Lichen on Boulders 2
A boulder has to be really old and undisturbed to have this much coverage. Deep in the backcounty…
Lichen on Boulders 2
Lichen on Boulders 2
Tag: Orange
Full Smokey Moon Rising
Full Smokey Moon Rising
Wednesday Moon Day:
Close Far Perspectives are something I haven’t worked recently. The smoke plumes from western fires clogging up my horizons to anything but the sun. I get only a few terminator crossings a month any to photograph the rising lunar disk coterminous with the sun still being up (even a little like this). The dark blue you see here is seconds away from turning black in the camera. The is the edge of the envelope for what this technology can do. The silhouette would soon be fading into the black sky in minutes.
Wonderful smokey color that night though we weren’t particularly under Pall at that moment. Particulates in the higher air is likely to blame for this hue. Almost salmon but with just a tinge of red. Hard to find such things in archives of my travels.
Heads Up!… The Moon while on schedule for once a month, but October 2020 will have two. The first on October 1st, and the second on October 31st. That rarity is what coined the phrase “once in a blue moon” back in 1821, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. The “standardized” explanation of the blue moon wasn’t defined “officially” August 1937 or so the story goes… I will work both moons in October assuming the weather window to their light opens for me to capture in my photon capture boxes. Rule number 112 of photography is: no window, no images… That one is fixed in the rules of the universe I’m afraid lolol.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Full Smokey Moon Rising
Setting Sliver Smokey Moon
Setting Sliver Smokey Moon
At first I had an imaginary shark hunting the water in the distant. The waves covering all but the dorsal fin. No wait… perhaps it’s a sail boat at a good breeze in high seas. The crest of the wave hiding the hull of the sailing ship. The illusion of waves swelling in the open ocean is unmistakable. I’m often taken by flights of fancy. The freedom to search for what could be is sometimes more compelling that for what is. On that segue…
I watched this moon descend into the cloud bank on the right 15 minutes earlier. Wrote it off for the session. I figured it would be obscured. From that point on, it was just until I looked back to the horizon. Looking the other way… Preoccupied I was working the sunrise on the dawn side of the sky. I was aware (back of my mind) when the moon was setting. Having done this a few times I finally did glance around at the other horizon JUST in case. I was surprised when I looked up to see this vision. The clouds had moved to the right leaving a window to the really low moon.
Now this was taken with a huge long lens. These totally screws with your perspective. Zooming up on the relatively small mountains, makes the moon looks big. That ridge is 40 miles distant. The place I set up for this backshow of the sunrise that morning was high enough to give me views both ways. Around 4000 feet which is high ridge country in this corner of Wyoming.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Setting Sliver Smokey Moon
Setting Sun Shock Wave
Setting Sun Shock Wave
I titled this Shock but I could have used Bow wave just as well. The atmospheric phenomena you are seeing here is a very complex interaction for sure. The color is real as is the wave in front of the sun. I was watching this clearly on my video eyepiece just as you see it here. The Pall of Smoke was significant even for recent standards.
Amazing light effects occur in a heavily occluded / smoky atmospheric haze. I have views looking west from the local that reach out 93,000,000 miles to the sun. Between myself and the sun are many miles of atmosphere acting as a filter to all but red and yellow light. (With all gradations in between like orange).
I think there are a lot of things going on here with the color and the gradients. You will note a baseball diamond shaped area of yellow above the sun is the highest sky where yellow can penetrate with a given intensity. (a calculus equation or two involved here I suspect chuckle). Less smoke between me and the light there. Below on the wave, only the red light can penetrate the haze. The closer to the sun, the brighter the light the haze has to block. The curve will be smooth around the base. Mother Natures Geometry at her best artist strokes. I love smooth gradients but naturally stepped gradients are massively cool. Maybe it’s just me chasing light again lolol.
I’ve seen this only a few times in my travels. I suspect it has a name but I haven’t researched it.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Setting Sun Shock Wave
Path Through the Rocks
Path Through the Rocks
I see the light. Light has a tendency to travel in a straight line unless acted upon. Usually this is by passing through a change in media such as air to water. This refracts the light. As I was carefully wandering in the twilight dusk along a high ridge. I was scanning for imaginary faces in the silhouette. (This image having many for you Pareidoliacs out there).
Having huge deep boulders on the skyline usually makes anthropomorphic imaginings easy. This scene froze me in my tracks. The spot of orange light in the black on the low right is actually showing THROUGH the boulder field. Talk about a gauntlet/light filter lol. I’m not used to seeing straight lines through rocks. My geologic background caused OCD kicks in lolol.
I was walking around with the wrong camera upon first happenstance to see this. “Clever Girl” was up the hill about 4 stories. Climbed up and traded cameras, climbed back down. (Got to stay in shape to do this stuff). I figured I was never going to find the exact same place in 3-D space again. I went back to roughly the same spot with this lens, found the “zone” and clicked. It was visible in a little window about 2 feet by 2 feet. Move outside that box and I couldn’t see it.
