Review

2010 began with a photo shoot at Price Tower for a Masters of Influence (Frank Lloyd Wright) multi-media show at Lovetts Gallery. The MOI was later cancelled, but some of the shots of Price Tower went into Oklahomanmade, The Oklahoma City Foundation for Architecture 2010 Architectural Photography Competition. I missed the $500.00 first place award, but picked up a 3rd place in the Professional Photographers catagory.

The Price Tower photos laid the foundation for more existing light studies taken at dusk and late night in Oklahoma. Eventually, this body of work, "Colors at Night", was shown at Lovetts Gallery in June Meet the Artists: Kevin Box and Claudia Patrick. Kevin Box, a sculptor from Santa Fe, showed his metal origami pieces made through a lost wax process and left a giant pantinated maple leaf outside the gallery. My large scale panorama of the Philtower Building, "Polychromed" (84" X 28"), sold to a private collector and now hangs in the recently restored Mayo Hotel.

Inspired to capture more unique and iconic American architecture, I headed to Las Vegas for the first time in my life. Driving up and down the Vegas strip, I could not believe I had never gone there before. Originally thinking of shooting the water show at Bellagio, I was completely taken by the tramendous photo ops presented by the amazing Stratosphere Tower, hotel and casino, where I stayed. In keeping with the number of towers I had focused on thus far, the Stratosphere Tower completely eclipsed everything else by being the tallest freestanding observation tower in the U.S. I had the time of my life, and promised myself next trip to find the courage to jump from the SkyJump, 855 feet above the strip. Dodging security, I managed to capture the image of the Fontainebleau hotel that now hangs as a giclee on canvas at Lovetts Gallery.

Finishing up a busy and fun year, I took my students from PhotoClique, the photography club I sponsor at Union High School, to shoot the Jingle Bell Run here in Tulsa, and headed to Aspen, Colorado for holiday with the peeps. After a flight out before 7a.m. and a four hour bus ride from Denver when flights were canceled, I arrived twelve hours later just as the cloud cover parted and gave way to incredible sun and blue skies. The last shot of the year came Christmas morning when a beautiful balloon traveled slowly over the mountain ridge and aligned with the still visible Full Cold Moon, which four days earlier had been eclipsed by the earth on the Winter Solstice -- a celestial event that had occurred last in 1638.

I don't know what it all means, but I was happy to be a part of it in 2010. Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Day

Christmas day in Woody Creek, Colorado. Doesn't get better than this.