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Posted on June 1, 2020May 23, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Perspective Snaggy Veiled Sun

I attempt to see the world from an entirely different perspective. From under here, there is a feeling somehow of security even though there is a ton of wood over your head being held up by rotten broken branches. What could go wrong there?😜

It’s a busy photo with all sorts of of things going on. Enjoy the looking. I ought to put a “where’s waldo” in some of these images lolol. It was a cool spring morning, still some snow in the hollows. Not long past as this was taken one month ago as this posts. “Summer is coming” and is slowly arriving here to the borderlands. Spring was on a Thursday this year it has been confirmed. ❄️

The sunset here was clear sky with a single cloud providing filter to the light. This kind of show almost always pushes me toward snags to work wide lenses….Grab that 12 – 24mm for sometimes like this. I have a 10mm wide angle full frame lens. I use it when ever I get a chance. It takes very wide perspectives.

Perspectives and clear skies seems to go together… Cloudy complex skies detract from the detail up close. I feel that detail is the point of the photo myself but your opinion may differ lol. RegardingFallen logs: “Snags” each has it’s own character and personality I find out. Some are masculine and rugged like this one. Others are more curvy and feminine with a grace that is hard to describe. Orientations change from tree to tree, opportunity emerges as I drive by on the ridge tops. I see the possibilities as I go though sometimes I get on a mission for a particular tree.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Perspective Snaggy Veiled Sun

Posted on March 30, 2020March 23, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Snaggy Backshow Golden Hour

I can count the number of Blue Sky Background images I produce a month on both hands. I have been finishing 150 -180 images a month for the last 7 months. I’ve got 1300 pages finished on my future book (s) project. My tendency is to have a definite preference away from the longer colors of the spectrum. Robin’s Egg Skies are ubiquitous up here at certain times of the year. This visual tunnel with the anastomosing feminine form of the snag caught my attention driving along that late evening. The shadows were very long in the late golden hour low angle light. The Fallen snag in the foreground frames the bottom, the surrounding pine boughs frame the sides.

Telescopic perspectives are always worthy of the attempt. This is a 600 mm 28 inch long lens with me standing down this hill hundreds of yards. These long shots are deceptive in how they treat relative distances. That plus the lighting on this scene drew me to stop my rig and set up to take this cornucopia of textures and contrasts.

Taken late fall 2019, it’s just making it’s way into my workflow. I have the job security of 3800 portfolio images left to finalize lolol. Finishing more than 5 a day is hard work. These days are warming so that might have to go to 4 a day over the summer. I get distracted by fossils and ranch chores during the warmer days. I’ve finished 1300 since Sept 21, 2019. It’s be easy if I also weren’t finishing new material as I take it lololol. 😜📸

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands, (Wyotana)

Title: Snaggy Backshow Golden Hour

Posted on November 9, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Seen: An Antler Bush

At distance, I was confused knowing the ground I was on quite well. I literally saw an out of place bush in a place it didn’t belong. Caught my attention it did. I only have one good eye. The one good eye I have isn’t great so I thought I was seeing things lol. A somewhat closer trip over to the two bedded and resting 3.5 and 2.5 year old boys seemed prudent. Eventually it made perfect photographic sense … Glasses get in my way with cameras. Usually safety glasses for open ATV’s are bad enough but necessary.

These two have seen me before hundreds of times. I’ve never pressured them by getting out of my vehicles. (That they could see)…I’ve taken some shots under and around my rigs before with the deer a stone throw on the other side. They are used to my smell and noise by now lolol. I have literally been able to drive among the wild deer out on the grasslands numerous times before.