It’s an obvious metaphor. Simply put: “Seeing the light is looking at JUST the right angle at the right time. “
Title: Path Through the Rocks
Smokey Sunset Perspective
Smokey Sunset Perspective
My sense of Proportion mixing with the admiration of the cowboys that built all of the 30 miles of fence on and surrounding our ranch. Pastures being shaped by topography as often as by choice. I wonder how many fence builders / fixers that have passed this way before. Dozens of good (and bad) hands over the years I suspect. I’m just the latest to stretch, patch and otherwise tend to the pasture borders.
Rotating pastures is good husbandry of the land. One big pasture is inefficient as cattle center around the water. Ranchers have found over the years that open range just doesn’t work. Rotating keeps any particular area from being overgrazed (assuming you have any grass at all un-like this year). Fences make ranches work. They also make work for ranchers lol.
The smoke Pall covering the valley distant spans the 40 mile distance to the “Red Hills”. The last ghostly ridge is what you can see of that range.
The one good thing about a Smokey Atmosphere is the effect it has on the incoming light. Mostly it just absorbs all the shorter wavelengths such as Indigo, Blue and Green. That makes orange and red disproportionately abundant (otherwise known as “ColorCast”). When you have a LOT of Red, Orange and Yellow light, everything takes on a strange “Golden Color” thus the “Golden Hour”.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
Title: Smokey Sunset Perspective
/ / / / / \ \ \ \ \
Good Smokey Morning Sunrise
Good Smokey Morning Sunrise
Of course this is very dark. It looked like a refrigerator bulb across the yard. ONLY the red through yellow wavelengths were making it. Not many of those either. This reminded me of the Eclipse we witnessed down at Douglas Wyoming a few years back. The way the subdued lighting had everything awake but on hold. Almost like a pause before the curtain opens for the screen play to follow.
We’ve had smoke for two weeks now and I’ve worked every terminator crossing (look that up if you don’t know it) during that interval. Except this AM as I type this. A small cloud system came in and blocked my eastern view with nothing but a gray slate screen. Sort of like the internet was down in the denial. I was so used to getting up and about, shock to my system…. The nights are very short in the summer. It’s a good thing I don’t need much more than 4 hours of sleep. (as long as I get a nap during the day lol).
I’ve spent a good deal of time doing photography these days. This intense a smoke pall for so long is fortunately a rare event this severe. This plume(s) is equal or in excess of any I’ve experienced in my 20 years living in Wyotana. It’s been an interesting “disaster” year all around now with twin hurricanes landfalling on the Gulf Coast. I did some post-graduate marine biology teaching down at the Gulf Coast Marine Lab in Ocean Springs Mississippi. Those guy are getting clobbered as I type this. (Shaking head side to side).
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands. (Wyotana)
Title: Good Smokey Morning Sunrise
Smokey Brown Sunset Perspective
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
Seedy Perspective of Smokey Sunset
Seedy Perspective of Smokey Sunset
Perfect weather for a Close / Far Perspective:
I see this Antique Deering Seeder almost every day as it is located on a ridge with a view. Better I have all weather access to this spot. The Sunset that night was accented by the continuing fires west of us. We’ve only had one fire on ranch this year so far. That’s pretty good (knock on wood and where is that salt). This is the beginning of many smokey sunsets (since that is what is currently the rage around here). The air quality is considered “unhealthy” to endure by the powers that be. I am fortunately in an air conditioned truck except when I drive around with cameras sticking out my window. That might be hazardous duty of some sort. ☹️
The seeder has has this amazing view point for decades. Perhaps dating back to very early in the 20’s or so. I suspect it’s horse drawn nature was necessary early on. Gasoline would have been difficult and expensive to obtain. Horses thrive on the available fuel. There is a significant suspicion that much of the grass in our larger fields are resultant from the activities of this fellow. Clearing the sage brush must have been exciting lolol. Fires I’m sure played a significant role there along with a plow later. Then enters the realm of this Cadillac of Grass Planters of it’s day. Changing our environment for the “better”. Boy are there lots of varieties of grass up here now. 😜
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
Title: Seedy Perspective of Smokey Sunset
Lightning and Rainbows
Lightning and Rainbows
In another 15 minutes this would have been a red rainbow. Considered Rare as they only happen RIGHT at sunset. I know this as it did in fact turn red later but for at this click was still orange. The sun was setting over my right shoulder. It was partially obscured by various clouds at various sections of the timeline here. This series of storms like a train trailing cars ran just to our east giving me wonderful views of the activity sunlit by the colored light. That light reflecting off the storm back to my optics. The long waves surviving the low angle ridge through the curved atmospheric lens.
