MondaySunDay Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on October 13, 2020October 1, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Smokey Sunset Through Cottonwoods

This one almost slipped through my fingers. I had it finished about 3 weeks ago and had positioned it for publishing. It fell through the cracks. Yup, we’ve had smoke for roughly the last month. So if you think I’ve published a LOT of smokey scenes lately you are correct. The color making it through the Pall is unparalleled in my experience. Every terminator crossing of late has been smoked to various degrees. This year certainly has had some highlights.

The fence line on the right is the Wyoming/Montana border. Exactly 1/2 way between the North Pole and the Equator at 45 degrees north latitude. Both states are in the photos. I’m often in one state or the other taking captures across that imaginary line. We are actually only a hundred miles from the exact geographic center of North America just over in South Dakota. It’s fairly hard to get further from fresh ocean seafood. It’s the one thing I miss living up here. The Red Lobster in Rapid City is a supply chain miracle lolol.

I am standing right under the Blue Herons nesting/rookery here on ranch. The line of Cottonwoods on the dam here provide them a high mostly covered nesting site. It was a tough year weather wise on them with a wind storm blowing down several nests. Then the big hail storm….. Then another wind storm….. I suspect they will be back.

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

Title: Smokey Sunset Through Cottonwoods

Posted on August 31, 2020August 25, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Smokey Brown Sunset Perspective

First of all, this is the SUN, not the MOON. (Weird eh? ) Zooming in on Terrestrial objects in front of Celestial objects is often wrought with technical issues. Damn the torpedos, it’s the composition I was after of course. Dark Scene…..

The sun always moves to the right the same time it’s being covered by the horizon. That shift right has not much to do with the suns motion. After all the sun doesn’t actually set. The earth spins so the horizon is actually rising to cover out window to the furnace. The movement precludes LONG time exposures to get the landscape.

This is an odd perspective produced from me as the tree was really too close, the ridge still too close. Fortunately the sun is mid-field that is perfectly in focus. It is after all the point (huge) of interest here lol. The rest of the image is just a place holder for the odd scene’s relative position. It gives the viewer a frame of reference.

Sure is a deep brown sky though. It is essentially acting as a N50 neutral density filter lol. This was actually VERY LOW light as in camera shake and the leaves rustling in the breeze were a thing. When the sun is a little more bright than a candle at 100 yards, it’s like taking a photo of the moon literally. In fact the sun here was darker by a significant factor than the setting moon.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands

Title: Smokey Brown Sunset Perspective

Posted on August 31, 2020August 24, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Best Cathedral Sky Ever

I get a few “Cathedral” Skies every year. This happened a week before this is published. Assuming you haven’t just returned from two weeks of Spelunking deep under a rock somewhere, we are living under a Pall of Smoke from western fires. Most of the west is enjoying unhealthy air qualities, and high temperatures. Low humidities, dry lightning strikes and a drought year long term continue to press the US.

This was not a short sky show either. 1/2 an hour… forever for me. I went into a how often do I see such a thing and started really accumulating clicks at a serious pace. The image changed by the minute with the rays changing / morphing as the clouds moved. The “Crepuscular” rays slicing through the heavy smoke above highlighting it with white unfiltered light above. Red Light traveling through miles of atmosphere making a shaft spreading below the sun.

Taken with one of my widest lenses. A 12 mm full frame Sony G series. The resultant image is well over 90 degrees wide and very tall. This is a major contender for the Largest Crepuscular display I’ve personally ever seen in my travels. It was a very unusual meteorlogic situation. Certainly an irreproducible set of circumstances. I’ll never get another chance like this in my lifetime I suspect. I took several hundred images on several cameras. There are many variations on this theme. Some are amazing like this one.

