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Perspective Pine Stand Sunset
Really wide lenses give a feel to an image that is hard to describe. All encompassing I’m thinking on several levels really. I’m always looking for visual tunnels particularly on clear Alpenglow only winter skies. Close / Far perspectives magically appear as I walk from place to place. This old growth stand of trees survived the summer/fall long fire back in the 1930’s around here that cleared so much timber out. It burned from summer till the first snows I understand. Islands of trees surrounded by a sea of grass is the rule up in the borderlands north of Gillette. We still find snags left over from that fire not decayed into dust yet from a 90 year old fire.
We were wet all summer but currently (as I type this (in Mid-January). IT’s been dry since about mid November. There wasn’t much snow in December and January has been dry. It has not been particularly cold yet either. Kind of a mild winter in my opinion. We need a bit (key word bit) more snow. Say about 4 inches a week lololol.
There are thousands of little areas of “zen” around. It’s a matter of seeing them. Capturing them is a little harder lol. I might go find this very spot again under different conditions with a sunset. Many of the great masters would paint the same scene over and over again under different conditions. I’ll never be a great master but I’m willing to travel in their paths.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Perspective Pine Stand Sunset
C'est #VendrediLecture et je lis Kokekokkò, 16 vues du Japon 📚☕ Je vous en dis plus en vidéo sur #snapchat 👻 (pseudo = knitspirit) Et vous, que lisez-vous ? Bon vendredi mes petits lapins ! 🐰💕 #book #FridayReads #morning #bre
Perspective and the Moon
I pay a lot of attention to Close / Far perspectives when I am out with a box of cameras. So many choices, how about a telephoto at 800 mm at 150 yards out from the branch. Such lighting only possible by parking an off road LED light bar close to the branch in question and start walking down hill until you can get both objects in focus. There are equations to figure out your focal distances but it depends entirely on your f-stop setting and particular lens. The higher the fstop, the less light into your camera BUT you get a deeper depth of focus. (i.e. both objects at infinity).
Mostly, completely missed are a million of these moments in time depending on the angle and time you find yourself observing a particular scene at. Every different angle will give you an entirely different viewpoint. Steep slopes help align a low moving terrestrial object with a terrestrial object (hint). I’m always looking at angles and what I have to do to achieve the perspective I’m looking for. The ability to anticipate the way things WILL happen and being there with a camera in your hand is about 100 percent of the photography game. Time in important, knowing when to leave a scene is as important as anticipating a scene.
The rest of getting the photo is reliant of your positioning yourself before that time/space moment. My biggest limiting factor besides gravity is topography. If the moon is rising, I have to walk closer to the hill to keep the perspective. If I move forward about 20 feet, you can’t see the branch . Also If I move up 20 feet I’m suspended in mid air levitating above a small chasm. I wonder how many photographers have walked a little more back, a little more, and more. Only to find out that there wasn’t any ground there. 😔
Location. Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands. (Wyotana)
Title: Perspective and the Moon
Got A Bad Itch
Good Evening All.
Boy I wish I was that flexible. I can actually touch my toes standing but my neck isn’t quite this flexible I’m thinking. Bending sideways that much gives me the willies as I’ve had back surgery already. Somethings you just have to itch lolol.
This wondrous lighting scenario was during a very late day. This doe and her group were coming into our corral system to water up for the night. It’s a daily routine but I’m not usually nearby with a telephoto. I can’t tell you the number of things that happen right under my nose every day. There are so many happening going on up here at any one time. Deer about, Pronghorn about, Cattle about, Chickens, Ducks, Dogs and Cats. LOTS of various small animals and birds live in this habitat. But yet at the same time it’s all about being there with a camera at just the correct place in time and Space. Rule #1 of Photography: Have a camera with you.
The Whitetail deer are more gracile than the Mule deer. Their ears are smaller. There is NO black on their tail either. Mule deer have huge ears with a black tipped tail on the other end. Whitetail are a LOT smaller. This one is very well fed (not pregnant) late summer with a big fat belly to show for her effort. It’s going to be a very long winter (bad) if this year keeps on giving… Maybe that will kill the grasshoppers. 😜 Think “winter is coming” (classical reference).
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Got A Bad Itch
Sun Filter Courtesy Windmill
Forest Fires hundreds of miles away accentuate and attenuated this image. Various levels of smoke from burning forests give western photographers opportunities. I am not ashamed to take advantage of it though my heart goes out to those that the fires impact.
I’ve physically fought my share of grass fires living surrounded by a sea of grass. Fires used to burn here from their start to the first snows putting them out. I’ve seen some tremendous sunsets as a benefit to natures actions cleaning up the dead fall that we have allowed to accumulate to dangerous levels. I’ve said many times before that I don’t use glass filters in front of my lenses.
