thursday Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on June 4, 2020May 26, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Belt of Venus across Mesocyclone

The sunset main show over my shoulder is usually yellow (ish) orange or red. This sunset backshow spread across a huge Mesocyclone storm is Pink. This pink band is called the “Belt of Venus” which is often on going behind you watching a sunset. More so up here in the high ridges of the Montana / Wyoming borderlands. It you don’t turn around now and then, you miss this show. This one was fairly hard to miss though lol. These storms can be 100 miles across. I’d estimate this one is about 100 miles distant from my camera. You can see a LONG ways from the tops of the ridges around this ranch.

Your actually seeing the pink band (red light) surviving the long trip through the earth’s curved atmospherics lens. The storm colorized by that most tortured light shows the gradients well. The Blue Line / Shadow UNDER the Pink is the Shadow of the earths horizon. As the sun sets in this time line, that blue band grows upward covering the storm as the sun drops further below the opposite horizon behind me. The top of the storm is still white as the light that high still has it’s blue components unfettered by the atmosphere. The storm is an ultimate projector screen for the light shone on it from our star. Color banding courtesy of mother nature. 👀🤘📷

Several image from this particular evening made it through the “sieve” I use to determine which photo to work on. They will work their way into my portfolio with time. I’m about 8 days from taking a photo to publishing the page with the narrative in my current work flow. During this spring I’ve been finishing 4 photos a day. I finished 6 a day most of the winter. I don’t think I can do that to my current standards this winter. We will see…

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Belt of Venus across Mesocyclone

Posted on May 28, 2020May 20, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Reflections Backcountry Artesian Pond

Taken about 12 days ago from this post, narrative written 8 days ago.. Such is my work flow these days. Present future and past reflections a this remote wetlands echo back to us in time and space. A Cottonwood Tree covered dam built many decades ago. A spring fed pond is home to many a gorgeous vista. It will have many more. Each sunset/sunrise is a new pallet of color for me to explore.

I have so many choices of where to pursue the limited time I have to chase the light. Because the wind was dead calm at the homestead. The flags were slag. I thought that a trip a few miles into the backcountry to get to this place would worth the investment of time and gas. .

“Backcountry” …. I’ve defined the term before and for all the time. OK, Here’s how it goes…

This little “Heaven on Earth” is 2 miles of bumpy two track dirt/grass road from the nearest county road. That county road is crushed red scoria (“Clinker”) gravel. Generally local gravel travel over well maintained roads is a dusty pleasure. I point out that these roads are fodder for “Clever Girl”. She eats them up. 🤔👀

So… upon gaining the county gravel, it is 14 miles of curvey / hilly 1.5 lane road to the closest asphalt paved two lane highway. . It is 70 miles to the nearest 4 way 3 color traffic light but there is a 4 way red light 50 miles away lolol. Back far away from population…. = Backcountry or at least that is my definition. My nearest neighbor is about 4 miles away. 2 people per square mile density in this area while there are several hundred cows in the same area. Cattle Country with Dinosaur Bones. …. There certainly are more remote areas of North America but not a lot of difference from those to the lifestyle of living in the “backcountry”.

This spot is about 200 yards from the Montana/Wyoming Border and it has a bit of both states in the image as do most of my photos.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Reflections Backcountry Artesian Pond

Posted on April 23, 2020April 16, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Watching Natures Cathedral

I call this kind of sunset with divergent crepuscular rays a “Crown Sky”. The rays reminding me of a royal crown but it is also suggestive of a massive cathedral with a starburst at the focal point. I really don’t see too many of these. Considering the nature the particular environmental conditions necessary to create this.

OK here’s how it work. The light from the sun is passing under the lowest cloud bank just on top of the white disk. That light is stopped by the shape of the puffy bottom of the cloud surface. This creates shadows on the clouds/ice toward the camera. The “Rays’ you are seeing are the opposite of the shadow lineson the foreground of the effect. The lit up parts of the rays are illuminated by the light passing under that lower cloud bank. So that clouds bumpy surface profile is reflecting off the cloud deck. As a final “nice tough” here of course also has to be some falling ice crystals (hexagonal plates falling oriented like parachutes) to light up to really make it pop like this. So several things have to be happening at just the right time for this phenomena to occur.