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

Title: Best Cathedral Sky Ever

Posted on August 24, 2020August 16, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sunset Frames of Branches

Funny how just about every little branch is pointing toward the sun. When I compose inside of the camera, I’m actively looking for the symmetry that is all around us, but not so obvious. I find looking is way different that seeing what is actually going on within the infinite angles we can imagine. Moving your head a few inches either way and the 8 or 9 leading lines to the sun focal point. Actually I’m all about that clump of needles on the lower left lol. My favorite way to do this is driving parallel to a treed ridge with a really long telephoto with high fstop. Way back from the trees. Distance is your friend. Look for the natural frames. I have some wonderful images doing that very thing.

I blurred the background on this one for a change. Just a little bit of distance perception and I’m playing for the next time I’m near this spot. With (at least mine) mirrorless cameras, you can see what is in focus and what isn’t. The parts of the image in focus are highlighted digitally so I can actually see where the lines of high contrast are and aren’t. I would never buy another DSLR camera. I’m horribly hooked on Mirrorless technology at this point.

Musings on Smokey Summers:

Some of this summer’s evenings are taking a markedly red tint versus the so common golden evenings. I’m blaming the particulates in the air from the numerous forest fires up wind of our position. Just pick your wind direction for the smokes sources unfortunately. The 2018 fire season was a particularly bad one. Really seriously deeply filtered crimson sunsets were common. Right now we are starting to get more filtered light only in the longer wavelengths. The color dominates by the other colors total absence being absorbed by the atmosphere. I hope 2020 is nothing like 2018 forest fire wise.

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

Title: Sunset Frames of Branches

Posted on August 10, 2020August 8, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sunset View through the Pines

I figure as a landscape artist, I better capture one now and then. Even better present it here for your consideration. Thank you for your time this early morning. Enjoy the coffee

Have you ever taken a photo of just that certain “Golden Hour” light only to have it turn out perfect? Me neither lolol. Fortunately I have some basic knowledge of the digital dark room to get it pretty close to how I remember the moment. This image is very close to the original scene. Being a photorealist with OCD has its high AND low points lolol. The hardest part for me is getting the sage brush the right color. It has an unusual bluish hue that is definitely a unique shade.

The Sun here I intentionally composed into the Pine Tree to help filter out some of the unwanted light. Too hard to get this accurate color wash with such a bright light to compensate for. This let me focus more on the wonderful light that was illuminating the brown grass tops. There were many colors of green in the real scene that are all represented here. The Robins Egg Sky true to the moment. The white clouds at top frame still bathed in the white light of the sun unfettered by very much atmosphere up so high. The sun setting color gradient not as obvious unless you understand how and why these various colors are reflected to my lens.

From early June 2020 when it was still a little green…

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

Title: Sunset View through the Pines

Posted on July 20, 2020July 14, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sage and Sunset

The sage was thick to walk through. I always check for tick before I even get back in my ride. Walking the high ridge lines with camera gear during warmer summer months is problematic that way. I pull one or two off almost every time I walk around. Now if ticks attached to grasshoppers, I’d be good with them. I had one ALMOST get attached next to my watch band on the back of my wrist. Shivers…. ugg.

Photographic Musings:

First of all let me say that Sage brush is VERY hard to get to be the right color. Talks about fine adjustments in the digital darkroom. That slightly bluish green is unique to sage and is a challenge for everyone to get right. Particularly in high dynamic range images as this. Shadow Detail looking into light….

So anyway, the golden sky this time of year is the rule rather than the exception. The sun is slowly setting and rising a little bit more south on the horizon each day. The wheel, it keeps on turning.

The sun is already setting to the left of the peaks on the far ridge. (the Red Hills) Soon I’ll be chasing images of the sun setting behind the Big Horn Mountains. Those mountains are left of the sun in this image. Soon…. Remember they are 130 miles distant and with this wide shot. The distance makes the 13000 foot tall peaks hardly discernible at this focal length. This capture taken with a 90 degree wide lens which is right about what most people see normally. That’s about 22 mm focal length for a 90 degree Field of View (POV).

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

Title: Sage and Sunset

Posted on July 6, 2020June 29, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Lone Tree Ridge Sunset

Getting into position on parallel ridges is certainly a challenge early in the morning. In the evening as this, it’s relatively easy to get there. It’s finding your way back that is the challenge. Role reversal almost across the board. As soon as the sun sets behind that ridge, the whole valley I have to travel into is into dusk and darker environments. Reversing the order of events between a sunset and a sunrise seems to be a universal constant with a few contrarian natural occurrences about.

Sunrise/Sunset. (classical reference intended). For one we rise, the other we set to bed . In a similar vein, it’s hard to get there in the morning and hard to get back at night. “En revanche mon ami”. Unlike humans, the horizon rises at night. However, if you look, in the morning the horizon drops downward in the morning. The Full Moon sets in the morning and rises at night. A lot of events seem to happen right at those two times. It must be a coincidence, or perhaps an ancient biological dependance on the cycle. Just a few more gears driving the wheel of life.

The coming of the light and the departure. It is the appreciation of the process that adds so much to the overall experience I enjoy with this work. I use the term “Terminator Crossing” to describe both sunrise and sunset in one word. If you have never heard of “Terminator” except in connection with “the future is not set” and Arnold, time to google Terminator. You see the Terminator on the moon all the time.

Have a great and safe evening…

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

Title: Lone Tree Ridge Sunset

Posted on July 6, 2020June 29, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Star Bursts and Wheel Spokes

Good Monday Morning to you all from the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch. I awoke today to pea soup thick fog blanketing the area which of course was dewey spider web hunting time. Did that a while this AM. I’ll take moisture any way I can get it. We might be getting some rain over the next few days if we are lucky (this was written June 29th). This week we are actively working on our fire truck so my posts this week are between tasks.

To this image. I am always trying to have a couple of “hero’s” in an image. A sunset by itself is beautiful in it’s simplicity. A starburst in it’s own radial existence is the wheel (hero 1). Then there is the lens pinhole artifactual starburst (hero 2). In my experience, the most complex sunsets are more eye appealing generally speaking. In and by themselves.. Add some depth though…. I see many opportunities in any one scene. Certainly this Antique Deering Seeder long ago abandoned became a favorite foreground object of mine to work with these big Wyotana sunsets. It has had a view to die for decades on this remote ridge. I love Close/Far perspectives and setting them up👀 📷

Photographic Musings:

This might be straight forward with an infinite focus cell phone. Hard for me to say as I don’t use them as cameras much Not so easy with a manual mode DSLR or Mirrorless Camera. The camera made the star around the sun. The High F-stop setting (as high as the camera would go) led to that. It’s an artifact produced by the optics and a regular “star” of my close far perspectives. Remember that F-stop is a double edged sword. You turn it up, you get really a thick layer of focal sharpness from close to far. Plus a sun star…But you loose a LOT of light turning UP the F-stop. You have to compensate for that with the other two settings (shutter speed and ISO/camera sensitivity). Focusing this close is knowing where to set your camera.

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

Title: Star Bursts and Wheel Spokes

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

Ephemeral Reflections Backcountry Pond

Every capture I post is my memory of a moment in space time that will remain in our digital universe. Anything posted on the internet will probably survive us all. Digital memory is forever assuming a massive solar EMP doesn’t throw us back to the 1880’s. In a sense this image and most of my work is preserved as long as the internet remains a viable domain. Eventually Artificial Intelligence will know everything all of us have ever posted on the internet. Kind o scary huh? AI combined with the development pressure of Covid -19 will make it happen very fast too.

So I had myself a mirrored pond on a rare becalmed evening up here. This spot is exactly on the Montana/ Wyoming border. 45 degrees North Latitude is precisely 1/2 way between the Equator and the North Pole.🤔👀📷 (There are new people reading this lolol).

I made this an action shot. Driving my F-150 Raptor into the pond generated a large train of ripples slowly expanding outwards from the disturbance. The resultant ripple crests were a perfect mirror train to repeat the suns ever expanding reflections as they approach the lens.

These high land ponds are ephermeral, drying with the onset of summer. The sandstone rocks under them soaking up the water slowly replenishing the local “water table”. Water is still in this pond as this posts.

