portraitaspect Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on August 26, 2020August 18, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Wyotana Landscape Gold

Watching the Photographer take a photo of the landscape, these two Mule Deer Doe’s were minding their own business. I come along and interrupt their grazing for a minute. Not my intent of course since I was minding my own business too. Driving in the backcountry I randomly run into small groups of creatures great and small. This time, I was more interested in the long landscape in front of me. But consider them and the tree they bracket, as a nice lower border to this composition. Bonus lol. This was a 10 layer landscape ladder just laid out for my enjoyment and now hopefully yours.

“Landscape ladders” are such captures with layer after layer of different color/texture/distance or topography. It’s easy to find a lot of intersecting angles in a landscape but layer on top of layer is desirable to me anyway lol. Of course this is a “Close / Far perspective taken

Late day Golden Hour Lighting predictably gave this image a markedly red colorcast as was true to the scene. I take great care to get the main sun colors properly weighted toward the longer wavelengths when appropriate. I’ve more or less categorized they types of evening light in my own head how. It is just a matter of verbalizing it now lol. I find that knowing and teaching are two different animals.

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

Title: Wyotana Landscape Gold

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Posted on August 23, 2020August 15, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Summertime Albino Devils Tower

The moisture in the air was thick (as in still falling lol) The Devil’s Tower National Monument 40 miles distant from my camera took on a “Marcel Marceau” face for an hour. Timing and Topography combined here for a nice dozen “rung” landscape ladder.

I had followed this storm for several hours that afternoon. Following it over towards Rockypoint Wyoming just a few miles south of the Montana border. High up on the local Pass over what I call ridge 5. It was muggy hot in the mid-80’s, with a huge Mesocyclone moving just to my homesteads south about 20 miles. Sundance Wyoming caught some national media attention for this storm. Not too many folks got to see this spectacle from the north west. The hail is covering the ground below the tree line.

I have never seen such a thing in years of watching this “Volcanic Neck” weather geologically slowly. Or course most of you know the Devils Tower was our first national Monument. The generally dark surfaces of the porphyry volcanic rock formed in gigantic columns totally coated with slushy ice by all appearances. The causational event for this odd face on the Tower was in Mid-July 2020..

My view here is not your typical tourist’s view point. That is unless you are an adventurous spirit with good tires and a spare that travels backroads of Wyotana. When you get into parts of the country that is sparsely populated, Triple A (AAA) is not going to be easy to get to respond. You have to have a cell signal first lolol.

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

Title: Summertime Albino Devils Tower

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

Double Trouble Lightning Bolts

Now I know this is out of season but I am redoing my portfolio to current standards and I’m reposting some from this last summer. I think it’s an interesting break from the mid-winter weather we’ve been having.

It was raining at the time about 30 minutes after sunset. It was overcast. Quite dark thus the long time exposure. I was in my Jeep Grand Cherokee on a large flat ridge top right in the middle of lightning flashes all around me. One of the better places to be during a lightning storm in the “open” is in a car. That is as long as your not touching metal. It also helps if you don’t have long camera lenses sticking outside your open window….. oh wait lolol..

There are two ways of doing this. If it is very dark, set your camera on a stabile tripod in a dry area. Take 25 second time exposures at ISO 200 and f11 to start with… No definite formula here…. You will have to tweek some to see what comes out. Or use an external “lightning trigger” to snap the camera as the bolt touches off. Set your camera near or at ISO 200 F11 and 1/4 second. Your settings will vary based on lighting.

The trick here to get a full frame (not a crop) image was to watch the storm and figure out where the bolts were consistently hitting. Then you just point the camera into that area and wait lolol. Lightning Triggers are not necessary with a time exposure.

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

Title: Double Trouble Lightning Bolts

Posted on December 1, 2019November 24, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Perspective: Twisted Pine Sun Down

Perspective: Twisted Pine Sun Down during the golden hour this fall evening. I actively pursue close/far focus opportunities when ever I see them.

The landscape here on the high ridges looking to the south west, has 130 mile long landscape to the far ridges. Wood lasts a LONG time in this dry climate. We only get 14 inches of precipitation a year on average in this area. We probably accumulated 20 this year. This is the first year in my 20 years here that it was green in August and even in September.

