RainbowTuesday Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on August 19, 2020August 11, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Windmill and the Rainbow

Late afternoon Rainbows are steep and tall. So is “Sneaky Pete” the Windmill as he photobombs my Rainbow capture. I have no control over his actions. I find that “Sneaky” is disproportionately present as a foreground object in my “Close / Far” perspectives. Part of that is he hangs out about 100 yards behind my north fence. It is the closest working windmill to my place. Secondarily, he really likes the publicity or so I have heard. But don’t let it go to his head. Being famous someday is his goal. I just capture photons in my traps.. 👅

This was actually a big storm so I was staying off the muddy two tracks. Trucks destroy two tracks if it is wet out even light trucks like “Clever Girl”. If it rains over a 1/10th of an inch, I stay on the trails limiting myself to better trails that have been graveled or the county road. I maintain a mile or so of graveled road that I have in various places on the ranch. Those will get me far but not necessarily up on a ridge. Only ridge one (the ridge behind the windmill) has a gravel road to it’s peak.

You can see from the color of the grass how frickin’ dry it is up here at the moment. It’s wetter just east of here. It’s dryer to the south. These summer storms either hit your or miss you. Four possibilities when summer Mesocyclones come through the area. Your getting nothing but a show. One, it might squash you with hail. Two, your might just catch fire from the electricity . The forth possibility is you get a nice shower but those have been rare on the roulette wheel of precipitation this summer. I got a some water, a rainbow and some wind out of this storm. Fair deal… ☯

Windmill Junkies Unite: Windmill Weekday 🤘

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

Title: Windmill and the Rainbow

Posted on July 21, 2020July 14, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Rainbow with a Bite

This was the last of the last light of the day making it’s way to the storm. I was using time exposures AND a lightning trigger to make my life easier catching both phenomena in the same frame. Mostly rare Red Rainbows are only formed by the long traveled “Belt of Venus” pink light. Hundreds of miles travel through the low blanket of air surrounding the earth prevents longer light wavelengths from passing. To quote a literary Grey Wizard (at that time) “You Shall Not Pass” (classical reference).

This one was just a quick 50,000 amp or so discharge in the hills back to my southeast. I always go up those hills the next morning to look around. I have to verify there isn’t a fire smoldering in a log somewhere.

Photographic Musings:

This storm system was late in the day for me to see this much. I mentioned time exposure but it was only about 2 seconds. Camera work is all about balancing light between the three settings you need to understand in manual mode. Shutter speed you have control of as one of them. A longer shutter gives you more light to play with. It was very windy at this capture with the truck (my tripod) was shaking. Much over a few seconds was impossible. Faster shutters than 1/2 second and you might miss some of lightning with often ripples through clouds over 1/2 second.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands

Title: Rainbow with a Bite

Posted on June 16, 2020June 9, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Rainbow Road to the Storm

This road actually does lead to right about where that rainbow touches down in a round about way. I followed this storm for some time. It’s actually a double rainbow but you have to look. The orders of colors reverse themselves in a double rainbow. This is all about the composition though having the rainbow is a nice spiff eh? 😀 📷

There are literally thousands of miles of backcountry county roads here. County road surface upkeep is highly variable from place to place. Some roads in this area are better maintained than others lolol. The quality of the roads certainly depends on how much revenue flows to the Road and Bridge Dept. in the particular county your driving through. Within 15 miles of my ranch I can drive into 2 different states and 4 counties. (2 in each state). Each has it’s own road department and quirks of road quality.. I haveexperience on my own ranch buying gravel for driveways. A single semi pulling a trailer full of gravel is expensive. Delivered to my place is around 900 dollars. Most of the expense is the distance. Imagine how many truck fulls of gravel it took to cover thousands of miles of roads here in the backcountry.

This is a road that is indeed very well maintained. Advice to the wise planning on driving off the Interstate onto the back road system of Wyotana. Have Tire repair kits, good spare(s) lots of steel in your sidewalls of your tires, lots of gas, supplies for a week and generally a hard map, GPS and satellite phone in your kit. Go nowhere without several days of water in your vehicle. That is if you get off the highways. You need to add a lot more defensive gear these days to drive on the Interstates lolol.

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

Title: Rainbow Road to the Storm