About this photo:

The Dynamic Range in this photo is incredible. I’m using a Sony Alpha 7R4 which has 15 stops dynamic range. I’d like to have a few more of these cameras lol. The dark lower part of this picture has very few artifacts from the WIDE range from straight into the sun to almost pure black but you can see the details in both ends of the lights dynamism.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Ephemeral Reflections Backcountry Pond

Posted on May 25, 2020May 17, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sun Slit Islands of Light

A little Science this PM..

This silhouette “halfie” (almost) caught my attention for the extreme stepped gradient around the sun. I call these bow waves and don’t see them live real time very often. They are in reality natural diffraction artifacts from the thin slit in the clouds that the sun light is passing through. Ripples…. When light (or electromagnetic waves) passes through a thin slit shaped window, lightwaves ripple like water. The Physics of this moment should not be discounted. The slit was very thin, precisely what one needs for this natures “experiment”. The mind of the guy that figured this stuff out (Huygen) was right up there with the best. “Huygen diffraction” would be a good google search for you for continuing education on this. Constructive/Distructive interference of waves is the discussion which is lengthly. I’d never get it past my grammer checker (Nazi SS training in that program trying to explain all that) lololol.

So the bow wave here is literally Ripples around the Island of Light that the Sun’s Disk represents in this metaphor. Capturing ripples of light that are natural is hard and fairly rare. Note: I could do this in the digital darkroom very easily but this one is the real thing. Not a digital color shadow radius artifact. The whole discussion lies about the cloud “slit” which is the initiator of the diffraction process that provides this variable gradient around the sun. If you have a gradient like this with a complete sun, it’s the result of an artifact within the digital dark room treatment the artist (at that point) is using on his previously raw photo. (unedited photo=raw photo out of the camera). This capture is entirely unedited or I would have had landscape detail down in that black negative space.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana

Title: Sun Slit Islands of Light

Posted on May 18, 2020May 11, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sunrise Through a Snow Squall

I captured this in my photon traps RIGHT at sunrise May 11th, 5:36AM. Pre-Civil Twilight each morning I evaluate as to whether to take a box of cameras out into the backcountry. I take many sources of information into consideration. Sky above was over cast solid, it was deeply dark. You understand I can’t see the eastern horizon from my house due to a 400 foot tall ridge that way. Plus it was TOTALLY overcast and lightly snowing around 5:15 am. That’s pretty much a no go signal.

Fortunately, I have a camera sitting up high on the ridge with an east view. This is a good thing sometimes. I don’t get color in it during early twilight but I can see the horizon. The sun slit of light with a cloud deck above was enticing. Up to the top… There were many good captures from this timeline. All those back at the homestead had any idea the morning was beautiful over the east ridge.

I have to be timely to get a high enough position to line up another hill top over a mile away with a ridge behind over 6 miles out. The rising sun behind. This is just a thin slit of color on the horizon. A huge long lens looking through a snow squall filter made for a nifty morning. I am able to do this alignment two times a year from this location. Strongly controlled by topography, my angles for photography are. I’m slowly building a good map in my head where to be and when…

So this was taken through a snow squall right at sunrise. The sun mostly unfettered and very bright for about 4 minutes. Sol was just starting to ascend into the cloud deck above as this was taken. Obscured by that cloud deck for the rest of the day. Snowed most the morning amounting to not much. .

This was a phenomenal scene viewing through my optics. The human eye has no chance to see such a thing. IT would be blinding to watch. Only with technology can we reach our mind into such a furnace. Hold your thumb out at arms length. The thumb would easily cover the area of the sky that this whole image encompasses.

If you look carefully/closely at the “glare” under the rising sun / falling horizon, you can see the individual snow flakes frozen in space and time. This is a case where I could see the phenomena better in my camera’s viewer than here on the final image. In the view port, areas that are in focus have white highlights on them which makes them stand out.

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

Title: Sunrise Through a Snow Squall

Posted on May 11, 2020May 4, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Feather Filter for the Sun

Here on the high ridges of the borderlands of Montana / Wyoming there are millions of acres of grasslands. This was very bright sky with a sharp sun and a dense cloud deck above the glare. The combination of the two required a foreground for the image to suit me.