I’ve seen these rays pointing upward like this capture as well as in a down facing divergent crown. I watch a lot of sunset/sunrises and I’d say these occur at a 1 in 500 rate or so. I have a handful of Crown Sky Captures over my travels.

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

Title: Watching Natures Cathedral

Posted on April 16, 2020April 10, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Forest Framed Full Moon

The joy of my work is that I get to see scenes like this. There of course is some discipline involved being up on those high ridges I frequent chasing light. Mostly it involves just kicking my legs over the side of the bed and getting up. I rise up pretty early in the summer with very short nights coming my way. Working the light often involves short nights. I might go third shift this summer and stay up from sundown to sun up, sleep during the day. It’s possible this is a better schedule for me as I’ve done it the old way for years lol.

Photographic Musings:

The Close / Far Perspective in Low light is a function of how low the light is (chuckle). On the one or two mornings a month when the sun is rising coterminously with the moon setting, I hope to get a window to the moon. When I saw this cloud band cut across the Lunar Disk I figured that was the end of the show. Fortunately that was an incorrect conclusion.

I photographed this moon until it sank into the notch on the ranch on the right. Having prepositioned myself to position it setting in that notch. I find I am easier to move that either the ridge or the moon so you have to be accomodating to the Physics of the moment… 😜. This was a 250mm lens. I can bring to bear 1200 mm on that horizon for an up close and personal look. Posted in another place of course. Knowing where the moon is going to set is a simple matter of exploring a search of “Moon Compass” in Google. At least one of those sites will tell you where and when it will set. Then all you have to do is decide where to be when it sets. Being able to set and read a sighting compass to correct for Magnetic Declination changes will help in this endeavor. I use my personal 40 year old Brunton™ Geologists compass for such things. 🤔👀📷

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

Title: Forest Framed Full Moon

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

Blue Reflections at Sunset

Blue is a rare color scheme from my cameras. I don’t work blue skies very often mid day . Most nights around the solstice (as here) are brightly colored. IT was an odd night. But the wind was dead calm. I thought that a trip a few miles into the backcountry to get to this place would worth the trip.

Backcountry…. I use the term all the time. OK, Here’s how it goes…

This pond is 2 miles of bumpy two track road from the county road passing through a seriously hard wire gate to pass through. Tight bastard it is… The nearest county road is gravel, it is 14 miles then to the closest paved road. It is 70 miles to the nearest 4 way 3 color traffic light but there is a 4 way flashing red light 50 miles away lolol. Back far away from population…. = Backcountry or at least that is my definition. My nearest neighbor is about 4 miles away. This spot is right at about 200 yards from the Montana/Wyoming Border and it has a bit of both states in the Image as do most of my photos.

The Dam was built by cowboys probably 100 years ago. Located directly on the Miles City to Newcastle Cattle Drive Route, many a herd over nighted at this spot historically. Wetlands are rare this high up the ridge. The crack in the earth that that lets the aquifer leak into this puddle is hundreds of feet deep into the Fox Hill Formation (The Beach sand of the Dinosaurs). I’m still looking for a fossil beach umbrella…..😜

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Blue Reflections at Sunset

Posted on March 5, 2020March 6, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Moon Set Belt of Venus

This is a deep photo lol. The Depth of Field (DOF) is very thick. Getting all this in focus is a technical thing that can be done in Manual mode as long as your camera is capable of the dynamic range required to get all this detail. These Sony Alpha 7R series have silly good ability in low light as you might have noticed following my work.

I always rant and rave against deeply blue snow which is (in my opinion) a very very very rare natural color only in EARLY civil Twilight.. Pink however does reflect off ice like a movie projector screen even after sunrise.. Pink is common relatively IF you have a set of mountains named (for real) the “Red Hills”. I wonder why they are called the “Red Hills”. 🤔

I see pink Belt of Venus” (BOV) Alpenglow light hitting the ground “Fairly” regularly in the winter. Normally at sunrise you just see the BOV as a pink band in the western sky just before sunrise. The shadow of the earth’s horizon being a shrinking with the rising sun, blue wedge under the pink band. With the sun arisen behind the camera above the horizon, that red light surviving traveling hundreds of miles through low angle atmosphere. It is the camera that is in shadow of the horizon. That shadow was moving at close to 1000 miles per hour toward me. (25,000 miles around the earth, 24 hours in a rotation = 1000 mph. Chasing the sunrise is a fools game unless your in a supersonic jet.

