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C'est #VendrediLecture et je lis Le chat qui volait une banque de Lilian Jackson Braun 📚☕ Et vous, que lisez-vous ? #book #kindle #FridayReads #teatime #morning
Sunset Across the 130 mile Distant BigHorn Mountains is one of quite a few BigHorn Range captures over most of last week. Amazing stuff 😲
Watching this alignment start up with the sun WAY left of the range less than a half hour before this. The sun will always move from left to right as well as downward. 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. 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 this photo:
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 len 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: Sunset Across the BigHorn Mountains
A Twister is a Windmills Worst Fears. Here you can see “Sneaky Pete” the windmill Quaking in his boots over this funnel off not far in the distance. He still had the state of mind to photobomb my weather photo though. I have no control over his actions….
Three spinners, one photo lol.
This did not touch down but the two funnels rotated about each other for about 30 seconds then disappeared back up into the clouds.
Channeling Bill Paxton the actor (Classic Reference)🤔
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
C'est #VendrediLecture et j'écoute Joseph de Marie-Hélène Lafon // It's #FridayReads and I listen to Joseph by Marie-Hélène Lafon 📚🎧 #audiolib #prixaudiolib #prixaudiolib2015 #running #runandbook #morningrun #vscocam
MR. FOX
by Helen Oyeyemi
from Riverhead Books (@riverhead)
US Pub: Oct 2011
us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781594488078,...
Mantis on the Last Flower
This flower somehow survived the very early frost we had last week (as this posts). It was on the highest point of the highest remaining flower (not too many left). Between the hail storm in July beating up every flowing plant with a view straight up got destroyed. At a minimum it bruised or at least broke most of the plant up. Just like I have 5 apples on a tree that normally would yield several bushels, I have a few flowers about. The suspicion is that this is high value real estate. All sorts of creatures were around this small bed in a sheltered area getting their fill with the pollen. Bees, Flies, Wasps bugs of all kinds were visiting this island in the middle of a hailed upon desert. The Mantis was staking it’s claim.
I’m sorry to say the cold probably got this one I’m pretty sure. It was a good summer for insects. Particularly grasshoppers. There should be lots of Mantis Egg sacs about. IF I see any I’ll photograph them of course. I have found one in the ranches Walipini Greenhouse already. It’s our 6th generation of them down there.
I have to get about 3 inches away to get this kind of capture. Patient predators if you ask me I was on my knees praying for this shot. However I was all in for good focus as well as a slower subject lol.
Mantis are part of a huge order of some 2400 species under that umbrella worldwide. This is a native Wyoming/Montana species. Though almost all the flowers it hunting have all been imported from elsewhere. Thrilled he was to see my lens coming at him lolol. I have to get about 3 inches away to get this kind of capture. They might see themselves in a mirror. Patient predator if you ask me The are constantly moving back and forth a lot to imitate plants swaying in the breeze. They usually don’t stick around in any one place very long on their rounds.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Mantis on the Last Flower
Perspective is indeed Everything (#5) from the Pines POV was captured last January as I had plowed about 2 miles of backcountry trail so as to get me up on the ridges so I could work the landscapes up there. The snow was deep last year. It supposed to snow tonight (this is being set up LAST friday to be posted today.) You’ll know by the time this hits FB lolol. I think we are only supposed to get an inch or so. Just a brush by old man winter but he’s dancing right around the corner.
ALL weather happened about 3 weeks late here this year. Wettest year I remember, green still grass growing….. Never had to : Fill the fire truck and we watered the grass for 2 days one week….. Unheard of.
If this winter is early and wet….hold on
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
blissphotographics.com/perspective-is-everything-5-from-t...
Perspective Thistle Sunset
I often find myself out in the middle of nowhere in the grass during sunset. Humm I wonder what’s around for filter material? 🤔🤔 Also discovered is the tendency toward you actually being where you are. A limiting factor certainly lolol. Photography is both planned AND accidental when it occurs. Rule one of getting a photograph:
RULE 1: Have a camera with you as much as possible. I don’t even like to go outside without one when I’m going to do ranch chores in the mud in the rain.☑️
I have a very limited amount of time to shoot sunsets. Depending on the sky, I choose what camera/lens combination I’m going to grab to “work” the scene unfolding in front of my eyes. A Clear Sky Sunset is an indication ahead of time to set up a “Close / Far perspective image. Here I was using the headlights of my Jeep (very bright) to illuminate this side of the thistle plant. The Thistle globe of seeds was my sun filter to reduce / minimize the difference in lighting between the front with the bright unbridled sunlight behind.
