highplains Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on June 28, 2020June 27, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Deer Hotel Vacancy

There are deer beds all around this and the nearby trees. This hill is blessed with a good 360 view around it. The deer almost always pick a spot where they can see some area. The grass is crushed down around the shelter. It’s an improvised windbreak and rain shelter. As they say, ANY shelter in a storm.

Trees growing out of boulders, breaking those into smaller pieces are always instructive. How a living thing can exert enough force to split stone? Admittedly freezing and thawing of water is certainly partially responsible for this. I suspect the initial crack the trees allowed the progenitors seed to settle. It germinated of course. The crack began by freezing water. That tiny little seed sprouted and continued the hundred year long process breaking rocks into smaller ones.

Boulders populate the hill top around the trees. The hill top itself owes it’s existence to the resistance to erosion by those same chunky sandstone boulders. Being harder than the sandy rock that used to surround them, they now protect the sand under them from washing away. Mostly the entire hill is here because it was more resistant to erosion than the rocks that once filled the surrounding valleys. Geology is full of absolutes like this. One conclusion has to lead to the other. Sand from the Cretaceous Dinosaur fossil bearing bedrock forms the soil horizons here. The Rivers that carried the sands sorted the clasts very effectively into a mostly uniform 3 dimensional fabrics of lens shaped sandstone/siltstone/mudstone beds in a 700 foot thick formation called the “Hell Creek/Lance”. I’m t standing on that formation at the moment. There are dinosaur fossils under my feet. 👀 ⚒ .

I’m loving the lighting and contrasts here. Full Screen is a must.

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

Title: Deer Hotel Vacancy

Posted on January 12, 2020January 6, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sunset Over the BigHorns

Crimson Twilight show this sunset was spectacular. A full sized screen is a nice thing to bring this too. The Section of the BigHorn Mountain from this location is 140 miles distant and is near Buffalo Wyoming. I’m standing across the border in Montana.

I’m almost always using telephotos to bring in just the BigHorn Mountains filing the whole frame. It takes about a 1200 mm long focal length to have a sun that large. on a range so far away. I have many captures from this night worthy of finishing.

This kind of sky show changes by the minute. Looking tightly into the setting sun is dramatically bright but the shadows add up and it’s actually pretty dark where I stand. The Camera shows me the scene on a video screen so I’m not going blind from this.

Exposure time is so important in getting the colors right. I see the actual image my camera is going to save BEFORE I click the shutter. So I can actually check the color of the sky in front of me and the camera Once you realize a high f-stop and low ISO are necessary to take this kind of image, shutter speed becomes your variable to match the colors in your viewfinder to the actual scene. (applies to mirrorless camera users not you DSLR guys). DSLR’s need not try this with a really long lens. That sizzle sound is your eye ball cooking …..

The lower shadow of a mountain chain in Silhouette to the right is part of the Red Hills at 40 miles out from the camera. That range is an erosional remnant of the sediment apron the BigHorn Mountains spread out this direction. There are no sediments from the Big Horn mountains “Fanglomerate” (google word of the day) that reach my ranch. It’s likely that those that did have been removed from above by erosion. Those distant mountains used to be a lot higher. Plus Powder River Basin between here and there was a lot deeper. Amazing geology of a very large scale up here.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Sunset Over the BigHorns

Posted on October 28, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Every Color Sunset over the Big Horn Mountains

There is literally every color of the rainbow in this image lol. The wedge at the middle of the horizon is the silhouette of the Big Horn Mountains where the sun is setting directly behind. There are only a few weeks a year I can take these but historically the weather window has been closed for most of the time. I consider these hard to get with the sun directly over the peaks 130 miles away. I have to move many miles north now to keep getting this chance as the sun moves rapidly down the range more progressively each sunset in the years timeline.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 27, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Moon Light Scattered on Clouds (Night Time Lapse)

Here is a Time Exposure (8 seconds) of the full Harvest moon lighting up the cloud deck. Moon Light Scattered on Clouds even had stars peaking through the breaks in the cloud the brightest of which is Jupiter still low in the sky.

“Sneaky Pete” the windmill is in this but couldn’t get past our deer resistant fence to photobomb me any closer. From my back yard literally inside our homestead’s compounds.
The light on the ground is ambient light from inside aforementioned compound.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 25, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

One Sharp Tailed Grouse’s Flight Path

This is the modern version of a multiple exposure showing the escape and evasion flight path of ONE Sharp Tailed Grouse.

The plump prairie bird was watching me, very alert…. As I SLOWLY approached, he eventually had his personal “Line in the Sand” crossed thus began the rapid fire camera snapping him at 10 frames a second, me adjusting focus manually as I find that anything auto on a camera will usually mess me up more than not so I’m done with them…. Have been for years now📸

A tad bit of work was necessary in the digital darkroom to “edit” this series of 7 images into one. The question is, which bird image actually belongs to the grass (hint, it’s not the bird IN the grass lolol. He was there, but in a different image and I put him into that grass….. there are 7 different images of this same bird in his E+E flight.

Location: miles into the backcountry of the Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Posted on October 25, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Pronghorn Doe Nursing Twins and Still Has an Eye on Me

Here’s is a Pronghorn Doe keeping an eye on me while nursing her twin fawns. This is from about a month ago and those fawns are 4 months old. Still reliant on their mother through the winter they are about to migrate about 20 miles south of here as their Rut ends (a week ago as this posts). The snow moves in and they move south quickly towards the “Thunderbasin National Grasslands.

Herds of hundreds of Pronghorn gather there for the relatively mild winter there and good feed and some moving water plus ranchers often keep their stock tanks open for them in the area. I keep 4-10 foot diameter water tanks open on my ranch all winter for the wildlife and who ever else might need it at 20 below zero..(up coming months for sure).

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 19, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Perspective #10 “Brace Yourself for Sunrise”

Perspective #10, “Brace Yourself for Sunrise”. I took this just a few days ago as it posts. The mornings have been much better than the evenings of late and I’m not sure why (random). I’ve gone out 3 times in a row in the AM with good results. Sunsets have been glare filled golden scenes of late. I usually figure the Morning should be similar to the night before on a general principle. Of course weather systems move through and intermittent clouds mess me up all the time.

The “should I work the light or not?” is always the question in the morning. IT’s much easier in the later afternoon to figure out what the sky is going to do. Decisions decisions…

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.