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

Title: Moon Set Belt of Venus

Posted on December 5, 2019November 30, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Cowboy Peace Offering

A Cowboy Peace Offering is for the long run

Just before the horizon rose to cover the sun

Only then is the cowboys work almost done.

Putting his horse away is just one

Of Several chores left undone

When or when do they have time for fun?

Frank Bliss (2019)

I don’t do much poetry but that may change as I get images like this that push me that way. I’ve been watching cowboys up here for two decades. I am definitely NOT a cowboy. I do however respect the heck out of the profession. If you think you know what hard work is, try putting up a mile of barbed wire fence mid summer. How about hay bales…ever picked those up? . Have you ever had to get an injured calf away from it’s angry mother to treat it? Does anyone out there think working outside all day, driving stock, fixing water sources and dealing with horses is easy? I’ve done a little of all those things. Has anybody here chased a 2K pound bull with a 500 pound ATV by bumping his rump with it? I will personally confirm to you that crash bars are a good thing for a 4 wheeler on a ranch.

I know many people that have been cowboys all their lives. This is cattle country up here in the Wyoming/Montana borderlands. Part of the American Redoubt we are. The cowboy lifestyle as far as I can tell is as good an existence as any I’ve experienced in my 9 professional careers I’ve had during my life.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Cowboy Peace Offering

Posted on November 28, 2019November 21, 2019 by Frank Bliss

Splish Splash Takin’ a Bath

Splish Splash Takin’ a Bath is another one of those “candid” Game Trail Camera captures. I get SOOOO many interesting behaviors with them….

Satire: This of course is the winner of the Bliss Ranch All Ungulate High Diving Competition. She will move on with that win to the rest of the scheduled Triathlon this fall. The Pronghorn Team finished second and the White Tails were YET again a no show at the dive site. They will probably show up tomorrow . 😜😜😂

Back to my “normal programming:

I have never imagined that I would see a deer splashing through one of my stock tanks. According to the camera, it was 38 degrees outside at this “bath”. We keep 4 or 5 stock tanks open all year obviously just for this purpose lolol. . I’ve placed game trail cameras around most water holes for a long time. I’ve never ever seen a wildling go into a stock tank before. . The only thing I can figure out it was an escape attempt from an buck possibly off camera.

I looks to me that it was more or less in a hurry to get out. The water however is probably warmer than the air since the input is 55 degrees pretty much year round. The top often freezes but that actually keeps the rest of the tank from being solid. A high pressure jet you see on the right works very well most of the winter. The heavy rubber in the recycled 10 foot diameter tire tank is fairly insulative against the cold.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Splish Splash Takin’ a Bath

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

BigHorn Sun Over the Notch

Weather this year has been cooperative in getting the Setting BigHorn Sun over the Notch between the 13,000 foot high peaks.

The Sun apparent motion is from left to right as well as down so it actually set on the peaks to the right. It’s kind of tricky to figure out where to set up for an image like this. I’m WAY out away from the range at 130 miles for this shot and the area in the sky this image covers is tiny. Hold up your thumb at an arms length and your covering it from where I am. Those are HUGE peaks, they just get smaller as I move away. The sun doesn’t change size so quickly lolol.

This sky was a Sunslit. The sun came down from the thick cloud deck above to light up the narrow strip of the sky. The relative difference in dynamic range of the bright sun and the much less bright land makes silhouettes. My eyes could have seen details in the land if I wasn’t totally blinded by the sun at that moment.

I remind you it’s not the sun that is setting. It’s the horizon that is rising. Things are as they are, not as they seem or as you were told. This is the basis science works off of. The trick is to determine how they are … The essence of discovery is the effort to discern the way things actually work. Electricity comes out of the wall right?