Photographic Musings:
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.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Perspective Thistle Sunset
Stem cells from the umbilical chord may treat heart disease: bit.ly/2jhbkLD #science #FridayReads #regenerativemedicine #didyouknow
Lone Tree Sky Gradient
While I admire the tenacity of this lone tree. Living with out the benefit of the group shelter from the incessant Wyoming/Montana winds. Here on the high ridges all things are buffeted by hurricane winds yearly. The slopes leading up to them will enhance and focus the wind at times worsening the situation. Having an unparalleled view is a benefit, of this old sentinels exposed existence.
If this tree is certainly 100 years old (probably 200+), it has seen a mininum of 36500 sunrises and 36500 sunsets. I’ve only photographed well over 1000 from start to finish during my photographic travels. I’ve seen virtually (almost) every shade on the pantone color swatch book in the natural sky. And many of those missing color representatives created by others using excessive “filters” to enhance their highlights posted on the internet.. Some of the colors I’ve seen created by others are certainly un-natural. ART. The use of that color slider control on the phone are definitely missing in nature lolololol. I try REALLY HARD to be a photorealist. Blue Snow is a classic example. I’ve seen blue snow twice in my life. Both circumstances were in EARLY Civil Twilight. I see it daily posted in the forums. Generally I live in a blue snow free zone.
The color gradients I see in this image are the alpenglow equivalent of a rainbow. It’s sort of the wrong order of colors as a classic rainbow but there are refractions here going on. I have to get up to the ridges at least 1/2 an hour early. Getting into position this time of year is always in question and often in doubt. I’m on foot for this particular location for this shot. .
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
Title: Lone Tree Sky Gradient
C'est #VendrediLecture et je viens de terminer California Dreamin' de Pénélope Bagieu 📚🍵 Je vous en dis plus en vidéo sur #snapchat 👻 Et vous, que lisez-vous ? Bon vendredi mes petits lapins ! 🐰💕 #FridayReads #book #bd #m
Corriente Longhorn Playing Hathor is a capture from earlier this winter. The orange/peach colored alpenglow accented by the cloud blush off the snow in the foreground.. This was a very good year for snow early but not so much now. This was a standoff. Me versus her. I just look brave as there as a cattle gate between us as I got down on my knees looking for the reincarnation of the Egyptian God Hathor.
The orange Alpenglow is the result of atmospheric ice refracting light. All with lots of help from the the red light that make it through that hundreds of miles thick filter. I very carefully expose in the camera that sky to match what I saw at the time. The cow here is 100 yards out for my telephoto to get both the cow and the sky in the same focal field.
This Cow is NOT a Bull, just having horns does not a Bull Make. This is a mother I’ve had 5 years on ranch. … Nothing is certain up here but Winter and brown season lol. This picture hopefully will take you back to that early winter day.
If you don’t have a 100-400mm lens in your weapons chest, you need to consider it. You guy lenses for generations while fancy camera backs last a few years. I’m still using regularly a lens I bought in 1995.
Tip of the day:
You need to use a pretty high f-stop to get this deep a focus. Distance from the closest object is your friend in this kind of image. Deep focal fields come at the expense of loosing light. Your already in a low light environment in twilight.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
Corriente Longhorn Playing Hathor
As this Bee Approaching the Dinner Table (Hollyhock), I had to anticipate where it was going to Bee.
Photographers notes: Everything is mostly out of focus but the bee. The focal depth at 9 inches (closest focus for this Sony 90mm Macro) from the bee with this lens is perhaps 1/2 inch deep even with a lot of light and high f numbers. Anything in that 1/2 thick plain is sharp, anything else is blurred. Somethings are ultra sharp and others not so much. That is part of the Macro game is figuring out where that zone is and waiting around at very high shutter speeds 9 inches from the “approach” angle to this flower. I was 90 degrees anmd focused on the center of the flower ….Hang out and wait (remember when it was warm? ). Hold that photo-yoga position number 15 for as long as it takes.😄
A few more bee photos will straggle onto my posting schedules still left over from summer and some reposts over the winter to remember those warm days.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
C'est #VendrediLecture, je lis Le Clandestin de John Grisham cc @VendrediLecture
► Critique sur Vox Popul33k : ici.
C'est #VendrediLecture et je lis Je me souviens de Martin Michaud 📚☕ #book #breakfastbowl #coffee #babelio #massecritique #healthybreakfast #FridayReads
Electric Meadowlark Singing a Song
Power poles are rare in this country but Meadowlarks not so much. This is the last leg of the last line in the state. I’m thinking the next closest power line is 3 miles away from here. That one is for an oil well. Meadowlarks feel a little more “cocky” up 35 feet in the air. They must have quite a view from up there. I’m thinking he chose it for a perch to sing his song to the world. It is effectively what he did anyway lol.
