Mud Hills Archives - Bliss Photographics

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

Twilight Overlook Mud Hills

This is a diptych left right pair image consisting of 2 – 20 inch squares. I really adore natural pastel colorations when they occur in Alpenglow. This is a north view looking across the Wyoming Montana border (trees are in Wyoming, mountains in Montana). Posted as second image of this mountain chain through these trees that I posted today. Please take the time to look at the other one and compare.

Most of the Great Master Painters of their day composed their art redoing over and over many scenes they discovered in their world. Say painting Big Ben in 20 different lighting conditions. I am BY NO MEANS a master painter. That is up the big guy upstairs who is responsible for most of the color work. My job is as a stenographer taking down punctuated moments in space and time. I don’t make this sky up lol. Thusly I will follow in those painters footsteps (err, brushstrokes). If their experience continues to be the teacher that I have learned it is over the years.

Those master painters of the 16th-19th century were more or less isolated by the transportation of the day. They were where they were so to speak. I consider each photo I take of the same scene but under different light and environmental conditions, a study of the natural perfection in that place. The framing doesn’t change much from study to study but the background morphs with the time of day, the weather and the yearly cycles. I try hard to stay in tune with all this. The complexity of nature is something that I’ve slowly started to realize as I spend more and more time in it.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Twilight Overlook Mud Hills

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

Middle of Brown Season

I am literally standing on the Montana/Wyoming border taking this shot. This is a favorite overlook of mine. A view to the north of the Mud Hills which is the first Mountain range north of my ranch. It sits across the 10 mile wide Ranch Creek Drainage. We call this place the “treed” pasture as it’s about 2 square miles of mixed pine trees. There are many parallel ridges/grassy hills with deep gullies between.

A land of many uses:

Cattle grazing during the summer pasture is a major use here obviously. Cattle can’t be pastured around pine trees in the winter as they will eat the needles. Those needles contain turpentine which will cause the pregnant cows to spontaneously abort. Several hundred cow/calf pair hang out around here for a month or two during Late May through Early July. We move cattle out of here in early July to facilitate the Wyoming Tactical Rifle Championship. Courses 3 and 4 use the borderland areas of our ranch. .

This ground has been home to a nationally ranked Team Tactical Rifle Championship for 18 years. Almost 4 miles of groomed rifle courses in 16 shooting stations. Exposing 150 fixed reactive steel Targets out to 1200 yards. This location is the last (or first) station on course 3 lolol. Snipers nest with literally thousands of precision rifle shots at those reactive steel targets down range.

There are a few dozen fossil locations (I’ve found so far) within this “Pasture”. Hell Creek/Lance Formation exist here that contain dinosaurian (and others) fossils. I found my first dinosaur tooth in this pasture 18 years ago. I knew they were here, I just didn’t know where. You do have to look though occasionally I stumble on dinosaur bones laying in the grass. They often look like any other stone in the middle of the prairie. I have found several fossil locations that way. You can’t find them if you can’t see them lolol.

We even have had a nationally released 4×4 video in 2008 filmed here. Peterson’s 4 Wheel Drive and Off Road Magazine filmed part of their “Ultimate Adventure” video series here that year. It’s out there if you want to watch several high end jeeps flip over. All trying to climb out of some of the soft sandstone lined gullies here on ranch.

As I say, a land of many uses…

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

Title: Middle of Brown Season

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

Faintest Rainbow Ever

I originally took this as a landscape during the golden hour. It is the backshow right at sunset with an excessive red/yellow color cast lighting. Everything was deeply red or yellow shaded. This is the improved version having reduced the color cast quite a bit lolol. I reproduce things here the way I experienced them. Not how the camera records it since the technology seldom get’s it right. When you get up on the ridge tops, you see the really red light saturate everything just as the sun sets. This scene was one of those situations where I was glad I turned around. I had to reset my cameras shutter speed from 1/8000th point at the sun to 1/60th of a second with the turn though lolol.

That day ending had it’s own character as each is unique of course. The chill was there but the snow had melted during the day leaving some muddy places. Snow in the shadows is where I drive then on the frozen ground to avoid tracking up the soil saturated with snow melt. The soil frozen below the melt prevents it from soaking is turning 300 year old turf into mushy soup that a foot print will destroy. I try very hard not to tear up the ground here. There is way too much human disturbed ground around the country. Smart travel in the backcountry helps a little at a time.

The rainbow is just barely visible if you zoom in and use your peripheral vision. It stands out then. It wasn’t raining but it was humid from all the sublimation and evaporation from the melt. Rare clear sky rainbow……

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Faintest Rainbow Ever

Posted on September 26, 2019September 24, 2019 by Bliss

Spools of Old Barbed Wire on the Prairie

As I was driving across some rather large expanses of open public ground, the old spools of barbed wire on the open prairie was something that stood out…… Click… These are remnants of “fixin” fence down yonder in the draw crowd that took the time to spool this old stuff up. It is very rough to handle and heavy in spools that big. Rabbits make it a hiding place and since it’s on about the highest point in the field, bet it has had it share of lightning hits.

Location: the Montana/Wyoming borderlands.