The sunset ongoing over my right shoulder was in fact quite a good show. It takes a good main show to give me enough light to see the back show during storms. Only a very complex atmosphere could give me the proper conditions for this unusual capture. That is my communications tower just to the right of the bolt. It has been hit hundreds of times. Ummm… working from up there takes larger stones than I have to be up there in a serious electrical storm. I’ve spent a few episodes up there. Grounded all that gear is. Talk about a target lolol.
It is my understanding that Lightning AND Rainbows in the same photo are also unusual as the conditions that cause each are unusual together. I don’t have a lot of the two of them dancing in my portfolio. This storm train provided me with many examples. Before this timeline I may have had one or two in my lifetime. It’s probably just me, I miss things all the time lolol.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Lightning and Rainbows
Shaded Sunrise Snaggy Silhouette
Shaded Sunrise Snaggy Silhouette
With Up hill Perspectives pointing into the sun out there, I’m never lacking a subject in this area lol. Lots of snags (fallen trees) around the highland backcountry ranch land I work are about. They provide cover for smaller creatures as rabbits, mice etc. Some are big enough to provide rain cover under them.
All sizes and shapes, ages and orientations of snags are there for me to play with in the backcountry. Standing as this, or fallen on the remote hillsides of the borderlands still keeping watch over their domain.
Photographic Musings: Only 3 settings to adjust in Manual Mode… F-stop, ISO and Shutter speed. Here is F-stop’s ball game. Close / Far work is good if you can get it 👀😜
Remember that depth of focus means the ability to have the close object in focus AND have the background in focus. The Manual Mode setting you use to be able to do this is F-Stop (aperture size). Large F-stop numbers are a small pin hole in your lens and gives you DEEEEEEP fields of focus. Being a double edged sword, F-stop will simultaneously shut off light as you turn up the numbers setting higher. A higher F-stop number = A smaller hole in your lens gives you good focus but steals light. A larger hole in your lens lets in a lot of light but you have no depth of focus. F-stop is the hard one to understand. Now all you have to do is figure out how to adjust the f-stop in Manual mode in your individual camera. It’s usually a thumb adjustment high on the back.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Shaded Sunrise Snaggy Silhouette
Lenticular UFO Orange Twilight
Lenticular UFO Orange Twilight
Lenticular Clouds are actually not that common from my particular location. I don’t see them too often but here is a lenticular cloud “UFO” that is obviously re-entering the atmosphere. These saucer shaped clouds typically form where clam moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains. When this occurs, a series of large-scale standing waves can form above the mountain’s downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to or below the dew point, moisture in the air will condense to form clouds. Standing waves are lenticular shaped. As the moist air moves back down into the trough of the wave, the cloud may evaporate back into invisible vapor.
UFO talk of late… I feel neglected by ET. No body cares about the 45th parallel when they have the 37th to pay in. (That is a little factoid to follow up on if you don’t know about UFO’s and the 37th parallel…
As a trained observer of nature and science of at least 50 years of my adult life. I’ve never seen any scene in the sky that I could not explain to a reasonable satisfaction. Having extensively photographed sky scenes for many years. Even with quality equipment way back to 1986 and working Halley’s comet. I’ve NEVER seen a UFO. I feel terribly left out. 😔😔😜📸
Getting someone with a science background AND an extensive photographic history with gear in hand to experience a close encounter would be fun. I volunteer but I don’t do well with motion so supply dramamine for warp speed please.
Rest assured that if a UFO that I can’t account for or explain it’s movements, I will have a photo of it that isn’t blurry lolol.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Lenticular UFO Orange Twilight
High Ridge Veiled Sunset
High Ridge Veiled Sunset
(Illusion of a Tsunami wave coming into the shore but it’s all clouds)
Getting just the right angle toward a sunset with the foreground is a challenge sometimes. I wander the hills sides and ridge tops of the remote borderlands of Montana/Wyoming. I the the big distances in either an UTV (Polaris Ranger Crew) or my Ford Raptor F-150. The distances in this area are such that covering a lot of ground is a necessity to find these locations. I always ride to the distant ridge but usually am walking around for the duration of what ever event I’m photographing. My timelines smoothly go from mounted to unmounted captures.
By walking or riding along parallel ridges, I’m able to see first and quickly compose these scenes. As I’ve always said, if I can see it in my environment, I generally can capture the scene in these high tech photon traps I use.
Photographic Musings:
Looking into the sun is an “edge of the envelope” activity that is best left to mirrorless cameras as I use. DSLR cameras are dangerous to do this with as there is a direct light path to your eye through the camera. Mirrorless cameras have a video screen inside of the eye piece viewer. There is NO direct light path to blind you with concentrated light from the lens. Please don’t try this with a DSLR camera. You CAN capture this with a DSLR but you have to do it without looking through the camera WHILE you are taking the image. Set up your rig before you point and don’t look through your DSLR camera at the sun…
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
Title: High Ridge Veiled Sunset
Mitten Butte Tree Frame
Mitten Butte Tree Frame
Locally this “Pyramidal Hill” is called Mitten Butte. The orange Alpenglow behind on this Frosty Morning was saturated. Taken a more than a week ago.