These singers of the prairie are state birds for 6 different western US states. Their melody fills the slow window open drives I take on the high ridges. All my bird encounters are random with me coming up on them typically. Rarely I’ll be watching some other scene or animal with them flying in to photobomb my images. Never trying to miss an opportunity, I capture them when I see them with my photon traps. Close up Meadowlark encounters are not really very common. They are fairly flighty.
Photographic Musings:
I’m always amazed at the details the long lenses pick up so far away. I was focusing on the bird. The bolts are this side of the thin depth of focal field are JUST out of focus. That is just seriuosly splitting hairs with the focus lol. Working low F-stop has it’s benefits and costs but it lets you gain light on the 3 way lighting teeter totter that a manual camera is. Late very Red Golden Hour lighting. Minutes from sunset.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Electric Meadowlark Singing a Song
Stumped by the Sunrise
Clear skies or totally veiled skies are both candidates for this kind of “Close / Far Perspective. I will walk the shadow line on parallel ridges to find those elusive little areas of Zen. There are a million of those little areas in a scene but you have to line up with one to actually see it. It all has to do with angles and your viewpoint.
This is dry high ridge country here in the borderlands of Wyoming / Montana . The location several miles into the backcountry of this 4000 foot in elevation ridge. In this area, occurred a fire that burned all summer during the 1930’s. That fire didn’t go out until the snows fell in the fall. This obviously changed the landscape from a heavily forested pine grove into a more open landscape. Prior to human habitation, wildfires were always burning unchecked across North America. Then it got worse because native Americans did a LOT of burning to open up the deep woodlands. A grassland/forest mix is good for the wildlife. And they knew it. Pretty much right up until maybe 100 years ago.🤔
Wildfire is natures way of controlling the build up of forest floor litter. The old trees do fine in the smaller grass fires under them. Many pine cones open releasing their seeds due to the fires. Fires are responsible for trimming back woods creating grasslands. Trees like this if hit by lightning will burn for days. If there is a LOT of fuel, it get’s pretty spicy in the grasslands. The snow ultimate controls the burns in nature.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Stumped by the Sunrise
Ice Blue Windmill Morning
What a beautiful morning this was. A little chilly on the drive back there.
Aermotor windmills account for the bulk of windmills out there. The company started way back in the 1888 with 24 sold the first year. Over 20000 of the beasties sold in 1892. The company still exists. They also sold a LOT of steel fire “look out towers” for fire watch and being a lightning target lololol.
Reconstructing past lives and events grabs your minds eye coming upon and old homestea. The comings and goings of old homesteads spark my imagination. There was a homestead about 1/4 mile from this location. They had their own hand dug well 35 feet deep and 4 feet wide about 200 feet from their house down in a deep gully.. I filled it in when I moved here. It was an “attractive nuisance”.
Most settlers had to use the water at their windmill. I suspect an outhouse long since gone somewhere nearby downward of the prevailing wind. This land has had cattle or sheep on it for 100 years and slightly more. That’s 5 generations of cowboys that stayed the night or the summer in this treeless pasture. Being the only source of water for several miles around, the cowboys drank here too.
This is very big country open back country. It’s remote and just plain challenging to get to in the winter. This is a steel windmill which is more expensive than building the wood towers was. Wells were positioned centered in the pasture. This made it accessible to the entire area. A lot depended on the ground water geology to make the shallow wells work long term. (luck mostly early on).
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Ice Blue Windmill Morning
Stars and Stripes Perspective
The top flag speaks for its self in this borderlands windy day. The origin of the starts and stripes has been muddled. Accounts handed down orally over several generations. Mostly from the descendants of Betsy Ross. Congress onJune 14, 1777 took time from it’s busy schedule. It passed a resolution stating : “the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white”. That “the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
Still to this day, no one knows who designed the flag. No one know why that particular color combination and pattern were chosen. Rumor is Betsy Ross made the first American flag in 1776. George Washington personally requested her design the flag. Again, this is hearsay.
What the yellow flag that is hiding below is the flag I’ll talk about. I was kicked out of a 50,000 member forum for this flag in a photo. It happened to be part of a wonderful photo with a bunch of geese flying over head at night, lit flags, lit geese…. Me refusing to remove it because it has a “political bias”. Somehow the “Tea Party has tainted that flag after less than a decade . But I guess the 100 years plus of the KKK carrying around the stars and strips hasn’t rubbed off on her yet. Some people have no perspective. 12 other forums had no problems with it. Humm.
