Tag: HerringboneSky

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Herringbone Clouds Back Show

Herringbone Clouds Back Show
Herringbone Clouds Back Show

Herringbone Clouds Back Show

So I’m on a high Hill top, more or less on the local top of the world. There are a few higher points around but they are a good drive across open backcountry. Looking across the Wyoming / Montana border into Montana Sky with Wyoming Land under my feet. A VERY wide shot in excess of 90 degrees wide, this capture is about 1/4 of the sky in one image. This was a marvelous evening with very little smoke in the middle of a month + of worse smoke. We do get a day here and there of late without too much Pall. We have largely been spared from the worst of this. Having said that tonight as I type, the air is much worse than any night I remember. You couldn’t see see across this field late this after noon.

This is of course the backshow from this sunset. I have to constantly remind myself to look over my shoulder as the main show is often captivating. I have to say the lighting was only slightly red for a change this particular evening. I have been doing photography for a full month in overly red colorcast lighting so this seem pretty minimal. Considering the filtering effect of the smoke eliminating most of the blue from the light reaching the ground from the horizon. The sky overhead was blue because the light reaching there didn’t go through smoke. Blue only penetrates so far through the atmosphere before it’s filtered away. The smoke makes that happen much faster than your average evening in Wyotana.

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

Title: Herringbone Clouds Back Show

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Dock of the Lake

Dock of the Lake
Dock of the Lake

Dock of the Lake

With all dues to Otis Redding…

Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
I’ll be sittin’ when the evenin’ comes
Watchin’ the ships roll in
Then I watch ’em roll away againI’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Watchin’ the tide, roll away
I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

Looks like nothin’s gonna change
Everything seems to stay the same
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the sameI’m sittin’ here restin’ my bones
And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
This two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home
Now I’m just sittin’ on the dock of the bay

This capture is at the entrance to our dock on a small pond on ranch. IT’s a floating dock so the widely variable lake level is always a few inches below the top of the dock. I love my floating dock on this pond. If Im’ not hanging out there with cameras, the ducks often sit on it, leaving gifts for me to step in and collect eggs on occasionally. It was a little frosty this morning with the leaves in the foreground bearing evidence of the chill overnight.

The Herringbone skies were inviting to the photographer in me. The close / far perspective in the frame speaks volumes with the safety rope, the posts, the leaf litter, are all telling a story. Each story adds to the other to make up the book of this moment in space and time.

Title: Dock of the Lake

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Windmill Duck Sun and Sail

Windmill Duck Sun and Sail
Windmill Duck Sun and Sail

Windmill Duck Sun and Sail

So I see the wonderful veiled sky. I’m several miles in, well past an easy walk into the backcountry. (I drove my Jeep because this gear is heavy! ) This is “Re Pete” the 1930’s Aermotor Windmill. He is “Sneaky Petes” (the windmill) older/bigger Brother here on the ranch. Usually they are the photobombers working their way into my landscapes and sunsets. Here the ducks photobombed the famous photobomber him self. I have no control over any of this narrative OR the windmills for that fact. It takes on a life of it’s own😜😂

An interesting path that leads to this particular moment of space and time here forever frozen . That ridge line parallels a higher line to the east. This is VERY hilly country with big gullies separating flatter divides. Two track trails cross deep animal trails from a century of cattle walking. You don’t want to hit one of those at 20 with your jeep lol. As I say, my jeep is a short timer here now.

Incoming is a new Ford F-150 that should improve my ride quality (which is beating me up as I put 3500 miles last year on my ATV alone driving two track (bumpy) backcountry roads. I feel like I’ve worked in a mine all my life driving heavy equipment. I actually wore out a set of front brakes in 2 years on my Polaris Ranger. There are a LOT of slow downhill descents (anybody can fall downhill) on that Polaris. This business is not for sissies here in the backcountry.

Memories:

I’ve only dumped ONE camera and long lens out of a moving vehicle to date. It cost 1000 dollars to fix that camera back. I feel that was cheap. Particularly compared to buying a replacement camera. The lens undamaged. I was traveling about 15 mph at the time. Then watched the unit tumble end to end. It was very close to this spot lolol.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Windmill Duck Sun and Sail

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Big Sky Herringbone Sunset

Big Sky Herringbone Sunset
Big Sky Herringbone Sunset

Big Sky Herringbone Sunset

The stratified cloud layer was rippled and in a perfect position to be lit from underneath by the sun as it dropped below the layer. It was heavily occluded before it got into the open air under the clouds. Big Sky yes but there is Herringbone sunset sky of both Wyoming AND Montana sky in this wide angle capture. (Most of my images have both states in them in one way or another).