Tree frames are elegant in their forms. Smooth curves mixed with contrasts and details. The landscape curves blend themselves into the frame with the silhouettes / negative space bordering the color from the long traveled sunlight. Dropping away to expose the sun rising up, the horizon moves closer to the light.
The actors of this stage show had only one in the audience. Sometimes dramatic plays happen overhead taking over an hour from start to finish. I have a tough job watching entire sunsets and sunrises as they mutate from second to second. I might take 800 photos of a particular sunrise as this. Only 3 or 4 images from this twilight my be worthy of finishing from that pile… None the less, you have to be there to capture the image.
More images from after sunrise of this morning with different frames were equally as dramatic. Skies as above are not rare but the high ridges I work have their share. Dozens of decades under the trees “belt”. It’s perspective far exceeds our own limited memory with short existence on earth (It’s comprehension might be a bit challenged though lolol). The complexity of our thought the tree can not conceive, but the perspective it has is beyond our comprehension. Being a tree it has ultimately a figurative and literal connection to the land lol. I would like to think it is deeper than that.
There is much more connectivity between living things and the environment than we give them credit for occurs I feel. Even disconnected to nature by nurture human/me, can feel things happening an orderly manner here in the highlands. It’s probably my own psyche settling into the cycles, the yearly natural event of this place in space and time.
Twilight Landscapes are all dark…because they were/are 😁
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
Title: Mitten Butte Tree Frame
Wednesday Windmill Twilight Play
Wednesday Windmill Twilight Play
WOW, I see a lot of lit up skies. This was a good one…A real color scheme as I experienced the scene. My photographic technique is to properly expose the highlights and worry about the shadow details later. I wasn’t so concerned with the landscape on this capture. The skies gradient from yellow to red is amazing to experience live thusly stealing my total attention.
I never know for sure how a twilight show is going to turn out. Overcast skies tend to be the best shows but there has to be a window from the sun to the under deck of the cloud layers. No window due to clouds blocking light equals no color. The reds and oranges you see here are the result of only those long wavelengths making it through the hundreds of miles of atmosphere. Smoke or moisture in the air can increase the effect. I’ve seen these skies so red that the color cast from the sky makes the snow purple. I have several photographic timelines of even more intense skies. This one ranks right up there with the some of the best full coverage skies.
“Sneaky Pete” the Windmill and his big Brother “Re Pete” are both living here on ranch. Of course they are hard core publicity seekers often managing to zip into my frames. In full disclosure I have no control over their actions. The only place I can get away from them is in the timber where they can’t follow 😜😜😜📷. (This is a years long narrative if your new to my world) Satire and all that.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
Title: Wednesday Windmill Twilight Play
Windmill Twilight Play
Sunset Through a Snowstorm
Sunset Through a Snowstorm
Snowy days on the high ridges of the WY/MT border lands are rarer in the spring than mid winter. We do get some interesting snow squalls and falls during the spring. Winter storms in the spring impact right during calving season here in cattle country. This can be less than convenient to the rancher with new born calves falling out into snow covered frozen ground.
Your all mostly aware I have this photobombing windmill that gets into my landscapes now and then. Just ignore him. He’s handy for scale here though I must admit. The snow was obscuring most of the horizon coming down in shafts of different opacities. Overall it was an amazing sky but it was not very long lived with the sun setting within the minute. Without the direct flashlight beam, the sky shows intensity fell drastically over time with the set. It was very dark when I took this shot with just the yellow rays of the sun making it through the atmospheric gauntlet.
As I type this, a spring storm dumped about 5 inches on us last night. We needed the moisture badly as it has been a dry winter and particularly a dry spring. Receiving only 14 inches of water a year in this high almost desert land, we appreciate most precipitation event and await them eagerly. I seldom complain about rain or snow…
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, both sides of the Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Sunset Through a Snowstorm
130 Miles to the BigHorns
130 Miles to the BigHorns
Imagine what a pioneer traveling to those peaks with an ox cart thought when he saw this vista. 🤔👀
Colorcast orange Banded BigHorn Mountains is an odd color to cover a landscape with. It was really that color lol.
I saw this developing the other night. I’ve been on a mission to catch the orange light behind the BigHorn Mountains. Some nights, the weather window is closed to the mountains. Closed to the sun that window was that night. It hid far to the right off frame. The 130 miles distant 13,000 foot high mountain range was shrouded in this Orange colorcas. It was like a stage light with an orange gel in front over the landscape.
Only lasting a few minutes. The sun moved down through progressively thicker and thicker layers of clouds.
I’ve spent a lot of time this month pursuing the Big Horns photographically. The range is playing peek a boo with the weather controlling the show. I have many good captures from this month of the ranch which will slowly work their way into my work flow here.
The black ridge at the bottom is 40 miles out from this 800 mm telephoto capture on a very high resolution camera. If you hold a postage stamp at arms length and place it against the horizon, this image would fit into a square that side.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana overlooking the Red Hills out to the Bighorn Peaks.
Title: 130 Miles to the BigHorns
Backcountry Curves at Twilight
Backcountry Curves at Twilight
When I try to read the early morning as to whether or not to go out to chase the light, I get about 70 percent good choices. This was a good morning, nailed it!…. Once I decide to go out 40 minutes or so before sunrise, I have to decide where to go. I usually try to follow the light so I chose to take a road trip. There are few places up high that are accessible in the muddy spring (sometimes more accessible than others). Driving across hills here will get you into some Bentonite and stick you easily miles from anywhere. I stick to the road when it’s wet in the high country.
This Alpenglow show that morning was a sight to behold for me. I don’t see many displays this intense. Ice as a projector screen becomes efficient with so much of it in the atmosphere. The rare purple colorcast in the snow testifies to the reflected lights intensity. I don’t post much colorcast snow if it didn’t actually exist at the time. I mostly produce images in a “Blue Snow Free Zone”. This is certainly an unusual light environment in cold, clean Wyoming air.
If you haven’t already, look up the term Alpenglow as it is a fixture up here in the Winter. In season, almost every visible sun/horizon crossing up here has some Alpenglow in the show. I’ve even seen it during the summer as well but for some reason, there seems to be less ice in the air during the summer.🤔😜 When there is ice, it usually falls as hail lolol.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Backcountry Curves at Twilight
Bird Balancing Burning Bubble
Bird Balancing Burning Bubble
Magic happens sometimes here on the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch. Here I caught a the Bliss Ranch Gynmastic Training Camp. Here a Great Blue Heron showing off spinning that big burning bubble on the tip of his beak… While standing on his Mates Back . Crowing/Displaying after a little bird whoopee that evening. Even while on a moving tree swaying in the breeze. Talk about balance….👀🤔😜 They are just building that nest. The third guy is a bystander as far as I can tell. I couldn’t see him blush within the rarefied air of this light environment.
With Topography my master, I find getting celestial objects to cooperate lining up with birds is mostly the miss part of a hit or miss situation. To have these huge eagle eyed birds patiently watch me work my way to them. Then tolerate me getting this alignment… Pretty cool …. 😃
Working the Great Blue Herons this time of year is certainly best. The 50 foot tall Cottonwoods have no leaves so capable of concealing nesting but not for another few weeks. Approaching and positioning for this shot in time and space has been a long term goal. Learning to do this in a camera is a task and a half plus getting all the variables to align. Trust me on this…
It just so happens my All Black Ford Raptor (new vehicle) backcountry truck looks enough like an Black Angus to these birds so as not to care so far. I very carefully work up to the nests in a familiar grazing animal gate. The new Ford stops the engine when I stop…perfect for photography. Wait a while, slowly approach, turn to the side, stay there a few minutes, take a few photos, move about 20 feet closer, rinse and repeat. I will gradually work my way over to where these 5×5 birds…. 5 foot tall birds with a 5 foot windspan…. are nesting. I was able to work these guys for 35 minutes as the sun disappeared behind the rising horizon . Forever in my world. 📸📸
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Montana/Wyoming borderlands (Wyotana Wetlands).
Title: Bird Balancing Burning Bubble
Portrait of an Alpenglow Twilight
Portrait of an Alpenglow Twilight
Alpenglow with a Zig Zag Landscape Ladder with a reflective ice surface. That pond is filled by the melting snow off that hill.
This is pretty far back into the backcountry on my ranch. I didn’t even know there was a pond in this “Cul-de-sac” until a few years ago when I first found it. It was built in the 1950’s according to the engineers office. It only fills with melt water from about 200 acres of a small portion of this overall drainage system. This is sandstone country with about 500 feet in 10 miles difference between the “Little Powder” river in the valley with the ridge tops here.
I have to climb that far ridge to see the eastern sunrise and you’ve seen many dozens of images up on it. It’s a little harder for me to get to the top in the winter but I’ve done it numerous times. For those of you that keep track of such things, this is just east of ridge one looking at ridge two on the far south end of the ranch. That’s right at 300 feet difference in elevation and about 2000 yards to the ridge top. That takes a while to get there lol. It’s all two track roads over the divide. Then I walk or ride on ridge tops as is interesting with the light. I have an 80 mile view east from that ridge.