Every season seemed to be a month late in 2019. Winter ended late. We had Lilacs blooming on the 4th of July at least a month late. I’ve noticed that the deer rut was even late by several weeks. It only got to 100 degrees F once this year if memory serves me right. July and August were not nearly as hot as normal so so it seemed to me. Global warming didn’t happen here this year. Far from it. I suspect it’s going to be a LONG cold wet winter. This belief is based on the fact that it already has been a long cold wet winter. It’s just Dec 1 too so this cold/wet/icy stuff might be around for a while.

We call these high ridges that we inhabit, “Little Siberia” which is appropriate as we usually have snow when others around us living lower don’t. We get some good winds up this high. I’ve had a recorded 78mph gust here back in 2012 I think. We get 60mph winds several times a summer. It’s natures way of tree trimming in the backcountry.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Perspective: Twisted Pine Sun Down

Posted on November 21, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Lightning Bolt Cloud to Ground

Lightning Bolt Cloud to Ground is a 2 feet x 3 feet image in full size. Now I know this is out of season but I am redoing my portfolio to current standards and I’m reposting some from this last summer. I think it’s an interesting break from the early winter weather we’ve been having.

It was raining at the time about 10 minutes after sunset. This was our version of twilight that late summer 2019 evening. I was in my Jeep Grand Cherokee on a large flat ridge top right in the middle of lightning flashes all around me. One of the better places to be during a lightning storm is in a car. That is as long as your not touching metal. It also helps if you don’t have long camera lenses sticking outside your open window….. oh wait lolol..

There are two ways of doing this. If it is very dark, set your camera on a stabile tripod in a dry area. Take 25 second time exposures at ISO 200 and f11 to start with… You will have to tweek some to see what comes out. Or use an external “lightning trigger” to snap the camera as the bolt touches off. Set your camera near or at ISO 200 F11 and 1/4 second. Your setting s may vary but now too far out.

The trick here to get a full frame (not a crop) image was to watch the storm and figure out where the bolts were consistently hitting. Then you just point the camera into that area and wait lolol.

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

Title: Lightning Bolt Cloud to Ground

Posted on November 17, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Lighting Up the Landscape

A large Crimson Backed Amphi-theatre was illuminated centrally. Struck by this serious bolt. Lighting Up the Landscape around the strike was obvious.

I know this is out of season but I’m redoing my portfolio to current standards and this is one of 4500 left to do. Various topics, images and seasons will work their way into my posting workflow all winter. Hope you don’t mind.

The Science of this:

These bolts are a large-scale natural spark discharge. These occur within the atmosphere itself or between the atmosphere and the ground. Created during the moment of discharge, a highly electrically conductive “plasma” channel is created. When electrons flow within this channel, rapid heating of the air up to about 45,000 degrees F.

This Plasma Channel formation was captured by a lightning Trigger. Taken this images was with a Sony Alpha 7RII camera. A Priority is to not overexposing the back ground light in the sky. There isa necessity of not being TOO dark is tricky and this lesson beyond the scope of this narrative. Teeter totter/knife edge riding occurs by tweeking the camera’s settings. (3 way teeter totter). This is a common theme (teeter totter) when I’m trying to explain the light balance and the three settings in a camera set to manual mode. Remember this metaphor if your trying to learn photography.

One seat on the teeter totter is ISO or camera sensitivity. Turn it up, get more light in the camera but at a cost of grainy pictures and visual noise.

Seat 2 is F-stop or aperture (pupil size of the lens). Too big and your depth of focus goes to heck like trying to read in the dark. Too small a hole and you get a really deep focal field (depth) but you loose a LOT of light with a pin hole in your lens.

Seat 3 is shutter speed. Too fast and not enough light will get in. Too slow and you get a blur, (or a time exposure if your on a tripod with the other two seats on this teeter totter set right.

All seats working together properly is the forumula for any particular light situation.

Flash…. 1, 2, 3, 4 boom. Slightly less than a mile away hitting lower than the ridge I was on but in my Jeep Grand Cherokee enjoying the show

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Lighting Up the Landscape

Posted on October 22, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Checkerboard Butterfly Eye

I managed to get an “eyebrow” image of this feeding butterfly with a Checkerboard Eye. Stealth and not getting between it and the sun (make a shadow) which butterflies tend to fly off from….. Too bad focus depth on a camera that is about an inch away from the subject has a very short depth of field (focus zone). That is a Lady Bug behind it at the tip of it’s “nose”. I was very interested in it’s eye though. Pretty cool stuff the little things..😊

Location: Under one of the Apple trees, Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands