composition Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on June 19, 2020June 12, 2020 by Frank Bliss

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

Posted on April 2, 2020March 27, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Golden Locust Purple Flax

Golden Locust Purple Flax. ( From last spring about 45 days from when this posts. )

Boy I am really tired of Mud and Brown Season. Typically we will have had several spring snows after the mid-winter cold subsides. The wet spring storms usually move through. I’m not seeing those just yet. I’d like to see 4 inches each from weekly 31 degree storms from not until early May. A foot or more of snow would really help the apparent snow drought we are currently in. All the snow has melted.

The grass is still brown and matted from the snow cover. As I’m looking through images to finish, I run across this lovely image of some Lavender Flaw poppiing up through a low branch of Golden Locust tree. The locust is naturalized into the back yard gardens. It lives protected in the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch Homestead’s Compound. This area is fenced in with electric wire. That tends to keep the deer out. It’s not a deer “Proof” zone but it is deer resistant.

Such deer “proofing” work enables scenes like this otherwise, they destroy ornamentals mostly. We have in the past lost thousands of dollars or plantings to deer that were persistent to penetrate the 6 foot fence and 16 foot wide cattle gates we have. I had to go to 8 feet high and keep gates closed at night to keep them out lolol. Everybody needs some Purple in their life once a week ……

Location: The Homestead: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, (In the Windbreak) Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Golden Locust Purple Flax

Posted on December 19, 2019December 13, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Perspective BackCountry Pi

If you have ever taken a math class or √100 classes, you might recognize π if you see it. I’m always on the look out for natural letters for my “alphabet” collection. I never expected to find Pi in the backcountry.

SOoooo, I really liked the view this old fallen soldier this mathamatical snag. A high vantage overlooking this remote borderlands backcountry scene . Fallen wood lasts a long time here in the semi-arid 14 inch per year precipitation environmnet. We have MANY snags left over from the big fire in the 1930’s that “burned till the snows came”. 90 year old snags usually don’t have their branches in piles so I’m guessing 50 years or less. Being on a steep slope has protected the branches from as many cattle from rubbing against them to scratch. The sun had barely risen with direct sun light JUST starting to touch parts of the high ridge I’m on. Click. Close/Far perspectives in the backcountry… be still my heart, a few visual tunnels here. 📷

I walk backcountry ridges routinely for significant distances. Exactly how far depends entirely on how much gear I’m carrying. Some of my camera lens combinations that I would walk around with weigh up to 8 pounds. If I’m walking a long distance I carry a pack of gear and a chest rig of cameras weighting 20 or more pounds depending on what I’m doing. THe trick of course is not to fall down a hill or into a cactus patch while looking through a long lens and moving. More than one photographer backed up “Just a little more” a bit too far lolol.😜

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana

Title: Perspective BackCountry Pi

Posted on December 3, 2019December 3, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Spring Time for a Wagon’s Autumn

The closest “General Store” to this old buck board wagon was 15 miles. I wonder how many times this wagon was used to drive back and forth across the backcountry all the way to Biddle Montana or to Rocky POint Wyoming. They were about equidistant from our ranch headquarters.

A drive to supplies from here in a modern Car at 60 mph car is about 20 minutes. to drive the 15 miles to Biddle Montana. There has been a “General Store” there since the first settlers moved in. There were dozens and dozens of smaller ranches settled in the early 1900’s. When little chunks of land were available for settling.

Wagons like this were the main way that good made their way from civilization to the backcountry. A couple of good carriage horses should be able to convey a carriage 20-30 miles in an 8 hour day.. Carriage horses trotted but horse pulling loaded couldn’t travel as far. Trotting wasn’t an option with a heavy load of flour, beans and oils. Don’t forget cattle supplies and machine parts for fixing broken farm equipment. This wagon made many day long round trips from dawn to dusk. Probably 12-15 hours. Rough on the team plus rough under the Wyoming/Montana (Wyotana) weather.

Weather up here is dangerously changeable. I’ve seen it drop 40 degrees in 24 hours. Dust storms, wind storms and worse lightning storms. (a place called “Lightning Flats” is 20 miles east of here lolol) You and your cargo is at the mercy of the elements. I’m trying to image getting a winters supplies of food (months anyway) in this wagon.

Heck, the supplies themselves where hauled to the general store from the rail head by horse and wagon. Early trucks certainly started up hauling that 50 miles as the technology because affordable and available. The roads then were not concrete stretching across the country. Those roads were rutted 2 track roads. Most of which were originally game trails following the easiest path.

This place is a living museum. I’m always finding old technology discarded here. Old plows, discs and a long list of old grass machines found in the “bone yards”

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Spring Time for a Wagon’s Autumn