Toward that end of providing perspective:
In the fall of 1775, then commander in Chief George Washington Appointed Esik Hopkins as secretary of the newly forms U.S. Navy. Their job was to harass and capture English shipping supply lines. The first Commander used the coiled snake Gadsden flag on the mast of his flagship under the stars and stripes. Colonel Christopher Gadsden from North Carolina was one of 7 members of the “Marine Committee”. He presented the first yellow Gadsden flag to Commodore Hopkins . The first marine flag folks.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Stars and Stripes Perspective
Floaty Clouds Fully Involved
I never know what to expect from a sunset. Each one takes on a life of it’s own. I am constantly receiving/interpreting cues from the environment about what appears to be happening. I only have a few minutes to decide where I want to set up for the show soon to arrive. There is a quickening of my pace around this time of the evening as the setting sun usually terminates the light
I’m fairly agile in my Ford F-150 Raptor and able to cover a lot of ground fairly quickly as it is more or less a Baja Capable photographic Studio. I’m able to get around on just about any terrain I don’t want to tear up. Ruining trails I am not so much into. We strictly stay off of muddy surfaces. I have well traveled two track trails leading to most high points. I only drive off trail on private ground I own as a matter of principle. Over 80 percent of my trucks current milage off road.
Never expected this iteration on an infinite series of themes. It’s one I don’t normally see with the “Floaty” clouds light up with the deck just above them dark and foreboding. The starred sun which is in and of it self, an artifact of the camera’s high f-stop setting (diffraction artifact). None the less, it adds geometry and order to the chaos of the clouds that evening.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands
Title: Floaty Clouds Fully Involved
C'est #VendrediLecture et je lis Le chat qui flairait l'embrouille de Lilian Jackson Braun 📘🍵 Et vous, c'est quoi votre #VendrediLecture ? #book #kindle #FridayReads #morning #tgif
Meadowlark Singing in the Grass
These little birds are difficult to get close to and never pose long for you to take your time setting your camera up. Now catching on at ground level is a tricky stunt to say the least. I won’t give away my secrets on this one but it’s a good story. You really can’t move much once it knows your there. These guys cue on movement and react usually with an escape maneuver. Once they sense danger, there is no stopping them.
Generally Meadowlarks are singing fools. If they aren’t actively hunting insects (slim picking this spring so far), they are yelling at the top of their lungs. I’ve pursued them for years. I’m pretty sure I’ve worn out a set of brake pads slowing down / stopping to try to capture their images. I have literally hundreds of attempts to photograph them where all I accomplished was to stop my forward momentum to the next photo location lolol.. Off they fly if you give them ANY reason to.
I will continue to hit the brakes when I sense their presence. Driving backroads often will give you long sections of fences to hunt meadowlarks. Having said that, places to perch are rare in the backcountry. Preferred locations with a view in mid prairie are well populated with these guys. Deep spring snows will place a premium on those perch locations. I find the morning after a good snow the best time to find them competing for places to alight.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Meadowlark Singing in the Grass
Bucks Enjoying the Sunset
I see a variety of scenes driving the backcountry.
These 2 Mule Deer Bucks caught in a late twilight Silhouette were up watching the sun go gown with me. They were ridge lined and I was able to maneuver way below them about 200 yards out and Click….
I know this these two pretty well as they are brothers born a year apart I’ve watched grow up. There is a 2.5 year old on the right, a 3.5 year old on the left and a 4.5 year old in the center. It’s all about the antlers lol. These boys They are pretty used to me being around but they are still quite wild. They don’t come down to greet me you might say but I can get pretty close if the conditions are right….. As long as I stay in my vehicle anyway.
Next year the bigger of the two will probably be a serious challenge for the other itinerate bucks that wander through. There is a whole little deer melodrama playing out pretty much all year but you really have to watch and pay attention to see it happening. These guys start small and work their way up the ladder to eventually run a small herd of gals.
Yes there is a little pac man on the right center side of frame reaching over the lip… Sort of a Kilroy was here cloud….
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands. (Wyotana)
Title: Bucks Enjoying the Sunset
Two Blackbirds on a Pole
It doesn’t show there but it was very windy at the moment. Both Black birds were hanging on to their perch. The lower bird more so than the bird on the stable top lol. The pole was swaying a little with the moving atmospheric river they were in 35 feet up. I’d estimate 25-30mph winds. They were inches away from high voltage but as long as they are not a path to ground survival is assured.
