Skyliner Motel and Rock Cafe on Route 66

Two Icons of Stroud, Oklahoma, on historic route 66. The Skyliner Motel


The Rock Cafe.


I enjoyed a really good home-made hamburger there this past Saturday.

Technical information:
These photos were made on Kodak TMX-100 and devloped in D-76, 1:1 @ 68f for 12 minutes. (Note to self: Get to the store and get a bottle of Hypo.)

Trip to Oklahoma City

I traveled down to Oklahoma City on Saturday, and found a block with three old shops that I thought interesting.  These are on Pennsylvania Ave on the Northwest side of town.

A barber shop.


A club (that used to be a cafe).


And an old book store.
 

Route 66 Old Days

Last Saturday found me on a road trip with my brother down Route 66. We had a great time. This photo was made in Stroud, Oklahoma. I like the perspective.

The Dog's Name is Lucky

Lucky, originally uploaded by Jeff Shaw Tulsa Oklahoma.

Lucky is our dog. He's been with us for a little over a year. He's one of those dogs that has to be under somebody all the time.

He's pretty smart, too. At least he knows when he's in trouble. This is Lucky relaxing, and perhaps trying to figure out what a camera is.

This is Kodak Gold, expired film. It was made in my Nikkormat FT camera.

Summer Time

A Boy.


A Pool.



A Camera.



I wish Summer would never end.

I shot these on Kodak Gold 100 expired in 1994.

Expired Film In An Old Camera

.

Film is my medium of choice. Photographs made with film have tooth, and depth. Film photographs capture a gradation of tones and color that other photography mediums cannot approach. This casual and relaxed portrait has a journalistic element. It feels kind of "blue" if you ask me.

This particular photo was made in my Nikkormat FT with 200 ISO Kodak Gold Film, expired in 2002.

My First Post

First of all, MNOP stands for Madison, Norfolk, Owasso & Peoria. These are the Tulsa, Oklahoma streets of my childhood. That's where I learned to become a city boy. All my urban chops were honed in and around that North Tulsa area West of Lowell Elementary School, which is long gone.

At the south end of those streets, which is cut-off by a factory and the railroad tracks at East Archer, we were led downtown past the Fintube complex and around to Greenwood, which was the only direction we could really go. As we got older, we played a lot in downtown Tulsa.

Joe Andoe got to practice his brand of our neighborhood in East Tulsa. But we got stuck there in that hole of neighborhood. I only mention Joe Andoe, because if I could describe my perception of Tulsa, it wouldn't be much different from some of his stories in Jubilee City.

We were usually at the edges where the homeless people and the prostitutes were. We did all the stuff hoodlums were supposed to do - busted windows, got into fights, stole bikes. (But we weren't all that bad, either - if you ask me.) We rarely got in any big trouble.

So I don't know how a lot of those memories of Tulsa could be described as "fond" - they don't really approach the romantic "chamber of commerce" memories that are so often force fed to Tulsans. But the memories are fond, maybe because I own them.

My photography work is the main purpose of this blog. The other stuff is just a little bit about me. I suppose I'll make an attempt to incorporate some of those memories into this blog, when it supports the photography.

When I was really young, a photographer came around door to door with a horse and to make pictures of kids on his horse with chaps and a cowboy hat on. For some strange reason, we took the photo in the alley behind our house on North Norfolk. I remember the trash laying around and the tipped over trash cans and the stink, and the flies. I have never understood why we took the photo back there.

Not a few years after that, I found myself dreaming about photographing some of the things that people don't get to see. I secretly dreamed of being a photojounalist when I was young. I was always into photography, I just never had a camera.

Now I have cameras.