When shooting directly into the sun, the best filters have lefts a ghost of the sun in my images. Offset artifacts are not generally welcome to a photographer that tries really hard to be a photorealist. I will occasionally wander using lens reflections/flares in my work, but not here lol. 📷
Big Long Telephoto lenses have a tendency to CRUSH perspective like a compressed accordion . Getting topography, Windmill and Sun all to line up at the same time while at the same elevation as the sail…..not that regular an occurrence lol. I know the topography I work pretty well after ‘working it’ for decades. Knowing the direction the sun is going to rise is a matter of looking it up on google. Get a compass, a map (in my head by now) and figure out “what two or three things” can line up. I never know WHAT the show is going to be when I go out with cameras. I do usually know WHERE it is going to take place though. 😄
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Sun Filter Courtesy Windmill
Looking into the Furnace
I was hoping the sun would set on the fenceline but my directions and timing were off a few degrees/seconds…. The sun will always appear to move from left to right as well as downward as it sets. Of course it’s the horizon rising but you already know that. (The sun isn’t moving here, the earth is spinning) . The earth is tilted on it’s axis .
Science Factoid: That tilt is relative to the solar systems flat plane called the ecliptic. All the planets are circling the sun on that plane. The earths north/south axis Currently, the Earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its path/orbit around the sun. But this tilt changes/wobbles like a top. During the long wobble cycle that averages around 40,000 years. (Based on good scientific work eh? )
The tilt of the axis varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. Because this tilt changes, the earth is exposed to differing amounts of energy from the furnace over that interval. Paleoclimatology is something I have dabbled in with an advanced degree in Paleo stuff… . I will tell you the sun is the driver of our climate so one would assume that global changes occur as the way you face the sun. Yup, the climate has been changing since it all started as a pool of molten rock accumulated in a gravity well lol.
SO back to Looking into the Furnace : This time of year, sun sets dramatically from left to right as the horizon rises here. But it rises from left to right at sunrise. (The phrase to google here is Ecliptic solar system). So tracking this and watching it change by the minute was very impressive.
Photographic Musing: Bright bright bright stuff. Shutting the camera down to light ALMOST taken with the lens cap on (it’s that bright lolol)
You only have 3 main things to set on your camera by working it on manual mode. They are: “ISO” (Camera Sensitivity), f-stop (aperture or pupil size of the lens) and Shutter Speed in parts of a second (s). Figure out what is important to you (deep focus or freezing motion?). You set f-stop high for deep focal field . F-stop low for shallow depth of focus field. F-stop takes away light so high f-stop (small hole in the lens) is good for high light situations.
Priority 1 taken care of. Your next priority (2) is ISO (camera sensitivity). Low ISO is ALWAYS best because High ISO give you too much light AND a grainy appearance in the image. So LOW camera sensitivity (or slow ISO 100). High ISO is best for LOW LIGHT situation. Really HIGH ISO over 2000 is for the dark if you need it only. I consider ISO evil to go high with. Last thing on the list is shutter speed which is your variable to adjust the total exposure. You adjust until you get the result you desire.
On an older DSLR reflex type camera, you look at the image on the LCD on the back of the camera body AFTER you take the photo. With a Mirrorless Removable Lens Camera though, you get what you see on the screen INSIDE the camera, WHILE you are moving the dials the image reflects the changes you make. What you see is what you get. Instant feedback, MUCH easier for you to learn on.
So if you made it this far in my text, and your looking at cameras, pick a mirrorless model, preferably a full frame/large sensor camera. Full Frame cameras have higher dynamic range than smaller sensor cameras. Disclaimer: Don’t USE a standard DSLR camera to take sun photos and YOUR camera may not be rated to take this heat. Large sensor cameras spread out that light and don’t melt like some smaller sensor cameras would here. More important, don’t blind yourself in a DSLR even trying this. Seriously! Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Looking into the Furnace
Red Fox Marking Post
No this is not just outside Sanford and Son’s and no fake heart attacks here (Do you know the classical reference?)
So Game Trail Cameras play an important role in my understanding of game and predator patterns of movement. I have discovered that every canid that goes by this stick either pees on it or chews on it lolol. Apparently it is a community boundary between Coyotes and Red Foxes. I see Coyotes coming in from the east and these guys from the south. There may be some overlap in their territories but I suspect the two different species are NOT the best of friends. Top of that stick is definitely chewed on by many animals.
These Remote auto cameras definitely clue me in to behavior that I would normally have NO chance in capturing. I could sit down in this gully in a regular wildlife blind for days without any activity with a regular camera. Not that I have anything better to do on any particular day lolol. I think I’ll let the auto cameras do the work. These two were definitely on the hunt though. They just had to pay homage to the marks other left behind as a matter of due course I’m thinking.. 👀😜
Night images via Infra-Red flash are all to capture grainier than daylight images. The quality is more like a well printed newspaper than a high quality/resolution capture from a 5 thousand dollar camera rig. They may be grainy but they sure are Candid!. This is an 18 inch by 18 inch aspect final
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Red Rox Marking Post
Lone Tree Backcountry Lamp
Taken a few days ago. This is a VERY bright scene but the sun was indeed markedly yellow and the sky orange around the glare of the sun placed in the same focal plane as this tree. If you hold your thumb out at the end of your outstretched arm, it would cover this image area. Positioned where I thought the bulb should screw into this rare backcountry lamp post. When taking such images, shutting down the camera to light is a necessity. The lens is an 28 inch long 600 mm optic. I’m working hand held for this kind of capture. About 300 yards distant from the snag. The sun is out a bit further. 🤔
Being so bright a scene, it had some interesting light effects on the sensor and diffraction effects are rife. The particulates in the air as well as the clouds below it’s line of sight enabling only the longest red rays access to me. The bright yellow light from the sun overwhelmed and diffracted around the branches. though. Makes it look like it on this side of the tree lolol.
