From the Faraway, Nearby

Sunset at Selman Ranch

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:23:00 +0000

Sunset - Selman Ranch

Harper County, Oklahoma

Skywatch Friday

Highlights from the XXI Olympiad in Vancouver

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:25:00 +0000

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games

À la Vitesse de la Glace

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 22:51:00 +0000

Hockey - At the Speed of Ice

The Russian Olympic Hockey Team

photographed at a low exposure

like an impressionist painting

using life as a canvas

light as a medium

and a camera instead of a brush

I believe if you can make lemonade out of lemons

you can make art out of a hockey game

Life imitates art

here

at the

Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games

Russia v. Latvia

Morning Commute at the XXI Olympic Winter Games

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:48:00 +0000

Sunrise from Downtown Vancouver

I love getting to work the Winter Olympic Games and these games in Vancouver are no exception. The days are long but the rewards are many. It's a ten minute walk form my lodging in Downtown Vancouver to my secret hiding place where, under lock and key and the shadow of a gargantuan safe, I disseminate event tickets to some of the good folk who generously sponsor these Games.

Here's a few shots from my morning commute. All ten minutes of it. If I linger just long enough and that Pacific Coast weather is feeling generous - I get a little shot of sunrise - the only light I usually see the entire day. When I finally emerge from my ticket cave - the sun has long set.

As breathtaking as it is here - I am already longing for my prairie views and looking forward to coming home soon!

The Olympic Flame lights the early morning at Canada Place on the waterfront in downtown Vancouver

Street art near Canada Place Way

Coal Harbour - flushed with boats of all kinds. Many people attending the Olympics either commute by boat are use them as a hotel.

Crowds gather at a Live Site near Robson Street

all photos©trryan February 2010

The Bird Sellers of Pak Ou

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:27:00 +0000

The children of Pak Ou caves

Along the Mekong River

Selling finches for a dollar

I wanted to set them all free

Both Child and Bird

Now I know why the caged bird sings
for his supper

Gratitude

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:05:00 +0000

Right to Left:

Monks paying tribute to Angkor Wat (Cambodia); A young man in Laos prepares an offering of flowers for gratitude to Buddha (Laos); Flowers given as thanks in Luang Prabang (Laos); A novice monk meditates in silence at Wat Arun (Laos). ©trryan

The Okie Blog Awards recently announced their finalists for the 2009 awards and I am honored to have been nominated in two categories: Best Photography Blog and Best Cultural Blog. Thank you for the nomination. The amount of talent in this state is mind blowing and I am grateful to be among a list that includes some mighty famous bloggers.

Thank You!

Of Earth and Sky

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:52:00 +0000

Listen

Smell the pungent juniper

Feel the gentle power of beauty

Ancient Black Rock hunches on the distant horizon

A dark cloud above means rain will soon be upon us

The awesome monolith at your feet is Tse Na'ashjee'ii - Spider Rock

Holy Spider Woman taught the People how to weave

There is purity and strength here

And places sacred to the People

Places strong in the oneness

of earth and sky and all things

I am indeed it's child....absolutely I am earth's child

Navajo Song of the Earth

Text from the Navajo dedication at Canon de Chelley Monument

Photographs of the Navajo Nation

Eastern Arizona/Southern Utah

Canon de Chelley and Monument Valley

©trryan - 2009

A Coke and a Smile...

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Buddhist Monks during a Sunday Stroll

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

©trryan February 2009

Coca Cola was first produced in Cambodia in 1958. A green-tea flavored Coke was introduced in the summer of 2009. That's an interesting way to remain competitive in the local market. Can't wait to taste that one (not)!

This Used To Be My Playground

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:26:00 +0000

Laundry Day

Lake Nicaragua

©trryan November 2008

Empire of Illusion

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 02:17:00 +0000

Carte de Viste

of Bayon Temple

at Angkor Wat in Cambodia

Albumen Print Facsimile

February 2009 ©trryan

This image was inspired by the albumen print style of photography that was popular at the time this temple was "rediscovered" in Cambodia by French explorer and botanist Henri Mahout in 1860.

The albumen print, also called albumen silver print, was invented in 1850 by Louis Desire Blanquart-Evrad, and was the first commercially exploitable method of producing a photographic print on a paper base from a negative. It used the albumen found in egg whites to bind the photographic chemicals to the paper and became the dominant form of photographic positives from 1855 to the turn of the century, with a peak in the 1860-90 period. During the mid-1800s, the carte de viste became one of the more popular uses of the albumen method.

What's New, Buenos Aires?

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 16:14:00 +0000

What's new Buenos Aires?
I'm new, I wanna say I'm just a little stuck on you
You'll be on me too...