I have accumulated many many good facial images of various deer doing natural behaviors. I’ve never pushed deer unless they were inside our deer resistant electric fenced in yard around our homestead. It’s a big fence lol. We had a couple of deer walk through an open gate today . They went out the same way they came in as we quickly knew they were there. They didn’t like my running about on a 4 wheeler looking like a threat. We don’t have our gates open too much but were expecting someone. Quick as we think they smell the few dozen apples that are under the snow now fermenting rich in sugars.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Seen: An Antler Bush

Posted on November 7, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Pronghorn Buck Under Barbed Wire

Game Trail Camera capture: Pronghorn Buck Under Barbed Wire

I love Pronghorns color in this light. The color of their hide is very close here to the real color they sport mid day. Maybe just a TAD dark but very close. This instead of the “Golden Hour” color of much darker brown. I see a host of images of these guys much darker than I’ve ever seen them in the wild. Title: “Pronghorn Buck Under Barbed Wire”

Running under a barbed wire is risky but moving about 20 mph as he’s doing it…. wow. These guys move through those gaps with hardly loosing any speed. I’ve seen a dozen Pronghorn moving under barbed wire in a few seconds. They don’t mess around when they feel like it’s “time to go”. I suspect someone sounds a subtle alarm and they are “outta here”. Fastest land animal in North America, they have their share of scratches along their back too. I sometimes have image after image like this on a camera as the herds move through. The automatic cameras react to the movement and capture the action.

I’ve seen Pronghorn go OVER fences before but it’s not a common occurrence. Some fen

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana

Posted on November 5, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Snow Dumping on Pronghorn Buck

Snow Dumping on a Pronghorn Buck (or “Winter is coming” )

Winter has been here for a months already and we’re seeing snow on the ground full time now for a week anyway. This Pronghorn Buck is crossing in front of a Game trail Camera while Snow is just Dumping on him lol. Based on the timeline of images, he was following a doe through the gate walking right along the trail. I set my camera up to be focused right on the trail. This particular camera is in a very good spot ! 📸

Pronghorn Migration South

The Pronghorn are migrating now and I’m seeing groups I have never seen on ranch. Moving through here toward the south from up in Montana. They are following ancient migration routes that the cowboys used to move cattle in the late 1800’s from Miles City Montana down to Newcastle Wyoming. The local version of the “Texas Trail” runs right through the western side of our ranch. Fences are little obstacle to these animals which play the “limbo game” effortlessly. They usually do go under but I do have a few photos of Pronghorn going over fences.

I figure most of those animals that lived on ranch all summer are mostly 10 -20 miles south. They are working their way to the ThunderBasin National Grasslands where they have moving water (not frozen) and good feed. There are only a few roads through a pretty big piece of remote real estate between the Powder River Basin and the Wyoming Black Hills. Many Hundreds of square miles for herds to congregate in. Many ranchers maintain water stock tanks during the winter. This helps more on the margins but water is a rare thing up here when it’s been 30 below for a week.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Snow Dumping on Pronghorn Buck (or “Winter is coming” )

Posted on October 29, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Blue Tongue and EyeBrow Horns

This Pronghorn Doe with the Blue Tongue and EyeBrow Horns is in Heat and Every Male in the Group of about 30 others she is with knows it all too well. The rut was in full “swing” (as it were) and the boys never gave her much rest. This is what they call an out of breath Pronghorn which is not something you usually see. She is panting hard, Blue tongue to the wind. She had run miles in a circle over the last 30 minutes I had them under my auspices.

I particularly like her eyebrow horns. Sort of a built in sun shade and permanent block to vision I would think . At any rate, the gal got all the guys attention she wanted.

Now she could have run away from the group and out of the range of the guys but noooooooo. She kept coming back just to get run around again and again. Play hard to get AND playing hard lolol.

The whole group were putting on quite a show for me that golden light colorcasted morning just after the sunrise. That light always makes them look darker than they are during the overhead sunny day where they go light tan.

Photographers notes: Remember that I try really hard to be a photorealist that leaves natural color casts in photographs. As such, I like Pronghorn lighter tan than this scene portrays them as but this was the actual scene.when I took the photo in my memory. I typically end up reducing colorcasts in twilight or early golden hour within the world of the the digital darkroom in which I live in these days. . This is something I do WAY more than “enhance” colors which really doesn’t work with the way I expose photos. I seldom have to do anything to highlight colors. It’s the shadows I really work with. Always expose your highlights properly and bring out the shadows in some good editing program (Lightroom/Photoshop). Overexposed highlights are destroyed and detail within cannot be recovered.

. Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Blue Tongue and EyeBrow Horns