To use randomly obtained feather to grace an unveiled sun is not a new effort but is always a worthy target. Anything to reduce the light into the camera (filter).

Feathers contains such an elegant form. Smooth curves abound. Working cameras, my mind wanders to the “filter materials at hand” for this kind of Close / Far perspective. When your in the middle of a square mile of pasture land, you have to act fast with a wonderful sky as behind this shoot and use what is at hand.

I am generally soured on using glass filters in front of my cameras while shooting into the sun to start with. I WAY prefer to use natural filters to reduce the glare from the furnace above. Here the edge reflections create a star shape into the camera. Even a few percent light reduction helps operating a camera outside that normal envelope.

Any attempt at a photo is a light balancing act inside the camera. You only have just three settings to play with . I suggest to you that it would be good to learn to use that camera on Manual Mode finally. (If you don’t already know how). I am happy to keep talking about HOW I take my photos for you guys to follow along. Ask if you have a question. 🤔📷

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

Title: Feather Filter for the Sun

Posted on May 11, 2020May 3, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Antique Plows View of Sunset

Sunset of an Old Wheel which will slowly turn to rust.

Slower than wood which will quickly turn into dust.

But not as fast as the all of the rest of us.

Surely turns the wheel of life I trust.

(Frank Bliss 2019).

Snowy landscapes with patchy cloudy sky…MADE for perspectives. Instantly a 12-24mm comes out and I’m considering low angle deep focus shots into a bright sun. The bright sun allows you to turn up your f-stop to a high number which gives you deep focus and cuts down some of the bright light from the sun. It also gives you that nice star around the sun. Those are diffraction artifacts in the photo, attractive as they are. If you had used a lower f-stop and a faster shutter speed to balance, you would have a smaller/less noticable star diffraction. You’d also have the foreground out of focus.

So the photo lesson: if you remember nothing else. f-stop high numbers = Long/deep layer of things that are in focus. All at the cost of a lot of light. I had plenty to spare of with this sun looking at me. High f = less light going into the camera but long focus.

This is an antique Plow. Abandoned in the backcountry probably as far back as the 1920’s. A horse team pulled plow, never saw more than a few horsepower. The work, the sweat, the toil behind this plow was incredible. Used turning over centuries old sod. All to make room for hybrid grass . Those same grasses are thriving in the same fields they were planted in . Those were the “hay” days of turning sage brush into hay fields .

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands..

Title: Antique Plows View of Sunset

Posted on April 27, 2020April 20, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sunrise Through A Veil

As I’m driving along the slope of a ridge roughly parallel to these married trees, I see many opportunities. Frames work by me rapidly but obviously as I travel. I usually have to keep about 1/2 an eye on the terrain as there is nothing like a deep game trail that will ruin your focus. I’ve had them bounce cameras around more than a few times. As I work the opposite slope of this valley, I have chance after chance of just this kind of “Japanese” image from the hills of Wyotana. Veiled suns are always worth of pursuing photographically in my experience. Particularly if you can get a “Close / Far Perspective working. Distance from those trees is your friend 👀📷

Realize of course that I would be blind looking very much into the brightness of such a vista. At this point in the sunsets timeline, the light is waning with a decided chill to the air. The warmth rises and the cold fingers of air from above run down into the valleys. Markedly cooler temperatures as the light gives way to the dark. I am fortunate to use technology that lets me evaluate the wonder of such scenes. I see live real time images as this in my view finder. Mirrorless cameras are WONDERFUL that way. You couldn’t even look at your focus with a DSLR camera without risking your eyesight. If you don’t know the difference between the two camera types, it’s time to do some homework. Particularly if your considering a purchase. I now consider DLSR cameras as the “Beta Max” of the current production camera world.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Sunrise Through A Veil

Posted on April 7, 2020May 23, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Ripples Caught in Space and Time

About this photo:

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Ripples Caught in Space and Time

Posted on April 6, 2020April 27, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Cloudy Stormy Spring Light

All natural colors from the grey of the clouds to the green of the grass that is now starting to grow. A taste of spring has slowly permeated the local climate. All climate is local of course. As a Geologist, I will tell you the earth has NO climate. It has ALL climates lolol. Watch when someone says the “earth’s climate”. I have discovered in my travels, that when someone starts an argument on Climate with that phrase (earth’s climate) , it’s a pretty good indicator that they don’t have a clue about what they are talking about lolol. I’ve seen this so many times.