Attempting to catch detail on a black bird in shadow is not an intelligent thing for a photographer to go after but electrons are cheap these days. It’s the hard drive storage that is expensive lol. The situation just seemed rife for a portrait orientation capture. That insulator is an amazing piece of work. The “Juicers” do amazing things high up in the air in the worst weather. A hearty thank you to those that fight the wires.
The BlackBirds are around here to mooch off my barn yard feed. I had one hoovering over me a few yards as I was a little too close to it’s nest. They seem to like chicken and duck feed and are even getting used to my presence boldly staying on the ground as I walk through the group of yard birds to feed them. There always seems to be black birds around to pick up any loose pieces. Better them than mice lol. I’d rather them eat grasshoppers along with all the ducks/chickens. I’ve reduced feeding the flock by 1/2 during this infestation and have seen mobs of ducks roving around the homesteads yards and gardens. IT will be a good year for most birds here I’m thinking.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands
Title: Two Blackbirds on a Pole
Sunset Waves Across the Horizon
As I watch the sun descend across the sky moving to the right and downward as it travels. The light is so bright as to prevent the technology I am using from picking up any details in the landscape that I can recover. Too much dynamic range in this stage show. The scene was so bright, no human eye could bear it for more than a quick glance. The necessity to set the camera to expose the highlights properly can and does preclude catching any shadow details.
I was after the blue in the sky above the glare though. The Blazing orange alpenglow from the surface haze is only light that traveled long distances through the atmosphere. Only reds and yellows make it. But way up high in the sky, there is still blue light. That blue is unfettered by the atmosphere that high up. Because of the angle of the sun, that part of the sky is still in full colored daylight. That versus the red/yellow light that is being caught by my traps.
To have the sun drop into a perfect little valley for it to rest the night was also a consideration. To be in just the right place when this happens is a matter of planning and preparation. Knowing where cool terrain features are is just a matter of being there and working your area. I have a whole list of things I CAN do any particular day. It depends entirely on the light plus where it’s coming from. 📷
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Sunset Waves Across the Horizon
I’ve never had 4 Meadowlarks in one photo before. They are Gathering Ready to Migrate. Several hundred yards down a fence line, if I move closer, they will fly away .
This was taken Oct 1 with the first snow of the 19/20 winter here in the high plains of Wyotana. The Meadowlarks couldn’t find a place to land with 4 inches of wet heavy snow about and were VERY active and singing. Their songs were everywhere. I bet they are gone in a week.
Photogrpahers notes: The T-posts holding the wire are about 16 feet apart so this is a 60 foot section of fence in low light heavy overcast snowing at the time (look at the fence wood brace post). Tough to get it all in focus with that light. It was a choice between really grainy or something out of focus in the image. I went to freeze motion and deal with the focus later lol. This would make a really good square photo of just the two that are in focus. I wanted to show the gatherings were going on.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana.
blissphotographics.com/meadowlark-gathering-ready-to-migr...
Belt of Venus Street
It was an Icy Alpenglow Morning right at sunrise up yonder on the ridge tops. The main sunrise show over my right shoulder is usually yellow (ish) but this back show is Lavender/Pink/Orange. This back show is called the “Belt of Venus” which is often on going while your watching the sunrise. You miss this show if you don’t look behind once in a while … Several image from this particular morning timeline made it through the “sieve” I use to determine which photo to work on. Alpenglow is the result ice in the air lighting up with the bright first pink starting about 40 minutes before sunrise… and then gradients to other nearly pure primary colors to Lavender at times up high.
The red/pink will often work down on the tree top tips as the surviving red rays project off the ice on them. The hoar frost covering any exposed surface made for a winter wonderlands for a photographer with time before sunrise. Hoar Frost usually forms on objects disrupting air flow. The air full of moisture under freezing conditions. DIrect condensation of that vapor from supersaturated air is greater then 100%. T
he formation of hoar frost is similar to the formation of regular dew with the difference that the temperature of the object on which the hoar frost forms is well below 32 degree F., whereas this is not the case with dew. Hoar frost crystals often form initially on the tips of plants and or other objects. I’ve seen vehicles, fences, tires, plants and even other icicles with Hoar Frost on them. The largest I’ve seen had frost feathers/needles almost 2.5 inches long.
Location: Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
TItle: Belt of Venus Street
Sunset Behind Lone Tree
Five months ago I saw this scene up on the high ridges overlooking the Little Powder River Valley. The hard part about this kind of image is to get up that ridge without leaving your rig up there until spring. Some drift was likely to stop progress as much as the ice going up the steep two track roads. This tree is 400 feet higher than my homestead about a mile away. The paths there are determined by the drifts.
I thought the contrast of a beautful snowy sunset versus the hot humid dry summer would be therapeutic. At the time it seems like you want summer…just never happy are we 😜
Winter sunset around 4:30PM instead of the 9 (ish) PM sunset now in the summer as this posts. The 5 AM Summer sunrise comes all too soon for this photographer in the mid-summer when this posts. Summer has trouble competing with the amount of ice in the air to generate BIG sunsets like this. I have to admit that in my experience and personal choice, winter sunsets are better than summer🤔 👀 ❤️
Close / Far Perspectives as this where a telephoto is used to CRUSH the distance between the camera and the close object with the far object more or less uneffected by the magnification. . I’m a good 300 yards back from that foreground lone tree. I’ve said it before that with this kind of photography (close/far), high F-stop and distance from your foreground object is necessary.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Sunset Behind Lone Tree
C'est #VendrediLecture et je lis La perle et la coquille de Nadia Hashimi 📚 Et pour partir du bon pied ce matin : un smoothie yaourt, framboises, myrtilles et banane 🍌🌞 #vscocam #book #FridayReads #babelio #massecritique #smooth
Yucca Ridge Sunny Sunset
(Crimson Alpenglow Close far Perspective)
Working the shadow line of parallel ridges with telephoto lenses has it’s rewards. I find that it’s the simple compositions that carry the most interest as complex misleads the viewer. Detail yes, but the time and space moment should place you in that continuum in your mind. The human eye might be able to resolve this but only for the briefest of moments. The reflexive look away followed by the ghost of the bright scene on your retina. A quick though of eye damage, you blink and a minute later your vision is back. .
Yucca make for big speed bumps in the backcountry. Some of the clumps can get 2 feet high. In the winter they catch a snow drift behind the clumps big time. It looks like a sand dune field after a good snow and blow in the backcountry where Yucca is about.
I look at a lot of sunsets but seldom do I do much looking at the sun. Without the benefit of a mirrorless camera set up I’d be blind by now. I watch scenes like this develop live on video. The setting changes I make to the camera show up in real time as I spin the adjustment dials. With a mirrorless camera in my hands, I know what the image is going to look like before I click the shutter. Compare to a standard DSLR where you click and then see what you did on the back LCD. Just my 2 cents on that debate.
Location : Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Yucca Ridge Sunny Sunset
I certainly used a “cellulose” filter on this Sunslit Sunrise. Yup that tree is all cellulose and it filtered the light that made it through to my photon capture box. Hundreds of miles of atmostphere for light to travel through to make it into this twilight image before the sunrises above the horizon. This is a night sky technically.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
blissphotographics.com/sunslit-twilight-with-a-cellulose-...
Sunset ON the BigHorn Mountains : Boy was that bright 😎
There are two ridges here. The lowest darker ridge is the top of the “Red Hills” 40 miles distant. The second ridge is the Bighorn Mountain Chain 130 miles out. The clouds and snow storms were moving across the top of the peaks. With the sun here cutting into the cloud deck obscuring the high peak on the right. . The scene was very intense and bright with all the ice in the air acting like a projector screen. . The foreground trees are a few hundred yards out on this 1200 mm telephoto shot . Sunset ON the Bighorn Mountains
This is the second evening this fall that I’ve had “Sort” of a weather window. Seeing the Big Horns such a long ways away isn’t common. I remind you that this area of the sky is about the size of a postage stamp at arms length. All the while through a 3 foot long lens. Observing this scene change by the second as the clouds moved by quickly. I was moving between trees during this shooting. I wanted to see what the parallel ridge would present as far as opportunity to frame this scene. The sun is only setting over the Big Horn Mountains for a few more days this fall. I keep moving north while the sun moves to the south. This keeps the angle until it doesn’t lolol.
Photographers notes:
Sunset ON the Bighorn Mountains was sooo bright…. F57 was the final fstop setting at 1/2000th at ISO 100 were the settings. The high fstop (maximum for this Canon supertelephoto) accounts for the trees in the foreground being in focus at all. The trees on the first ridge are in focus too but the clouds and moisture is blurring the Big Horns at that great a distance.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Ice Blue Windmill Morning
What a beautiful morning this was. A little chilly on the drive back there.
Aermotor windmills account for the bulk of windmills out there. The company started way back in the 1888 with 24 sold the first year. Over 20000 of the beasties sold in 1892. The company still exists. They also sold a LOT of steel fire “look out towers” for fire watch and being a lightning target lololol.