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: BigHorn Sun over the Notch

Posted on November 7, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Book of Snowflakes

Reading a Book of Snowflakes

There are actually 3 if not 4 flakes in this thin book of snowflakes. The temperature/humidity/pressure has to be just so for books to form. They can all crow from the same center ice needle. Each flake of course is unique in the book. Sitting on a coats fur collar, this flake has long since turned to ice in a pile or has sublimated from solid to gas directly. IT’s been a winter so far of mostly ice pellets. About 6 snows in October I think.. Our air is dry here and sublimation is a major source of snow disappearance by a direct phase change. Captured in a tiny tiny moment of time and space. Forever now launched in Cyberspace as once it’s on Facebook, it’s stored until the internet finally crashes lol.

Setting the proper mood:

There are hundreds of names for snow, you say,
unlatching the fortochka in the morning light.
Let’s name them all, love, along the way.

Last night snow danced its boreal ballet
of whorls and swirls, fine arabesques in white—
you know hundreds of names for snow, you say.

Down crystalline paths we slip and spin, surveying
ice falls, tall drifts, single flakes in flight—
my love and I count them along the way.

In my head, sparking visions start to play:
once love’s begun, who knows? Perhaps we might—
There are hundreds of names for snow, you say,

gently, their meanings subtle, hard to convey—
elusive as love’s many meanings last night.
I wait. You walk—silent—along your way.

Feeling foolish, unschooled, I whisk away
a sudden, childish tear obscuring my sight.
You know hundreds of names for love, you say:
I’ll learn them all, love, along my way.

— Katherine E. Young : Public Domain

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Location: Montana/Wyoming borderlands.

A Book of Snowflakes

Posted on October 24, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Green Iridescent Bee on an Aster in Autumn

The Green Iridescent Bee is gathering pollen from this surviving Aster after the freezes of late. This may be one of the last outdoor insect photos of this year.

This little guy is about 1/4 of an inch long total so this is an “UltraMacro” shot with a 2x mag factor at about 1 inch distance from the bee. There are lights around the optic so the slight yellow colorcast is due to that. I corrected it best I could without washing out the actual yellow of it’s body.

How to get 1 inch away from a bee….patience, and it is very much of a photo-yoga application. Smooth movements with no sudden changes of direction help tremendously lolol. Second finished image from this Photosession timeline and is a 2×3 aspect up to 36 high.

Location; Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 24, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

“Son: Some Day All This Will Be Yours”

Father/Son Talk..”Son, someday all this will be yours”. In the mean time ever vigilant mom watches their back while they have some quality family time right on the crest of a blind hill way on a remote county road. I stopped way back knowing I didn’t want to interrupt that family conference so I waited patiently…. figured I might as well take a photo….😂

This photo is of course an imaginary Pronghorn Family as the affiliation of the doe with the Buck is very transitory lol. The fawn will stay with the doe through the winter and weaned before the birth of her current bun in her oven. There were other does about too so he’s definitely not monogamous…..

The Pronghorn rut is over at this time so most of that business is taken care of by now. It’s time for them to migrate about 20 miles to the south. The Thunderbasin Natural Grasslands is a miniature version of the Serengeti Plain here in north eastern Wyoming. (Fewer Big Cats) Not so much in the summer but in the winter there are LARGE herds of Pronghorn that move there from a pretty big surrounding area to winter over the brutal conditions that we enjoy about this region.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 24, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Sunset Through an Inversion Layer

This Portrait Aspect 2×3 perspective was taken as the Sun was setting through an obvious inversion layer over the “Little Powder River” Valley.

Of course the local Photobomber “Sneaky Pete” the windmill had to get himself into the scene. He craves attention. (Complex years long narrative here if you don’t get it lolol)

Windmill Junkies Unite: Missed Windmill Wednesday so here is Windmill Weekday.🤘 …and be careful… don’t let your mother know you look at stuff like this….😂

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 24, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Tachinid Fly: A Gardeners Best Friend

Tachinid Flies are indeed a gardeners best friend. They are parasitic in their larval life stage of course and their favorite target are major insect pests to the garden. They eat pollen etc but kill pests with their larva. They are not mammal flesh eating flies per se.
I had to laugh about the hairy butt but there must be a reason lololol.