Musings on getting out of Dodge:
Knowing when to stop taking photos is a significant skill to acquire as a photographer. Wasting time, battery and disc space is bad JuJu. I know my camera backs pretty well and know instantly when I have the scene in front of me captured. The image rolls around in my head like a melody does for some. Then: It is necessary at that moment to analyze the possible future scenarios of the light unfolding in front of oneself. To predict the future is a skill worth working on. That very attribute leads me to a better area/angle/direction. Working landscapes is all about that. Finding the Frame.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Portrait of an Alpenglow Twilight
Alpenglow Early April Snow
Alpenglow Early April Snow
Some twilights are full of primary colors so pure they rival a new Pantone swatch chart (about 300 bucks new). I very carefully reproduce what happened that morning here. The snow had a decidedly cyan tint which I can see clearly in my minds eye from the moment of the shutter release. I don’t see it too often, it’s always under intensely involved Twilight Skies. I see so many posted images of electric blue snow. I’m confused because I have never seen electric blue snow in real life.
I’ve lived in Wyoming working with color images professionally or other artists beginning 1991. Experienced a few well taken winter images up here I have. It is my observations that Blue Colorcast in Snow is quite rare. Images that have it, are (usually) either 1: improperly set up white balance (most likely), or 2: intentional twisting up the volume on a broad stroke color enhance control. Now I’m all for art in a photograph but with full disclosure of the deed. I’m not going to present an art work as a photograph. It’s a matter of Professional Courtesy to other photographers.
I have found that a good portion of the viewer ship like color enhanced photos. Everybody has their own likes and that what art is all about. Unfortunately for that segment I’m a photorealist and try VERY hard to accurately reproduce what I saw at the time. I’m sorry, if you like blue snow, you’ll have to look at another artist. I live within in a blue snow free zone.
Location; Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderland (Wyotana)
Title: Alpenglow Early April Snow
Full Tilt Crimson Twilight
Full Tilt Crimson Twilight
Crimson Cloud Roll Sunrise Driving two track roads during Nautical twilight up high in the backcountry is easier when there is only this much snow on the ridges. It still takes me 10 to 15 minutes to drive up to this location I call sunrise ridge. By the time I arrive, it’s already into Civil Twilight with maybe 15 minutes to go till sunrise.
The sky starts to light up quickly, the air is crisp, the smell of sage and pine are rife. There is little wind this morning which is uncommon. I start to feel the sunrise coming on. It’s something you can feel akin to a quickening. 👀
This was taken over a month ago in early March. We had light snow then, none now…. Dry year but mud is my current nemesis because I loath to leave tracks. I have a new vehicle now with excellent capabilities so I should be a productive spring up on the ridge tops.
Looking up this hill for proper perspective, the lower yellow band is bright alpenglow. The red from rays of the sun that made it through the gauntlet of hundreds of miles of atmospheres and moisture. The cloud bottoms were wave troughs dropping into the light and turning red as a result. As bright as the highlights are, the over all scene was dark. This you can see by the darkness of the foreground where I was sitting.
Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands. (Wyotana)
Title: Full Tilt Crimson Twilight
Clouds over BigHorn Mountains
Clouds over BigHorn Mountains
View from up on Ridge one here on ranch. The window to the Big Horns is IFFY this time of year from this far away. My truck/tripod is 130 miles out for this capture off the highest point around the place. The timing on this was mid-Civil Twilight. The sunset is far right off frame looking from the Montana/Wyoming border to the southwest toward the range.
Full Screen is a good choice for this. Twilight over the BigHorns this night was so obviously gorgeous. I had to resort to a short time exposure to catch it. The timing on this sunset is very late in Civil Twilight. When the alpenglow colorcasts the snow on the Mountains, I get interested 👀📸.
Civil Twilight after sunset ends about 28 minutes after the sun goes down 8 degrees under the horizon. It’s usually the best time to get those crimson and yellow skies. Orange here is a mixture. Atmospheric Ice causes this phenomena caused by refracted light passing through. Only the red wavelengths which have survived through hundreds of miles of atmosphere light the cloud deck.
The long lenses I use crush the perspective of distance. I’m almost always using telephotos to bring in just the BigHorn Mountains filing the whole frame. It takes about a 800 mm long focal length to fill the camera frame side to side with the tallest part of the range. The black ridge at the bottom is 40 miles out. The clouds behind the range are around 200 miles out I would suspect. The distance is hard to put into proper frame. Those 13000 feet high mountains appear smaller than the thumb on my outstretched arm from here.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Clouds over BigHorn Mountains
Frosty Sunrise on the Border
Frosty Sunrise on the Border
This is a backcountry very wide angle image taken about ten days ago as this posts. All of this frost has melted since the image was taken but this morning we are hoar frosting again. Foggy and in the clouds as I type this.