Don't hold back, you are certain to impress
Tell the driver this is where I'm staying

Rio de la Plata
Florida, Corrientes, Nueve de Julio
All I want to know

Let me dance to your beat, make it loud

Let it hurt, run it through me.

And if ever I go too far

It's because of the things you are
I need a moment's rest

Hello Buenos Aires

Put me down for a lifetime of success
Give me credit, I'll find ways of paying

I get out here, Buenos Aires
Stand back, you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me
Just a little touch of star quality

Beautiful town, I love you

You fill me up with your heat, with your noise
With your dirt, you overdo me

Take me in at your flood, give me speed
Give me lights, set me humming

All I want is a whole lot of excess
Tell the singer this is where I'm playing

Stand back, Buenos Aires
Because you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me
Just a little touch of
Just a little touch of
Just a little touch of star quality

Lyrics from Evita's "Buenos Aires"

Photos ©trryan May 2009

The Daily Monk

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:35:00 +0000

The Daily Monk

Luang Prabang, Laos

March, 2009
©trryan

Rolling with the Tide

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:37:00 +0000

Shooting from the hip with I-Phone

at the BCS College Championship
Rose Bowl Stadium
January 2010
©trryan

It Takes a Village

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:05:00 +0000

Gadling On-line Travel Magazine's
Photo of the Day - August 2009
Shot at the Villa Esperanza Barrio
Granada, Nicaragua
November 2008
©trryan

Falling Back...

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:01:00 +0000

Autumn in the Wichitas

November 2009

©trryan

Merry Christmas From the Farm

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:04:00 +0000

P. Allen Smith's Garden Home Retreat is centered on axis with a goliath centuries-old post oak in the Arkansas River Valley

This past weekend, I took my mom to our annual Foster family Christmas gathering in Little Rock, AR and we stayed at my cousin's farm and garden retreat in the country. The gathering represents about four generations of my grandmother's family.

The Greek-revival farm house is newly built - but my cousin went to painstaking efforts to make sure the architecture was faithful to the mid-ninteenth century pre-Civil War homes that would have been found in this farming valley. The garden retreat is often used in his syndicated television shows and gardening books.

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas!

Christmas

at P. Allen Smith's

Garden Home Retreat

Pulaski County, Arkansas

December 2009

©trryan

Refuge

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:31:00 +0000

Shot at Angkor Wat Temple

Siem Reap, Cambodia

February 2009

©trryan

Sundown at the Salton Sea

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:46:00 +0000

Salton Sea
Imperial County, California
October, 2009

Selected as
Nature Conservancy's Photo of the Day
11.07.09
©trryan 2009

Tympanuchus pallidicinctus

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:49:00 +0000

Lesser Prairie Chicken

Tympanuchus pallidicinctus

Photographed at Selman Ranch

Harper County, Oklahoma

April 2008

photo & image design ©trryan

Iguazu

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:02:00 +0000

It's a Nice Day for Some White Birding

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:25:00 +0000

Ring-billed gull - second year

Oklahoma City Audubon's Tuesday morning birders meet every week in the fall and winter come rain, snow, shine, sweeping prairie wind -- or in the case of last Tuesday - a thick blanket of misty fog on a day that promised to be a warm and sunny 71 and never mounted 60.

Ospreys in the mist

A huge flock of unidentified icterids course the air in Hitchcockian glory

This season is under the expert guidance of naturalist, Oklahoma native plant genius and birder extraordinaire - Bill Diffin. The Tuesday morning birders are lucky to have him and any day birding with Bill Diffin is a good day for the wide-eyed-and-wanting-to-learn.

Osprey and Comorant

_______________________________________________________

White bird

In a golden cage

On a winter's day

In the rain

_________________________________________________________

Great Blue Heron and Bobber

Even a day smothered in grey fog and wet mist and with less than ideal conditions for photography.

Franklin's Gull

With the promise of lots of sun, I brought the big guns last Tuesday to the Lake Hefner outing. Even on the sunniest day I am usually less than thrilled with my Canon EF 400 mm f/5.6L despite its enormous popularity and high ratings. The images are never tack sharp; and on a cloudy day - fuggetaboutit!

Osprey caged in gold

_______________________________________________

The leaves blow

Cross the long black road

To the darkened skies

In its rage

But the white bird

Just sits in her cage

Unknown

________________________________________________

Common loon a calling

I shot at everything that would sit still long enough for the lens to focus through the mist;

Red-shouldered hawk on mast

remembering that a gray day and a fairly competent digital dark room can work wonders on blurry, blah, rainy day birding images.

Leaping Harris sparrows

Whoever says photography is not art - look again.

Belted kingfisher on snag

And whoever says rainy day birding is not good...eat your heart out...