I never know how these are going to come out when taking photos way outside the sane photographic envelope looking into the sun as this capture. Settings you must consider looking it a scene is a fast shutter so going freehand is easy. You need ISO low low numbers and fstop as high as you need to enable both snag/sun to be in the same focal field.. The higher f – stop will give you a deep depth of field but will tend to cause those diffraction effects where the light wraps around and hides the branches.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Lone Tree Backcountry Lamp
I try really hard to maneuver such that I can photograph Pronghorn Eyelashes at dawn. I’d have rather had another 10 feet of elevation so I could have the rising sun behind those eyelashes but I’ll take this one. Topography prevented the desired alignment. Coulda done it if I was taller lololol.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
C'est #VendrediLecture et je lis Dead Zone de Stephen King // It's #FridayReads and I read The Dead Zone by Stephen King 📚☕ #kindle #book #bookworm #reading #coffee #instacafe #vscocam
► Critique sur knitspirit.net : ici.
Community Backcountry Meeting . (a very green Spring day 2019)
I came upon an obviously clandestine meeting in the backcountry. I saw them all simultaneously stop their discussion and look up at me. They were busy all before I showed up past some invisible line in the sand. Once I crossed that, the chatting stopped and all looked at me. I probably tripped some remote sensor. I understand that these guys are all about information sharing. Momma Pronghorn and her yearling were catching up on all the news from “up north” The Geese may have been raised around here or just in transit. They didn’t mention the specifics of their travel to me. I’m sure they got back to the gossip right after my passing. 😜
The Canada Geese get around thousands of miles while the Pronghorn Migrate 30 miles south to winter. The Thunderbasin National Grasslands are their winter range. Come Spring they head out in all directions. I suspect they head back to where they were born but I may be wrong. The Geese sure return to their birth place after migration.
On a personal Note:…..
I think they were talking about how empty the roads/airways were with all the humans bugging in. 👀
We hope you are all isolating yourselves for at least a full two weeks. Let’s slow the peak case load and spread that peak over a longer period. The trenches of this are at the hospitals. It’s up to us to keep healthy long enough so the case load doesn’t totally collapse the system. If the rest of the country is going through the motions of trying to save ourselves and the medical systems from total collapse, we’re going to have to go along. Please young people, isolate yourself, use bandwidth and play video games. Keep social isolation rules. Keep this stuff from spreading.
There are several families living in our compound here at the Bliss DInosaur Ranch. We all keep separate from each other for probably the next month and two weeks MORE IF anyone has to go to town. I’m going to miss fresh milk but powdered will just have to do. We contact UPS or Fed Ex with gloves on. Lysol things we have to look at fast, the rest of the mail can sit for a week or so. Let any bad bugs die in the dry UV rich desert we have here. Too windy to spread it out in the sun…… Wash your hands out there in the world folks.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands. (Wyotana)
Title: Community Backcountry Meeting
Ford Raptor Backcountry Sunset
I introduce: my new backcountry photo studio “Trail Worthy” workhorse. You locals will see me in this from now on. Please don’t shoot me…..All Black Ford with a camera or two sticking out the window…..Hopefully the animals will accept it….
I have been telling you all that I traded my 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee. That jeep earned it’s “Trail Rated” badge. I’ve been driving it around the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch and surrounding backcountry for 15 years with it. It is now out of my hands. I will miss the old truck. I will not miss the ride quality of a Jeep though. This thing rides like a dream. 35 inch studded Goodrich snow tires for the winter up here. Lots of ice around.
Having said that, that bumpy ride of my youth has mutated to this purpose built specialty truck. This is a 2020 Ford F-150 Raptor. My old jeep had a 320 Horse Power Hemi motor in it and was “quick/agile. This new truck is heavier but has over 450 Horse Power so the power to weight is familiar to me. It is WAY more agile than that jeep however. It might have some potential high center issues due to it’s length but it has full length skid plate underneath. This reduces the possibility of catching grass on fire on the catalytic converter which hangs out over 1000 degrees. Lots of fires under trucks. I’m thinking not so much here. So many crawling features, so little space here.
The only thing the new rig can’t do is squeeze between one gate on my place that the old jeep cleared by inches on either side. This truck is 8 inches wider than a standard F-150. This makes it much harder to tip over. The 360 degree camera system is novel to me. Backing up is MUCH easier. Computer controlled 14 inch travel suspension….Versus maybe 8 inch with the jeep. WOW.