A few days of spring return but with mud… There was an 1/8th inch of ice covering most of the south side of trees from this storm. , the sun rising to the south east was just starting to light up the ice that was coating the grass and the trees. The Pine Noodles (Needles covered with ice) were a subject all by themselves this morning of worthy light.
This is a very nice little ridge line being the uppermost reaches of the drainage (Divide) . This particular ridge separates Trail Creek (Wyoming) and Ranch Creek (Montana). I am standing in Wyoming and shooting over the Border to Montana in the distance. I usually work ridges in the early spring . I’m trying to get off the county road talking photos but Mud / snow will keep me out of the Backcountry. Snow depth will deny access to the ridges short of me laboriously plowing snow over two track paths in the backcountry. Slowly but surely, I will have better access away from the main gravel arteries . Deep snow is problematic from my viewpoint. Spring storms often shut the door to me. Tis the wet season with more snow falling in the spring than during the winter here.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: Frosty Sunrise on the Border
Layered Landscape to the BigHorns
Layered Landscape to the BigHorns
Layers of Landscape to the first big ridge stretch for 40 miles in the distance. The Alpenglow illuminated BigHorn Mountains are saturated in an orange color cast projecting off of the deeper snow cover of the slopes. There are still spotty snow in the low and sheltered northern slopes and the deeper slopes of the 130 mile distant peaks. 1200 mm telephoto.
Photographic Musings:
This of course is a time exposure as it were. I consider anything longer than 1/4 second a time exposure best done on a tripod or some support. You can take photos like this free handed but your ISO is going to have to be so high that you’ll get grain on your image. A minimum handheld speed with a long lens is about 1/100th. With a telephoto your going to have to compensate for the lack of light somehow as they are not a fast lens. Turning up camera sensitivity? This will unfortunately give you larger grain to your image and add noise to the color. It will however bring an image in.
The first rule of photography is get the shot. The second rule is get it right !. Longer time exposures give your camera a chance to gather light the easy way. You always want as LOW and ISO as you can get away with. Low light images like this look wonderful if done on a tripod. Not so much hand held. I use a clamp on my car window with my favorite tripod head on it that mates to my cameras. Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands
Title: Layered Landscape to the BigHorns
BigHorn Mountain Ladder Landscape
BigHorn Mountain Ladder Landscape
View from up on Ridge one here on ranch. The window to the Big Horns is IFFY this time of year from this far away. My truck/tripod is 130 miles out for this capture off the highest point around the place. The timing on this was a few minutes before sunset. Full Screen is a good choice for this. Twilight over the BigHorns this night was so obviously gorgeous. I had to resort to a short time exposure to catch it. The timing on this sunset is very late in Civil Twilight.
Civil Twilight after sunset ends about 28 minutes after the sun goes down 8 degrees under the horizon. It’s usually the best time to get those crimson and yellow skies. The yellow is Alpenglow. Atmospheric Ice causes this phenomena caused by refracted light passing through. Only the red wavelengths which have survived through hundreds of miles of atmosphere light the cloud deck. Orange as this is a mixture of the two effects.
The long lenses I use crush the perspective of distance. I’m almost always using telephotos to bring in just the BigHorn Mountains filing the whole frame. It takes about a 800 mm long focal length to fill the camera frame side to side with the tallest part of the range. The black ridge at the bottom is 40 miles out. The clouds behind the range are around 200 miles out I would suspect. The distance is hard to put into proper frame. Those 13000 feet high mountains appear smaller than the thumb on my outstretched arm from here from my eyes unaided perspective.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: BigHorn Mountain Ladder Landscape
Purple Mountains Majesty
Purple Mountains Majesty
Boy this is a classic Pastel Western Mountain Scene. The Big Horn Mountain Chain rises from the between basins on either side of the huge tectonic uplift. A 130 mile long landscape with the first ridge past the trees being 40 miles away from the camera. Take in mid-twilight about 15 minutes after sunset. It was quite dark considering how well this came out.
Photographic Musings:
Perspective’s with a little foreground bokeh (google this) is unavoidable working low light twilight conditions. This pastel scene was difficult to get as I didn’t have a tripod with me at that time. I was just resting them camera on a vehicle body.
The only ways to gain light in your camera working in low light is, to either 1: turn down your f-stop numbers (open the aperture up which as a side effect, reduces your depth of field), 2: longer exposure (I was rested only, no tripod so 1/10th of a second is about as long as you can do rested. That is holding the back of the camera while resting the lens on something. OR 3: Turn up camera sensitivity which will give you lower quality grainy images to gain light by a Higher ISO number. Lower ISO’s will give you a fine grained image but it takes more ambient light than this to use.
I had to give in somewhere, f-stop it was. Turn it down to f11 on this 400 mm telephoto lens capture.
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana).