This was actually rain and not snow for a change. I haven’t seen rain for 6 months since before Oct,1, 2019 when winter started last year. I remember it well as I was on the road the day before in the BigHorns. Those are about 130 miles just left of frame here with this view to the north west as this thing was coming in. The mountains on the far left were 40 miles distant from my camera at this click. Anybody else see a face in the thunderhead??👁👁

Dark environments…Open up your camera a bit. Little bit lower fstop, a bit slower speed or a little more ISO (camera sensitivity). All THREE setting this way will increase the amount of light into your camera. Each effect the light gathering ability of your rig. Your just trying to balance light with the other attributes of those three, each of which is a double edge sword. More on that later…

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

Title: Cloudy Stormy Spring Light

Posted on April 6, 2020March 31, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sun Flare Flanking Sunrise

My camera lens front just from the warm car, captured two flakes of frost falling from the trees. Those ice flakes hit the warm glass and turned to liquid with the heat transfer. Providing two extra lenses for me to peer “through”. Artifactual obviously ….. Pretty anyway 😜😀📸

I usually don’t publish images with lens artifacts but the artist in my liked the way this came out. In full disclosure I had to fix the flare on the right which for what ever reason doubled enough to be distracting from the symmetry of the image. Just a slight double ghost I fixed there. So technically I removed a beer can from the postcard photo here. ART.

I have a tendency toward pointing cameras into suns lol. This was a photo I took AFTER the main twilight show that morning. The twilight lighting was truly amazing but as soon as the sun cracked the horizon, chapter two of this stage show began. No intermission either !. The orange red color cast early light was saturating all the white frost and snow surfaces for the next few minutes. Sometimes the same red light that colors the “Belt of Venus” variety of Alpenglow works it way down on the ground. Particularly up on the high ridgelines. Add a little hoar frost, a bit of white ice and you have a perfect reflective surface to light up. Light up just like the Belt of Venus was doing coterminously with this image but over my shoulder. The back sky was all pink down to the ridgelines.

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

Title: Sun Flare Flanking Sunrise

COPY IMAGE CODE

Posted on March 30, 2020March 25, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Burning Barn Sunrise

Looks like the aftermath of Captain Kirk having used his phaser weapon on my Morton Building. …. Actually a rising sun through HIGHLY Turbulant clouded air mass that got creative with the actual round shape. Since the sun is still below actual line of sight, the light being bent around the planet by the “atmospheric lens”. Red and Yellow light the only to arrive at my photon traps.

Certain Atmospheric Conditions create very unusual distortions of the sun. I watch somewhere around 500 sunrises/sunsets a year up here in my work. Give or take according to weather window whims. Now I’m counting a sunrise and 1 and a sunset as another one here. I work the light when ever it appears to need working lolol.

The number of distortions I see this severe is a few every other year or so. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a building shape. If you look really hard…I imagine an RV moving away right in the yellow shape but that is pushing it lololol. The sculpted edges were moving real time though the lens live.

The atmosphere was absolutely “ROILLING” boiling, distorting, mirage (ish). Looking at an area of sky smaller than your thumb on an outstretched arm, this 1200 mm magnification image is a very small portion of the sky. The sun, on the other hand, subtends an angle of approximately 0.52° (31 arc-minutes) to an observer on the Earth. It’s amazing and a striking coincidence. By sheer chance, it is almost the same as the angle subtended by the moon. I digress, this image is 1.5 degrees wide. It’s a pretty small slice of a 360 degree pie that morning 😀👀📸📸

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Burning Barn Sunrise