Herringbone Sky:

The Herringbone pattern is not that common in my experience. Everything has to line up just right to get this kid of patterning/highlighting of just the low parts of the cloud layer. As soon as the heat from the sun hit this layer, the extra heat pretty much evaporated the clouds. Soon the sky went mostly clear for the actual sunset roughly 15 minutes later.

This location is only about a mile off the gravel road which this time of year is iffy. What you can’t see in this is the 5 or 6 inches of snow we have on the ground now. It’s been dang close to zero for several nights now. This is very early winter weather in my experience living up here in the borderlands. We get the best of both states AND the worst at times. Sometimes that is weather and other times it’s weather. 🤔😀

I’ve been busting still small drifts but I won’t go much off the paths now as it is really really slick and if you get into a hole, your not going to get out. They become gravity wells and even my jeep with full time 4 wheel drive has issues getting out of those in the winter. Don’t drop a tire off the level for anything. Hopefully I will only have this Jeep another month or two as I do have a higher smoother riding replacement coming with a 2020 build date likely lol.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Big Sky Herringone Sunset

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Windmill Herringbone Sky

Windmill Herringbone Sky
Herringbone Sky and "Sneaky Pete" the Windmill

Windmill Herringbone Sky
My Landscapes are always being “photobombed” by “Sneaky Pete” the windmill. I have no control over his actions. 🤣
Windmill Weekend: 🤘 Windmill Junkies Unite!! Musings:

Musings

Nice sky that night. It disappeared (moved on quickly) before the sun got into the sunslit at the bottom of the cloud deck. It was still an interesting sunset. I love this kind of perspective using a VERY wide 12mm lens. This is a HUGE section of the sky with a wide 12 mm Zeiss lens just screaming perspective. I call the wedge of light at the horizon a “Sunslit” and as soon as the sun dropped below the cloud deck, most of it evaporated (literally lolol). The rest of that evening had just a bit of this going on. I found a few more applications for this sky (Compositions) up the hill on Ridge 1 where I get to interact with all the old growth trees up there.

Sneaky Pete is not an old windmill. He is about 20 years old. He pumps air for a small barnyard pond that we like to keep open for our ducks in the winter. The bubbles break open the surface under all but the coldest winters. It give the ducks a place to escape to. Their little pond has frozen over a few times and they walk up the hill and spend that time with the chickens because there is a small pool in their cage with running water there. The ducks number over 30, the pool is about 4 feet long by 32 feet wide and shaped like a kidney lolol. Sneaky Pete does a lot for the ducks….😄

5:50 AM as this posts. Enjoy the day and be safe in all you do.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Windmill Herringbone Sky

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Crystal Ball Back Country Sunset

Floating Crystal Ball Back Country Sunset with Magic Glass Sphere Halloween
Floating Sphere and a Lone Tree Sunset

Halloween Satire: Crystal Ball Back Country Sunset…… I found this _other Worldly Muli-Dimensional Portal (wormhole)” floating in the backcountry after the snows. I considered driving into it and popping up somewhere on the other side of the universe but decided to stick it out here instead. After all, I had images to finish in the camera and can’t miss tax time….😜 After all, during Halloween strange magical things happen up here in the remote backcountry of Montana/Wyoming. (both states in this image). (Nobody ever watch “StarGate SG-1 before lolol).

I’m amazed “Sneaky Pete” the Windmill didn’t try to get in on this but I think the 0 degree temps probably kept him from moving very fast. Fortunately the wind was fairly calm up on that high ridge. This was me driving places I’ve been a few times but most wouldn’t drive there in this kind of snow. I had to plow about a mile of two track road with my Skid Steer Loader to get close to this spot where I walked up the ridge to get this shot. I get to use the roads I build up on the ridges between blowy storms in this country. It takes several hours of pushing snow to get up here and once a week it shuts me down. By late to mid winter, I’m about done pushing snow. I get locked out of the backcountry and stuck on backcountry County Roads where I also get some amazing images…. more on that later this winter 😎

Actual photo short the support for the spherical optical quality lens ball removed in the digital Darkroom but don’t tell the kids that 🎃. So this is ART not a pure photo. I removed a small support under the sphere in Full Disclosure. This is VERY wide angle and a 2:1 aspect. 10mm lens.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

BlissPhotographics.com

Crystal Ball Back Country Sunset