The biggest upgrade here besides the amazing technology incorporated into the system, is the ability for me to actually carry a passenger. I could never do this in my Jeep as it was always full of gear. Not so much as with the securable dry storage is huge with how I configured the bed. “decked”.
I’ve been peripherally involved with 4 wheel drive. I live off road and drive trails daily. I still own 3 Jeeps after selling off my 2005 Grand Cherokee so I wont be without a smaller ride….. The local 4 wheel Drive Club makes the drive up here every few years lol. If you wish, youtube up the 2008 Peterson’s 4 Wheel Drive and Off Road “Ultimate Adventure” video. (an annual video production with 17 professional/semi-pro rig touring one day and 4 wheeling the next for a week). We were stop number 3 I believe with still images from the event here making several Front covers of that magazine’s/media company’s main publication.
Stock Vehicles usually don’t impress me. I am impressed officially to date. It is my new best friend. I have many good memories with my old friend. The king is dead long live the new king! I hope this one lasts as well as the jeep did.
Location: Remote NorthEastern Wyoming/South Eastern Montana borderlands. near the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch.
Ford Raptor Backcountry Sunset
Two Illuminated Bucks
These guys were busy grazing on the grass of this ridge when out of the blue (literally), this big ball of fire came down between them. Separated by an apparently dangerous fireball, the rear buck realizes the problem. I’m sure he’s working out the solution to his separation anxiety. Deer take time to process unique situations so I caught him here deep in thought. 😜📷
Lining Deer UP from hundreds of yards away against the setting sun is an exercise in understanding topography. By working parallel ridges I get to stay hundreds of yards away from the casual deer. not alert the deer and am still able to get far enough away to catch a foreground object in focus for three layers of image here. I only get to have the planets align like this a few times a year. I only had one opportunity this year to have deer pose for me in front of such a show. Images like this are infrequent in their occurrence for me to work.
In reality this kind of image is going on all the time, there just isn’t anyone there to take the photo. Getting into the right position for this is a lucky event. I have known these two bucks for a few years and because aware of their tendency to walk this ridge an hour before sunset. They were on their way from their grass pasture to the water hole on the other side. Almost every day these two walked this ridge like clockwork. Following the same trail daily These two are still around. I’m not sure exactly where with the snows/mud of late. The Backcountry is challenging to get back into at the moment.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Two Illuminated Bucks
Pronghorn Doe with Triplets
These are real triplets not a Pronghorn Nursery. Nursery duty is common among Pronghorns. A little over a month ago I noticed a VERY VERY pregnant Pronghorn Doe that was hanging close to water and food. I drove through that area a lot and got to recognize her and her me. Getting use to me in my Black Ford F-150 Raptor which to her must appear like a noisy grazing Black Angus cow. I drive toward them like a cow would graze. It takes a while but as you can see, not spooking the mother and getting the three stooges in the photo too was a lot of fun. Pretty hard to do as any of the three was off getting into mischief at any one time.
Like any baby animals, Pronghorn Fawns jump and react in unexpected ways to the little things they run into. These three were interacting with each other to a large degree over the time I spent with them. Circling a Mother Pronghorn and her babies is something I personally have never done until this encounter. I was amazed they didn’t spook off. I believe the Doe knew I was no threat. The kids apparently picked up on the attitude. Mother was certainly aware of them but tried really hard to focus on eating. I suspect she will have to gorge herself to keep up with the calorie demand from those three.
I drove off with them not even moving from the area they were grazing in when I arrived. The fawns even laid down in the grass together when I was there watching them one by one. They all laid down within a circle of just a few feet. I have a photo elsewhere of their ears in the grass lolol.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands
Title: Pronghorn Doe with Triplets
This Sunset over a remote Backcountry Spring Fed Pond was a beautiful locatoin/ I was trying to line this up such that the sun would set in the center of the peaks. About 4 minutes later is was setting centered in the saddle. Those are the “Red Hills” 40 miles distant from my camera.
There is a lot of wildlife around this pond. SItting up on the edge for hours at a time with a long lens is a luxury….. Unlike my water hydrant fed tanks, this nearby lake freezes over solid in the winter. The animals normally watering there in the summer tend to migrate toward water and I get to photograph them all winter. We work hard keeping water hydrants trickling all winter for wildlife which is a win win for me and the critters. Done it for 20 years (4 watering holes).
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
blissphotographics.com/sunset-over-backcountry-spring-fed...
This incoming Great Blue Heron has a photobomber in his approach. The landing pad is 50 feet up a mature cottonwood tree down in one of the ranches wetland areas. Herons are not a common bird up here but they do breed here year after year since I’ve lived here. (20 years). I’m sure I photographed these birds as fledglings years back.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
blissphotographics.com/incoming-great-blue-heron-and-phot...