Reconstructing past lives and events grabs your minds eye coming upon and old homestea. The comings and goings of old homesteads spark my imagination. There was a homestead about 1/4 mile from this location. They had their own hand dug well 35 feet deep and 4 feet wide about 200 feet from their house down in a deep gully.. I filled it in when I moved here. It was an “attractive nuisance”.
Most settlers had to use the water at their windmill. I suspect an outhouse long since gone somewhere nearby downward of the prevailing wind. This land has had cattle or sheep on it for 100 years and slightly more. That’s 5 generations of cowboys that stayed the night or the summer in this treeless pasture. Being the only source of water for several miles around, the cowboys drank here too.
This is very big country open back country. It’s remote and just plain challenging to get to in the winter. This is a steel windmill which is more expensive than building the wood towers was. Wells were positioned centered in the pasture. This made it accessible to the entire area. A lot depended on the ground water geology to make the shallow wells work long term. (luck mostly early on).
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Ice Blue Windmill Morning
Who is Looking by Frank Bliss
ART…. THIS IS ART. Well unless you take just the right or the left side by itself. Then it is just photography. Each is one photo next to itself flipped horizonally. Different people imagine different things with such a presentation. Your tendency to see anthropomorphic shapes in random data we are teaching to computers doing facial recognition.
Some sunsets are limited to a very little spot of the sky. To look deeply into them when no human eye could is a spiff of using good equipment. It requires one to pretty much turn off your camera to light
I see many images roll across my screen every day. Sometimes I get bored, or have an image I don’t know what to do with. This is the latter. The clouds were absolutely ROILING like a boiling pot live real time. I don’t do video. I’m not a videographer so I need to explain what I was seeing in this viewfinder.
When I look at a scene it can instantly transformed into a vision in my mind. In this case I saw a mask I was looking to. Some childhood memory of a Halloween costume no doubt. The best images bring back memories long forgotten. I find.
Mirroring scenes is a mental exercise I do pretty much with every sunset somewhere in any extended session. It’s just a check box for me to fill if I have the time. I always look for natural body parts in clouds so a set of eyes are welcome to the parts collection. 😜😜📷
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Who is Looking by Frank Bliss
Branch in Fawns Mouth
I had the high ground AND the sun at my back. I was almost invisible to the actors in this play. One was off frame left. Simultaneously to this capture, a Red Fox was walking through the grass maybe 50 feet away from this Deer fawn. I’m thinking the branch it had in it’s mouth was a peace offering. Perhaps it was a little extra camo to stay hidden. The Fawn was WAY more interested in the Fox than the Fox was of him. Having said that, I’ve never seen a deer fawn standing rock still with a branch in it’s jaws for a few minutes. He was carrying it around like a trophy. He never dropped it as long as I watched him.
I had just a very small window through vegetation to capture this. I watched this little guy for maybe a few minutes before his twin popped out for a second. Then both disappeared into the thicket to the right. The fox was no where to be seen by then. I was working back and forth between them photographing each but have no frame with both. I was working a long lens not a wide lens at the time and this happened very quickly.
So a bucket list item has been recorded. A Red Fox Kit nosing a spotted fawn deer in this light. Now that would be a photo eh? 📷
Location; Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Branch in Fawns Mouth
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These Pillars are built by Shadows in the Twilight Sky of some growing thunderstorms just in the right position. Those massive growing pillars are 1/2 storm and 1/2 shadow.
“Sneaky Pete” the Windmill makes a “photobombing” guest appearance when ever I’m in the area. I have no control over his actions..
This storm moved infront of the sunset and BOOM, the sky exploded in Crimson as the sun went below the horizon.
Location; Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
blissphotographics.com/pillars-built-by-shadows-in-the-tw...
Perspective Wounded Tree
Wide landscapes are one of my many photographic pursuits. Getting high up on a remote backcountry ridge, miles from the next closest human is usually a good photo. It’s hard to argue with hundreds of square miles of un-molested ground. When ever I travel back east, I have trouble finding 50 square feet of ground that hasn’t been effected by man’s machinations. Cleared ground is the rule here not the rare exception. The population density of this 128 square mile zip code is 124 voters last I heard. That’s one voter per square mile on average lololol.
I am standing in Montana for this image shooting across the border.. Wyoming Skies over Montana ground. This is many miles from the nearest ranch house. Not many have ever seen this view but myself, a few other ranchers maybe, and you. Ranchers don’t do a lot of sight seeing up in this country. If they do, it is a by product of course of looking for loner steers and cows out on the range. These are BIG pastures up here. Several square miles of pasture ground is not unusual to have a fence around.
Some nights out I drive for a few hours from place to place, roost to higher roost. Five miles travel as the bird flies can be 10 miles by land. There are no asphalt roads up here. Maintained gravel is the country road system, State roads are concrete and asphalt. The closest asphalt to this location is about 15 miles. Its’ a long way via two track roads to make it there. The country roads are a much faster way to travel. There are 10’s of thousands of miles on two track roads in backcountry Wyoming. Matched only by the number of miles of roads UNDERGROUND in all the deep
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Perspective Wounded Tree
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Flame and the Flower
The Prairie Crocus (Anemone patens) is not uncommon in the backcountry. I think this is a correct ID with this flower but I’m a terrible Flower Identifier. This one was closed up for the end of the day as the setting sun through a slit in the sky.
I find one can only photograph what is in front of him. I would take photos of plunging high water falls or some exotic Asian scene if I were younger and able to travel far. I’m fairly tied down here on ranch because I’m the repair man here. When in the middle of nowhere, you have to find beauty in what is at hand using the resources available. The one photographic attraction I have a LOT of, is high ground with a lot of living things that cover that landscape.
On this particular trip out into the backcountry I was hoping for a magnificent crown sky to fully involve the sky show in front of me but no. Alas all I got was a thin slit in the clouds mere minutes before the sun would slide below my line of sight to the horizon. My day working cameras into the light was about done. What to do, what to do???.
My mind screams “Close / Far” perspective!!!. What is available miles from the nearest building surrounded by prairie grass. I was moving but this last summer was wet with most things that could bloom, did bloom. This was early in the summer around early May. Our last frost is mid may and it was cool that night. The LED lightbar on the front of my Polaris ATV provided the illumination for the Crocus.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Flame and the Flower
Perspective Bark Lichen Sunrise
On the crest of this backcountry ridge, trees grow out of boulders. This hill top has a hard cap rock that has resisted erosion thusly protecting the rocks below. This is ALL Hell Creek Sandstone. This leaves these relatively harder boulders for me to enjoy but trees must penetrate them.
The Cretaceous rocks are 66 million years old and that lichen can be 100 years or more old. Only rocks that are undisturbed have big lichen patches. Cattle pressure/wear from rubbing will destroy it. There are big areas of this boulder strewn surface covered with Sunburst Liichen (Xanthoria sp.), sometimes called pincushion lichen. Bear in mind that there are hundreds of different species of Lichen that inhabit Wyoming. Differentiating them exactly is sort of a science all by itself. The cattle don’t like the footing on this hill top knob.
Lichenologists have to have work of some kind. Academia is the obvious job path. I suspect that there is a use for court testimony however the job prospects of a Lichenologist is about the same as a masters in biostratigraphy such as myself. Though interestingly, biostratigraphers do a lot of work with oil companies .. My general comment about Lichen nomenclature is that you need a bachelors of science in Biology (which I have) to look at the photos. The text about the lichen is a foreign language.😀😀.
I digress, Enjoying a sunset while walking around with several cameras in the remote backcountry is similar to a shooting gallery with a .22 but without the report. Lots of good stuff to shoot at. Just a click versus bang.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Perspective Bark Lichen Sunrise
Windmill Fairbanks-Morris Circa 1870 (I think)
There are actually several models/makers of this and similar vaneless windmill that this one could be. I’m not sure which it is positively…
Windmill technology had been around since 200 BC in China. By the 11th century when big mills in Europe. To grind grain and drain swamps were their main use. The technology brought into Europe by the Crusaders returning home. By the 1700’s the industrial revolution using water and eventually steam power reduced their use considerably. (Notable exception for the dutch). But in the Early 1800’s the new settlers to the Great Plains of America had a use for the wind engines. The Emigrants from Europe brought wind power with them. The western frontier provided a crucible. Upon which the technology constantly proved it’s merit. Pumping water was it’s task.
In the American West, settlers used wind to do work and conquer the land that otherwise would be marginal without a water source for stock. By the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, small wind generated water wells were ubiquitous across the country. Almost as numerous as the mills were the companies manufacturing them great and small.
As rural electrification proceeded the number of Windmill’s declined starting in the 1930’s. We used a windmill in a remote pasture until 2006. We ran a water pipeline from an electric well about 2 miles to it. There is also a solar powered well on our ranch.
Location: Northeastern Wyoming (Wyotana)
Title: Windmill Fairbanks-Morris Circa 1870
blissphotographics.com/windmill-fairbanks-morris-circa-1870/