Location: in the garden (even after several hard freezes below 20 degrees). Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 17, 2019October 11, 2019 by Bliss

Sunset Across the Little Powder River Valley

This cool Sunset across the Little Powder River Valley with the Sun lighting up the fog/inversion layer was quite hard to capture. The sun was actually quite bright in the sky and the fog barely illuminated. Tough to bring out of the shadow (low exposure area)…
These Sony Alpha 7 Cameras are high/low light monsters. I strongly suggest one if your doing sunrises/sunset photography.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 17, 2019October 11, 2019 by Bliss

Clear Sky Sunrise from the Borderland Wetlands

Just before the Snow moved in, I took this Clear Sky Sunrise from the Borderlands and one of our lakes up there. This spot is about 100 yards from Montana and some of the sky is Wyoming…some Montana since the sun was essentially rising straight east at the time.

This is a good place to be at sunrise. Lots happening out here. Birds all waking up, getting airborn for the day to head south.

I’m seeing big flocks of birds head south now.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 17, 2019October 11, 2019 by Bliss

Aquaponic Orchid and Praying Mantis Hunting

This is another image from that Mantis that I saved from a for sure drowning. I randomly walked past a stock water tank and saw this guy floundering stuck in a carpet of floating algae strings. It took a few minutes to detangle him preferably without ripping his limbs off. he spent the next 10 minutes inside my palm warming up and once released into the jungle like humidity and temp of our underground greenhouse (Walipihni), he started chewing off the algae still wrapping his claws.

This was taken a week after that when he was happily crawling along the tops of some of the orchids I grow down in the Walipini looking for Lady bugs no doubt lol. The lady bugs hunt everything else…

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

Posted on October 10, 2019October 2, 2019 by Bliss

Backcountry Rainbow Spanning the Wyoming/Montana Border

Spanning the Montana/Wyoming border with Montana on the left, this backcountry rainbow was fun the other day.. This little storm got me quite wet. The cameras where a challenge to keep dry for this one. Had to wipe a lot of lenses lol.

Location: Backcountry ridge 2, Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 10, 2019October 2, 2019 by Bliss

Slack Flags in Wyoming (Rare) but Snow Not So Much!

I saw an extremely rare event the other morning about 6AM, Slack flags in Wyoming are Rare but snow….not so much lolol. It’s going to be a long winter……(I’m predicting about a decade but it could be 100 years). :).

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 10, 2019October 2, 2019 by Bliss

“Here’s Looking at You Kid” or is He Looking at the Sunrise?

Buck Silhouette But Which Way is He Looking?

Which Way is he Looking, This Buck Silhouette is confusing to me as to which way he is looking. Is he looking away or toward the camera? Don’t confuse grass highlight for body contours now lol. This one is a real mind bender. I know which way and MIGHT tell 😎

Getting a nice buck between yourself and a good sunrise? Priceless.❤️

The illusion is caused by the telephoto’s ability to destroy perspective. This is a very long shot, the deer looks HUGE…BUT the sun that would be currently rising behind the hill is way bigger than he is in apparent size.

If I had a 10 foot ladder to get up on from where I was standing for this capture….there would be a rising sun behind deer shot….The topography prevented this obviously lol.. My point is, the sun would appear to be wider than the buck is so he is actually being illuminated/highlighted literally on both sides making it essentially impossible to figure out which way he was looking. Very much of a rarified optics environment/opportunity for a odd ball capture as this.. This is an Optical Illusion distantly related to divergent light rays (crepuscular/anticrepuscular rays) and camera optics.. plus apparent/relative sizes. The physics behind a capture like this is just amazing to me.

Ambiguity is hard to catch as an image (I was about to write “on film”🤣) (RLT’s) or Really Long Telescope Lenses absolutely CRUSH perspective.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 10, 2019October 1, 2019 by Bliss

One Legged Meadowlark Singing in the Snow

This One Legged Meadowlark is singing while it’s snowing. I actually took this same birds photo way earlier in the summer not 100 feet from this capture on a main electric wire. It’s the same one legged bird for sure about seen about 3 months apart.

All the Meadowlarks were having a tough time finding a place to land. Every available perch was taken as the ground had 4 inches of wet snow on it and these guys need to migrate for the winter. They are gathering into small groups.

That wire he’s on is a 9Kvolt Stock electric fence wire . He standing on an insulator not an inch from that wire. The rebar that holds the insulator is effectively grounded so anything that touches that wire AND the rebar at the same time would get a wake up call. (He’d survive it but he wouldn’t like it). Good thing he only has one foot because a bird with 2 feet might easily complete that circuit lolol.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.