C'est #VendrediLecture et je lis Le chat qui inspectait le sous-sol de Lilian Jackson Braun // It's #FridayReads and I read The cat who went underground by Lilian Jackson Braun 📚 #book #kindle #coffee #instacafe #wormbook #vscocam
► Critique sur knitspirit.net : ici.
T-rex Hell Creek Formation
It’s not a claw, it’s a tooth. This chomper was a round bone crushing tooth from a good sized predator. Call name it what you will, Nano-tyrannus, Tyrannosaur rex or some other superceeded/argued label. This is RIGHT out of the outcrop. The tool was used to remove it. A Master Mechanic wood awl. Still wet the fossil is. The white lines are chemical etching on the pretty much original enamel of rootlets. Plants reach a long ways down with their small roots. This fossil was located 6 feet below grade on the original slope.
Sized to fit into the palm of your hand, the awl is a good scale. This is a good sized tooth. I have found them larger than this. It’s always hard to stop and remember to get a photo while your dancing up and down like a little girl having pulled one of these bad boys out.
Basically if you find one of these, you might as well go home that day because there is no way your going to improve on that statistically. Only a few of these a busy year of digging come out. T-rex teeth are less rare than many other fossils I have found. It seems that everybody want’s to own rex teeth but don’t care so much about say a toe bone from the same animal. There are LOTS of T-rex teeth in a mouth but only a few toe bones. Market pressures are amazing things. Just for the record I have never sold a fossil and never will. We are not taking reservations and have a waiting list a mile long so please don’t ask. Sorry. The fossils aren’t going anywhere.
Note: Collecting vertebrate fossils is only possible on deeded private land. The land owner owns the fossils unless they say otherwise in writing. The Bureau of Land Management has extensive rules to follow on federal land. No where are vertebrate fossils of anykind allowed to be disturbed on fed, state or reservation territory.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: T-rex Hell Creek Formation
Coyote Up Close and Personal is a Game Trail Camera capture where the Ice was JUST a LITTLE too thin for him to cruise by here on the ice. I’d seen this coyote on several other days walking right on the ice. (Still one image to post with him pretty far out there lol.
I suppose he hunts the shore pretty regularly. My cameras have captured quite a few images of him. This lake freezes solid by mid-December. The only source of water is one of my stock tanks which I will keep open. This is quite a ways out into the backcountry. I have limited access to these locations in the winter. Snowmobiles only can get here. I’m not really big on using my cameras off of snowmobiles as the random flying around moisture and my rigs are not compatible.
Coyotes work hard for their meals. A “coyote breakfast”, defined as a cold pee in the corner is their typical morning meal. They don’t eat much else unless a roadrunner screws up…. mostly they eat field mice and rodents they catch. Coyotes as a group do predate ranchers stock. They will kill calves worth a couple thousand dollars each (eventually) without hesitation. Lambs are easy pickings if not protected by sheep dogs or Llamas.
As such they are pursued and shot by most ranchers. State trappers/hunters work overpopulated areas. Many organized hunts are scheduled around the area. Coyotes would cause ecosystem mayhem if not controlled. (a ranchers view point after living 20 years with them). They are not in the least bit endangered as they reproduce quite rapidly and are elusive usually. You just find the dead calf with it’s face chewed off. (sad).
Don’t get me wrong. These are beautiful animals. I admire them for their tenacity, their survival skills and their intrinsic beauty. They have a place in the ecosystem but like any predator, they need to be carefully managed. Stock predation is Wyoming Game and Fish’s business. They employ professional hunters to control Coyote numbers. If they get out of control both stock and other young wildlife suffer excessive population decline. Professional Wildlife managers generally get it close to right. (Some notable exceptions of course).
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
Title: Coyote Up Close and Personal
Neowise Comet Spilt Tail
I should have had this tracking instead this is a 10 second time exposure of this naked eye comet. You might note that the comet has TWO tails. The smaller bluish tail that is more vertical is pointing away from the sun. The other tail has a slight “Curl” to it which is why astronauts call a comet a “Curl” in the vernacular.
The Comet orbits the sun and the large particles it ejects always are “thrown to the outside of it’s orbital ellipse . We are only looking at 2 dimensions of that cloud plus the sun is very large so your also dealing with perspective here. Generally think of a race car on a curved track, throw something out and it’s going to end up on the outside of the track.
The straight tail is almost always bluish. It is made up mostly of ionically charged very small/light particals. It results from the interaction of the suns magnetic field with the comets. That ion tail always points directly away from the sun. You might google this for a complete discussion as this is a complex discussion. Know that comets have two tails if you get nothing else out of this narrative.
Thought you can see it naked eye as a diffuse rather large object in the northern sky, right under the big dipper more or less. You have to be under dark skies with no clouds of course. Far away from city lights is best. Now if you want to use a pair of big binoculars, your going to get this view or slightly smaller. This is a 110mm lens f4, 4, 10 seconds exposure. The biggest problem I had last night working the comet for 3 hours, was wind. Time exposure of anything is rough with wind around moving things like my truck (which was my tripod. ).
You still have plenty of opportunity to photograph this guy. Bring a tripod for sure and a wind shaded spot. I will be tracking it next chance I get. (the camera moves with the stars rotating a little each second.) By tracking the sky I can extend the time exposure to minutes and use a lower ISO (camera sensitivity). This one is a challenge with these mirrorless cameras as you really can’t seen this at all in the camera’s eyepiece….. Occasionally just the nucleus appears in a grainy blackness on the screen. This was a camera mounted to a truck window and me not breathing during the exposure….😜
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Neowise Comet Spilt Tail
Corriente Right Turn Clyde
Salt is the name of this Corriente’ Mother Cow. Walking around apparently with this “Right Turn Clyde” sign on her head. Must be tricky for all the low bridges around here.. We have a few Corriente’s around for their uniqueness and ease of care. You don’t have to do too much for them. They get run through vet checks and vaccinations with all the angus as necessary and are not trouble at all. Well there is the tendency to go where they want to go to. Fences really aren’t much of a problem for them. They usually get those horns involved and somehow work their way through. They CAN wander a little.
Why Longhorns? We raise them of course to sell to local ranches that like to lasso the calves as that is an active sport here in cowboy country because you make more money than raising them for beef lolol. (Actually it’s just a better arrangement. A lot of places raise their own. Bulls are problematic from them though as they tend to just walk through fences and try to breed with your angus herd…. Not good lol. Like most Cowboy sports… Roping is a sport that has a real life application as cowboys often have to rope cattle from horseback locally. I’m sure pretty much daily within a 20 mile circle from this ranch. This is still old west cattle country in many ways.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands
Title: Corriente Right Turn Clyde
Misty Morning Milk Sip
😜You have to look pretty closely at the cow center frame to see the calf nursing on her Black Angus Mom. I just named the image that lol. This amazing landscape is the attraction to me. There are other cattle off in the distance to but the perspective and shadows…. be still my heart…. Backcountry Pasture on a “at the sunrise” dewy morning on a rolling landscape. The recipe is: low angle “Golden Hour” lighting passing through a lot of suspended moisture at right angles. This is however but a sideshow to the sunrise to the right of frame. I have to constantly remind myself to look around to see what otherwise would be missed. The cow/calf are in Wyoming pasture while the treed hills in the distance are in Montana.
This borderland country is a favorite backcountry haunt of mine. The view is amazing from this ridge in all directions All the ground in this image is a small portion of our overall ranch which is in both Montana and Wyoming. Yes we pay property taxes in both states (before anyone asks lol). My son went to High School in Montana. Had to drive 90 mile round trips daily. At age 13, he had a ‘hardship” license to drive the backcountry gravel 15 miles to the closest bus pick up spot Ranch Kids learn to drive very early.
I’ve got fossil “Micro-sites” on several locations in this image. The ground looks the same except there are fossils falling out of the sand if you dig it. 99 percent of the bedrock sand has nothing in it. Some spots are very fossiliferous. Hit or miss. I knew fossils were here when I bought the place, I just didn’t know where they were.
A land of many uses.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
Title: Misty Morning Milk Sip
Sunset On the Grassy Hill
Driving the backcountry I see many images but not all of them are straight forward just point and click lol. Without the Smoke Pall totally filtering all but the brightest longest wavelength colors. The sun was ALMOST naked eye viewing here which made the grass highlight possible. Halo’s in the grass around the sun are hard to catch when they are not BLOWN out by overexposure.
Normally the glaring intensity of the setting sun will over power the cameras sensor leaving hard colored edges around the sun, unlike this smooth gradient/transition. I really like smooth gradients in my images, if you see steps in my color ramps, either it was really like that or I screwed up something lol.
The color is true to the sky I was looking at through the camera. Most of the sky was smoke grey. This is a very small area of the sky through this lens. About the size of a postage stamp at arms length.
The thickness of the smoke of late has been troublesome. Animals and Humans alike suffer from the choking irritant. As I type this, the residents of Jordan Montana can return to their home. One of many fires ongoing in the area was ready to run over the town. The 50 mph winds and low humidities made for fire storm grassland conditions. One of the few redeeming results of a hot forest or grass fire is the color in the sky down wind. I’ve seen some smoke/light phenomena this week I’ve never experienced before.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Sunset On the Grassy Hill
Pregnant Pronghorn Bedded Doe
Several readers have been following the continuing adventures of this VERY Pregnant Pronghorn Doe I’ve named “Jane”. She is relatively at ease with my presence as far as one of these jumpy creatures can be. She is indeed getting tolerant of my vehicle. I don’t press her as this is a LONG lens so I’m a ways back. I left without her moving from her spot. They tend to be rather flighty and one of my favorite captures is when they are laying down bedded in soft sand. If you dig below the top few inches of sand, it get remarkably cool relative to the surface. I suspect they know this instinctively. Soft and cool on a hot evening is after all, soft and comfortable lol…
The chunk of “fur” missing on her shoulder is just spring time shedding. They loose hair chunky on their back typically from going under barbed wire fences at 30 mph. This is not a problem. This Pronghorn is perfectly healthy even though she looks a little shaggy from the uneven shedding. She looked better last fall when she was bedded by the buck responsible for her misery here. 👅 The Thick winter cover falling off in chunks until it’s in a tight fitting summer coat. High and tight with an accent on the mane please 😝
She is indeed huge, still carrying if not three, then why not 4 young in there. Twins are not uncommon… Honestly, it seemed she was happy not to move for a few minutes while I took great care to get the image where I wanted to. I was outta there as to not stress her longer than I needed to. The more I come and go without scaring her, the closer I will get to her the next time. Hopefully this lack of fear to my Black Truck will transmit to her young.
Gotta love those lashes
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Pregnant Pronghorn Bedded Doe
Siamese Fighting Fish in the Clouds
Title: Siamese Fighting Fish in the Clouds for you Pareidolia “sufferers”. You know who you are lol?. The colorful flowing finned fish living in little pint sized fish bowls as most of us have had one time or the other. Most of you don’t know my wife and I owned the only pet shop in a good sized college town for 6 years… I’ve had fish since I was 12 years old non stop. I still run an aquaponic greenhouse with several hundred pounds of live Tilapia with 128 square feet of vegetables growing off of it lol. In other words, I have fish branded into my brain lol. I also detect several uses in mirroring this image around the 1/2 face in the lower clouds.
Sunsets in the backcountry fall into so many varieties I have to develop a way to catalogue them. The high white clouds are in unfiltered sunlight passing through very little atmosphere. The lower clouds are bathed in light that has traveled many miles through surface air. That filled with particulates and moisture. Only the longest red wavelengths at the base make it through the longest path through the thickest air. This is a pure red, yellow green, blue, darker blue twilight gradient. The sun is still up in this capture. The sun is highly obscured . It might as well be twilight lol.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Siamese Fighting Fish in the Clouds
With The Help of Smoke
Done without a neutral density filter in front of the camera. Almost a silly unlikely capture. It is a rare image from my equipment that has very few issues with the silhouette against the sun. The smoke in the atmosphere obviously has some attenuating aspect on the amount of light passing through. Normally the camera is on the edge of the envelope doing this. All the normally insurmountable technical issues were overcome to get this one.
Photographic Musings:
The big lemon colored sun is an easy capture in and of itself. Getting something terrestrial in front of it without large red rims around objects (diffraction artifacts). Washing them out is typical. I have pointed a camera at the naked sun with trees in front a few times (thousands) before and have never gotten this quality out of the composition. Sharpest edges ever in this type of composition lol. Again, only a smoke attenuated sun will do when you need a celestial object for a “sitting”. Of course I lost 1/2 of the light by letting it set 1/2 way lolol. High fstop (the softness) for deep focus, fast shutter in the 1/6000th range, LOW ISO in the 100 range and a lot of atmospheric filtering.
I’m always trying to work sunset at less than f22 if possible. I suspect this is f60 ish. A tiny pin hole in the aperture. It’s a 1200 mm lens with a very high resolution camera (170 meg raw+ .jpg) which allows me to come up this close without much of a crop. There is NO substitute for high resolution and high dynamic range in a camera.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: With The Help of Smoke
Mule Deer Big Buck
Boy I don’t get a chance to “zoom into” a big fellow such as this very often. This is after rut so this guy survived the hunt this year. I call this a 4×5 but there are two brow tines you can’t see in this profile that you can sure hang a ring on. There are so many ways to “classify” how “good” a buck is based on his antlers. I tend to look at the condition of the animal and this guy is one nice buck. I’m thinking it weights 275 pounds anyway.
Big Male Mule Deer go to 330 pounds and the females go to 200 pounds. The are actually indigenous to North America and are known by those distinctive “Mule” shaped ears. The hear extremely well with those big ears. I suspect they use their sense of smell way more though to detect danger. These guys are herbivores. They are survivors of what ever killed all the MegaFauna during the Pleistocene 11000 years ago.
Biologists say that a Bucks neck will swell up as showing the Mule Deer Buck Near Rut capture. They will swell up to 50 percent larger of a circumference adding more muscle mass. This is all related of course to the Rut which is the annual fight to breed. They live in a world of scents and hormones floating in the air from the does in the group.
Scientific data indicates that this growth is caused by a big surge in testosterone to the deer. That dose of steroids makes the neck muscles get big and also causes the deer to become more aggressive. I had a close encounter with a deer in my back yard a few Novembers ago.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Mule Deer Big Buck
Waning Crescent Moon January
Different phases and faces of that celestial neighbor constantly present themselves to me during the day and twilight but I find myself not going out much in the winter after dark. I let my mastiffs do my wandering around the homestead at night.