Title: Purple Mountains Majesty
Twilight Delight Eye Candy
Twilight Delight Eye Candy
I attend virtually every interesting sunrise/sunset that occurs up here on the high ridges along the Wyoming/Montana border. The Bliss Dinosaur Ranch has about an equal amount of land in each state. Most of my images have parts of the scene either the sky or the ground of each or the other state. (now that’s a sentence lololol_😜
Musings:
I see a lot of heavily saturated sunsets on forums and I see them too occasionally. I record them accurately. What I’m saying is.: This is the actual scene as it occurred without any highlight/color tomfoolery. I love this image as it is with detail in the colored areas, not solid color. My technique is all about exposing the highlights correctly. I’ll worry about the shadows in the digital darkroom. I left the landscape silhouette without bringing out what detail exists there. I seldom molest highlights.
Recording then presenting them exactly as I experienced them. I about said “Catch them on Film”. ……. I paused and considered the accurate replacement phrase. What exactly am I doing with this Mirrorless Digital Camera. No film here. These things use a digital chip inside to record the image in Red/Green/Blue dots. Technically it’s recording a series of 1’s and 0’s in sequence that when run through first Sony then Apple’s machinations via software. Of course Adobe had a hand. Then Facebook attacked what I uploaded with a compression process. The resultant jpeg/file quality drives me crazy sometimes. The full sized files are amazing. Full screen is a must here for sure as this is an image that needs to spread around your field of vision. 📸👀
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands *Wyotana”
Title: Twilight Delight Eye Candy
Seedy Characters All
Seedy Characters All
Deer are all about grass seeds.. So is the antique Deering seeder. 😜
History:
There are so many ranch stories from any one particular spot that will never be told or known by the public or for that fact history. Some epic, standard stuff sure and most were. But stories of sweat, toil and hard work by generations of cowboys and cowgirls in the borderlands of Wyoming/Montana. I look around at all the fence posts set deep in the ground on my ranch, I just shake my head in astonishment at the work. If anyone hasn’t hand dug a post hole, raise your hand, you know who you are .
This is true cowboy country. There is a huge cattle culture in this place complete with the uniforms for such. The both counties my ranch is about have WAY more cattle than people living in an area the size of a small state. Ranches can get large up here, not as big as some of the historic ones though. There are still a few 100000 acre outfits (outfits as they call ranches locally 🙂
This IH/Deering Seed Drill was certainly used in the 1920’s and 30’s maybe into the 40’s. There are several old homesteads from the 20’s (ish) within 3 miles of my place that I know about. Somewhere back then, the owner parked this complex machine meant to drop seeds with some precision into a prepared field. It was the last work it did… Planting Hybrid Grass seed was it’s primary job. I’m not sure what pulled it, maybe both horses early on and then the rancher got a tractor or a WWII surplus Jeep and pulled it with that. Many surplus Jeeps worked fields here in the west during the 40’s and 50’s. So many stories not told….
I even find fragments of historic leather harness “tack” for horse teams here along with the iron skeletons of old 2 seat carriages and abandoned buck wagons here on ranch. (The blacksmithed iron is fantastic.) There is about 110 years of European man living on this remote ranch in the borderlands. Over that century, many things have been put broken items “over the bank” and out of mind.
So the steep/deep gullies near old collapsed sod houses are prime hunting ground for iron antiques, glass bottles etc left over from previous lives. There are even a handful of car/truck skeletons from the 1920’s around and even some in the backcountry. I have a “Small” eclectice collection of select ranch artifacts carefully spread about in rock gardens around here. Interesting stuff for sure, pretty rusty AND rusty all 📸
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.
TItle: Seedy Characters All
BigHorn Winter Twilight Landscape
BigHorn Winter Twilight Landscape
View from up on Ridge one here on ranch. The window to the Big Horns is IFFY this time of year from this far away. My truck/tripod is 130 miles out for this capture off the highest point around the place. The timing on this was mid-Civil Twilight
Full Screen is a good choice for this. Twilight over the BigHorns this night was so obviously gorgeous. I had to resort to a short time exposure to catch it. The lighting for this was subdued to say the least.
Civil Twilight after sunset ends about 28 minutes after the sun goes down 8 degrees under the horizon. It’s usually the best time to get those crimson and yellow skies. The yellow is Alpenglow. Atmospheric Ice causes this phenomena caused by refracted light passing through. Only the red wavelengths which have survived through hundreds of miles of atmosphere light the cloud deck.
The long lenses I use crush the perspective of distance. I’m almost always using telephotos to bring in just the BigHorn Mountains filing the whole frame. It takes about a 800 mm long focal length to fill the camera frame side to side with the tallest part of the range. The black ridge at the bottom is 40 miles out. The clouds behind the range are around 200 miles out I would suspect. The distance is hard to put into proper frame. The width of those 13000 feet high mountains appear smaller than the thumb on my outstretched arm from here. You are quite zoomed in here. 👀📷
Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)
Title: BigHorn Winter Twilight Landscape