____________________________________________________

The sunsets come

The sunsets go

The clouds Float by

And the Earth Turns slow

And the Young Birds Eyes

Do always Glow

And she must fly

She must fly

_______________________________________________________

White Bird Must Fly

or She will die

She will die

Many thanks to Bill Diffin for 52 species and a great day of birding on Lake Hefner, despite the weather. That's OKC Audubon's Tuesday morning birding at its best!

"White Bird" from David LaFlamme's band Beautiful Day

Window on the Past: Travels through Albania, Siberia and the Buryat Kingdom

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:51:00 +0000

A year ago I was traveling through Albania, Siberia and the Buryat Kingdom as the advance person for a private jet company. Looking back, it seems that jet was moving well outside the shadow of the crumbling economy and so too was I. A lot has changed in a year.

These were remarkably untrodden places to work in and each held an incredible allure for even the most intrepid of us. I was elated to get to go, if not for the passport stamps and the frequent flyer miles. I was not prepared for how fantastically beautiful and mesmerizing each place would prove to be.

I was there as a destination manager and not a photographer - so I only had time to shoot a few images. Here's a short video which does little service to these beautiful places and people. Most of the water shots are of Lake Baikal - the deepest lake in the world; the ruins and blue lake are from Butrint National Park in southern Albania - a would-be birder's paradise if birders were paying attention; and the beautiful Asian woman is the Crown Shaman of Lake Baikal.

When you get a call at midnight, full moon a-rising, for a command appearance with the Crown Shaman, you get dressed and go. And you have the adventure of your life, even if it means finding yourself dressed head-to-toe in celebratory tribal-ware -- genuflecting around a fire and dancing that most ancient of dances passed down through old Genghis Khan himself.

Novice

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:22:00 +0000

Novice Monk - Saiphone

Riot on Scott Mountain

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:10:00 +0000

Mount Scott rises up out of the mixed grass prairies of southwestern Oklahoma to almost 2500 feet and is the second largest peak of the Wichita Mountains. I hear your chuckles. Not so high for a peak, I know, but at more than 500 million years old - you gotta give a big hill a break.

It's a mountain by someone's official standards. From a state renowned for being flat and boring, we'll take it. That, and the fact that the people who call Oklahoma flat and boring have never actually been here.

Here's some boring for you. This is where the riot started.

And here is some flat...

And here's Oklahoma's most famous bird artist taking it all in. She knows where the action is when Fall starts a riot. She's traveled the world, moved here fourteen years ago from San Francisco Bay and...has...never....left. Take that flat state hate mongers.

Mount Scott rapakivi granite: salmon pink, slathered in neon-yellow lichen and studied by geologist all over the world. I like having that in my backyard.

as well as chinquapin oaks

and posing dark-eyed juncos. Only 'cause you got my good side, says the junco. And pretty on pink as well.

These purple-colored plants in the aster family start the riot in early October and keep it going well into November.

The guitar hero, straddling mountaintop, wants to be a rock star, literally. And what better place to serenade the changing season and

these changing leaves

and this riot of color made possible by unseasonably cold weather and damp days.

Mount Scott and the surrounding 60,000 acres became part of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in 1901, making it one of the oldest refuges in the National Park system.

Cache Creek is one of more than 20 lakes and streams that wrap the refuge like holiday ribbons.

This place is a rock lovers paradise. If you don't think rocks are alive - come here and watch your mind transform. This tumble of pink granite overwhelms the senses.

Teddy Roosevelt came here to shoot wolves and then went back to Washington and raved about the place. The wolves are gone now, as are the black bears and most of the hunters. But herds of buffalo and elk and longhorns are thriving. As well as prairie dogs, coyotes and bobcats. Mountain lion sightings increase year after year.

This place was home to the Comanche tribe for centuries. The Apache and Kiowa tribes were later forced here. Before General George Armstrong Custer met his match at the Battle of Little Bighorn, he had already wreaked havoc in this part of the state.

This magical place is 70 miles from my front door. I'm there in a blink of an eye and ever so grateful to have it in my backyard.

I hope you like Oklahoma and its outrageously colored rocks and impossible beauty. Because with the economy the way it is - that's just about all your going to get from this blogger until the Olympic Games hove into view in February. I have not been on a plane since July. Fortunately, I love road trips....

and I love Oklahoma in the fall!!

My world is Oklahoma, Mount Scott and the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

Set this Street on Fire

trryan@aol.com (T.R.) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 04:36:00 +0000

Sugar Maples in Autumn
15th Street, Heritage Hills
near downtown
Oklahoma City

From red dirt to red leaves, from the land where the buffalo roamed and the deer and the antelope could pretend they were in New England - did I mention how much I love this place I call home! Right in my own backyard. Oklahoma is definitely OK!