When I do get out I after nautical twilight at night or before Civil Twilight in the morning. Usually I am completely focused on twilight. Some rare astronomic events have me peaking outside at cloud cover in the middle of the night. I really don’t sleep much but I do photography all day which makes my circuit breaker to pop sometime during the evening lol. I’m either on camera or on computer finishing these days. I get my chores done on ranch too. Take care of a greenhouse and a flock of 80 birds, 6 cats and my personal Mastiffs. I’ve been feeding haybales to our corraled/captured herd of Corriente for a few weeks. 34 longhorn cattle go through a 1200 pound bail of hay in 2 days.
I digress…. The “Waning” part of Waning Moon gets smaller each night until the “New Moon” where the moon is entirely in shadow. I do have some captures of just that 2 illuminated percent crescent. This moon will evolve over the next few nights into that sliver. This is a 4 picture composite of the face of the moon in real color through a 3200mm refractor optic. Handheld actually on the roof of a vehicle rested.
Location: Over the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
Title: Waning Crescent Moon January
Phlox Flower Filter
Flowery Friday, Flowers all day LIttle Pixie Antennas….caught them feeding I did lol……
I always use natural objects to filter out the excessive light from the sun into my camera. This particular plant sat for me so I managed to get under it and line it up. It’s getting harder and harder to get that low anymore lol. I find the only way to capture this actually in focus is to look through the eyepiece to fine tune as this close a subject (about a foot) is tricky.
Boy do butterflies like this flower around mid-summer. These plants topped by large clusters of flowers spot through out our gardens.. As a genus, they have a vibrant range of colors. I’ve seen red, lavender, white, pink purple and I hear about orange phlox. Trivia word of the day: Phlox means Flame in Greek.
All but a few of the 65 species of Phlox are native to North America. It’s presence in our gardens here in Wyoming is suspect.Human intervention may have been involved. We didn’t plant Phlox in the gardens at our homestead. I suppose a seed from a bird dropped from it’s transport. Something about 100 years of gardening around this old homestead comes to mind as the cause though lol. .
You need a HIGH f-stop number for the deep focus plus it’s reduction of light. ISO 100 (low ISO for bright light camera sensitivity), and use shutter speed to adjust for what ever lighting scenario/exposure levels you wish. Establish/ always set your main priority in this case F-stop first and adjust the other two setting (ISO and Shutter speed) as secondary considerations.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands.
Title: Phlox Flower Filter
Bucks Rutting Under Alpenglow
Boys will be boys. They didn’t need a reason to lock horns because their hormones were kicking in. Rut was in late November/early December this year up here in the borderlands. They were, as they say, preoccupied and din’t care much about my presence during this tussle.
These two are the best of friends. Thick as thieves they are. About 5 minutes earlier, they wereresting in the shade of the afternoon together lol. This image was taken about 4 weeks before the rut really started and it was still good natured. They really were working on building up their necks. Those necks will swell considerably the close to the rut they get.
Biologists say that a big Bucks neck can swell up much larger than these boys have currently. From the spring, they can swell up to 50 percent larger of a circumference adding more muscle mass. This is all related of course to the Rut which is the annual fight to breed. They live in a world of scents and hormones floating in the air from the does in the group.
I have followed these two around for several years. These 3 year olds have known me since the beginning seeing me out on the ranch land taking photos of their childhood and parents. Now they are starting to really accept me as a another grazing animal. I slowly over time carefully approach deer. They are aware of old vehicles and how I approach. I drive like I’m grazing stopping and stopping. No I have a new truck so this will be interesting. No hurry. Might take me 1/2 an hour to get up this close without changing natural behavior. I’ve actually worked inside of deer herd boundaries before. I didn’t get a chance to do that this year for what ever reason. Everything has to line up just so for a good day of grazing with the Mule Deer. Running late.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Bucks Rutting Under Alpenglow
Angus Under Setting Sun
LOL, filed under things I see here on the ranch. As I drive around the ranch, most cattle this time of year are VERY tolerant of vehicles. They learn to associate the running engine and the rig with feed or hay. When they get fed, it’s a noisy, smelly scary looking contraption unrolling a bale or two. There is a lot of grass in this field that is still accessible to them though. Keeping herds of cattle in the backcountry is hard work.
There are still bales to pick up this year. Cowboys are still in the process of being gathered even now in Early January where a tractor can reach them. Hay Tractors don’t care too much about snow until it gets several feet deep. We have to keep the cattle out of the pastures the bales are still in. Our small herd of 34 Corriente Longhorn is corralled right now with me feeding them a 1200 pound bale of hay every three days. This keeps them away from the hundreds of bales in their normal winter pasture. We’ll have this snafu fixed shortly. Tough to get it all done.
This beautiful night was calm for the beasties on the plain. Both wild and domestic critters were enjoying the lack of wind that evening. Mid Winter up here in the Wyoming/Montana backcountry is harsh, long, not much sun. It’s COOOOLD when the wind blows. With no wind, I walk outside for quite a while in a t-shirt at zero. It’s so dry and if it’s still, you can’t feel the cold. I’ve heard it does get still up here occasionally. Just a rumor though…😜
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
Title: Angus Under Setting Sun