The Devon Tower and the Myriad Botanical Gardens.

Lately, the photography I have been shooting has all revolved around my participating in art shows. Last weekend wasn't any different. While driving back home from Wichita, Kansas on Sunday night my plan was to stop and get a room somewhere south of Oklahoma City. The interstate passes near the downtown area and I couldn't help but notice the lights on the Devon Tower. Several weeks earlier when I had been there the lighting was pretty basic. Tonight there was brightly colored accent lights that went the whole length of the building on several sides. Cool! They also changed colors very similar to the lights on the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher Bridge that I had photographed over Labor Day weekend. Red, green, neon blue and then a pale violet before turning red again. 

After a quick detour, I found myself driving through downtown Oklahoma City looking for a good location to shoot the Devon Tower from. I soon spotted another structure which was also lighted with neon blue. This building turned out to be part of the Myriad Botanical Gardens. I parked the car and spent the next 30 minutes shooting a variety of compositions. This was my favorite of the shots but I definitely need to go back to Oklahoma City when I have a little more time.

Oklahoma Skies!

 While driving home from the art show in Oklahoma City last night I couldn't resist pulling into a scenic overlook near the Turner Falls area and checking out how well I could see the Milky Way. Sure enough it was very easy to see the Milky Way in the night sky despite being so close to the city lights of Ardmore, about 10 miles away. Those same lights revealed the silhouette of an old windmill, a perfect addition to any pictures I might take. I got my headlamp out of my camera bag and scampered several hundred yards up the hill in the dark to get a little closer to the windmill. The silhouette in the final image is still pretty small since this was shot with the lens at 16mm but I think it works pretty good that way. After all, this image is really about the vastness and the beauty of the night sky. It is also neat that I could capture an image like this within several hundred yards of the busy night traffic on I35.