Tag: Mondaysunset

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Smokey Sunset Through Cottonwoods

Smokey Sunset Through Cottonwoods
Smokey Sunset Through Cottonwoods

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

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Sunset Frames of Branches

Sunset Frames of Branches
Sunset Frames of Branches

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

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Sunset View through the Pines

Sunset View through the Pines
Sunset View through the Pines

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

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Boulder Field Sun Filter

Boulder Field Sun Filter
Boulder Field Sun Filter

Boulder Field Sun Filter

Crimson Sunsets with a boulder field acting as a sun moderating filter. Otherwise the glare is such it makes it very difficult to catch the detail in the clouds above. I point out that cloud frame is a Pariedoliac’s dream with a dozen faces, figures, creatures and imaginary anthropomorphic shapes. I’ve got horses, dolphins humans faces. I swear I did not put those shapes there or add dots for eyes or any of those cheating activities. This is a totally natural image with a pretty much closed down camera to light. That sun is bright. The human eye could not look into this scene.

Taken at the top local top of the world with a hard boulder covered butte top protecting the sandstone below from erosion. Most buttes are built by cap rock protecting the softer sediments below from being removed. Ridges are formed because everything softer was carried away by water moving one grain of sand at a time. Just lots of time.

Photographic Musings. High F-stop for the deep focus plus loosing some light. (you’ve got an overabundance of light here). Low ISO because you sure as heck don’t need a sensitive camera here. Shutter speed is going to be fast but the boulder filter can lengthen that out a bit. Each of the Manual settings is a double edge sword. If you want deep focus, you need a lot of light. F-stop is your iris size inside the lens. A pin hole gives you very deep focus fields. But a pin hole doesn’t let in much light. Manual is all about balancing light.

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

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Sage and Sunset

Sage and Sunset
Sage and Sunset

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

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Lone Tree Ridge Sunset

Lone Tree Ridge Sunset
Lone Tree Ridge Sunset

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

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Star Bursts and Wheel Spokes

Star Bursts and Wheel Spokes
Star Bursts and Wheel Spokes

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

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Sun Windmill Tree Clouds

Sun Windmill Tree Clouds
Sun Windmill Tree Clouds

Sun Windmill Tree Clouds

This is the second image from this timeline I am publishing. Each has it’s own merits. I worked this wonderful scene moving around for the different compositions that are hiding from us. Our perspective is “where we are”. The goal of photography is to see past where we are actively moving to the “optimal” perspective possible for the scene at hand. There are an infinite number of options available here only limited by the topography I’m positioned on. There have been so many times I wish for a ladder of just a few feet to change the angle ever so slightly. This is of course why I drive along parallel ridges to work terminator crossings. I can move up and down the opposite ridge as it is my metaphorical ladder.

Terminator: This is the dividing line between night and day as seen from outer space. It’s a good way for me to describe EITHER sunrise or sunset to you if you understand what it is. That visible shadow/light line moves around a globe that is 24000 miles around in circumference one time a day. That is, the shadow of night moves in at 1000 miles per hour over us as the sun rises or sets. Likewise sunrise moves over the earth at 1000 miles per hour likewise. Terminator is an interesting google search… You see it on the moon all the time….

I hadn’t been to this particular location for a while, it’s SORT of off the beaten two track. Anyone notice the photobomber? There are no cattle in this pasture yet so lazy me tends to stay out of pastures I have to open and close gates to enter. I’m getting lazy in my old age… 😜 📸

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

Title: Sun Windmill Tree Clouds

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Ephemeral Reflections Backcountry Pond

Ephemeral Reflections Backcountry Pond
Ephemeral Reflections Backcountry Pond

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

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Fully Involved Spring Sky

Fully Involved Spring Sky
Fully Involved Spring Sky

Fully Involved Spring Sky

The sun had JUST set and I had traveled about 5 miles south of my homestead to catch this. If I hadn’t adjusted my position, The whole show would have been hidden by the storm. In a reversal of roles, I became a storm “evader” instead of a storm “chaser”. 😜

We have had a good series of spring storms move through over the last week and I have been working them. I spent about 3 hours out in the backcountry yesterday. Most of that time was spent waiting for a particular storm event to occur. Once I have made it up to the ridge tops, I hate to loose my position so high up and head back to the house. As long as I don’t get poured on the two track roads are usually in good enough shape to head back and forth.. I have found out after many decades of 4×4 wheeling off road, that anybody can fall DOWN a hill. Most are not as talented progressing up a hill… Going up a wet/muddy hill is usually a recipe for redesigning landscape in the backcountry. I don’t see much point in that for the long term. Tearing up trails is generally not one of my favorite activities.. 👀🌲🌲🤘

At any rate, this was obviously worth traveling for in my mind. Skies totally lit as this are always worthy of my time in my humble opinion. Hopefully it was worth your’s.

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

Title: Fully Involved Spring Sky

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Antique Plows View of Sunset

Antique Plows View of Sunset
Antique Plows View of Sunset

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

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Ripples Caught in Space and Time

Ripples Caught in Space and Time
Ripples Caught in Space and Time

Ripples Caught in Space and Time

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: Ripples Caught in Space and Time