THursdayMontana Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on June 15, 2021January 14, 2021 by Frank Bliss

Forest Light Through the Pall

So I’m out “enjoying” the smoke in the air and I see this. Click. It was thick and a knife might cut it. But only if it were a big knife. lol

The shadows and the light are always interesting back in the pines. We have about 3 hundred acres of Jack Pines and Cedars on ranch. Most of the rest of this place is either gully, ridge top or grassy flats. All of it is good for cattle grazing at various times of the year . I’m not sure this air is good for man nor beast. I had asthma as a child but this hasn’t given me much trouble “yet”. I’ve fought quite a few forest fires and have been in much thicker. I might start wearing a mask up here just for this.

On a good note, the recent freeze (last week) has let the fighters catch up locally. The whole nation is getting seriously smoked with 90 major fires in 13 states. An area the size of Connecticut has burned in total I understand. That’s 5,500 square miles or there about… Wow. To put that in perspective: Campbell County Wyoming where I live spans 4800 square miles and this is just one county in Wyoming. That is a very large area to burn I point out.

God Bless to all those displaced by these fires. Be safe all and get ready to move fast if called to.

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

Title: Forest Light Through the Pall

Posted on June 15, 2021January 14, 2021 by Frank Bliss

Landscape Funnel to the Sunset

I’m always riding parallel ridges working the shadow line. I see some amazing silhouettes daily. The peculiar red light affiliated with forest fire smoke is characteristic. The low ground effect slowly giving way from yellow tinted clouds to white tinges on the clouds straight up. This is sort of a gradient with a broken projector screen only reflecting parts and pieces of the smooth transitions of color. If you see the “All Seeing Eye of Provenance” that the sun creates here, consider yourself in good company. You Masons out there should pick that right up on this lol. All it needs is a triangle around it.

The smokey sunsets of late have been a boom for me with orange color. If you’ve seen the orange skies making national news a week back, There have been some afternoons around here where it was indeed VERY orange. The crowd in the big west coast cities just aren’t used to it so it’s news there. Being under smoke, one experiences very subdued lighting. A LOT of ranchers are discovering the weakness in solar voltaic water pumps with this sky. Also the renewable crowd in California are figuring that out as well. If a smoke Pall covers the sky, solar panels won’t run much. I’ve had a 4000 watt solar array feeding my electric “cloud” and sending back to grid for 20 years. I bought my first solar 30 years ago. Some of that is still running but not as well under smokey skies.

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

Title: Landscape Funnel to the Sunset

Posted on September 17, 2020September 9, 2020 by Frank Bliss

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

Posted on September 11, 2020September 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sun Bouncing Down Boulders

(Satire)

There are some technical hurdles necessary to capture something like this lol. First, you have to wait for the sun, done with it’s day, to start rolling down the hill to catch it “thunking” over the boulders for those last few “steps”. The Smoke has to be thick in the air filtering out all but the yellow through red wavelengths. The Black is for free.

You see, this is what actually happens over the horizon. I bet you thought the sun falls below the horizon to fly clear around the earth for it’s morning appointment with dawn. In reality as I show here, the sun disappears only to take the steps instead of slowly floating around the globe. Remember it has to be all the way on the other side of the planet in the morning and the stairs through the center must be the fastest way. Don’t go around, go through must be the plan…

IT takes a LONG lens to reach “over the horizon”…… (snickering). (drats…. my emoticons aren’t working at the moment on this program).

SO at any rate, no is the time to return to my normal programming lolol.

As I type this a 45 mph wind from the Northwest is bringing DENSE smoke down from a fire up in Montana 80 miles away. The air quality went from good to terrible in 30 minutes. It has stayed poor or worse since the start. We are under a Red Flag warning. No sparks needless to say. Humidity out currently say 18 percent….. Wow. (Note: this was written a week before it publishes).

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

Title: Sun Bouncing Down Boulders

Posted on September 10, 2020September 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Buck Heard the Click

It took me almost 5 months to collect this image from one of the 29 game trail cameras I keep running in the Wyotana backcountry. They usually take relatively crappy images, blurred, too dark or too light, or just off frame. Each and every image I get off a 150 dollar Game Trail Camera has a host of issues that a 3 thousand dollar camera doesn’t. Of course, I don’t have to leave a 3K dollar camera out in the elements either lololol. I have to fix each game camera image I post within the digital dark room. I literally have to look at 1000 or more images to get one that even has a prospect of making it into my portfolio. This is one such photos. This is very close to the camera for it to be in focus in this moderate light.

I’m thinking he heard the “Click/whir/sound of the camera. This particular camera has a 360 degree circle sensor. If it senses movement anywhere around it, the camera literally swings around inside of the gadget to take a photo in that direction. So it makes a little whirly noise and a click when it goes. I like them because they cover a HUGE area from all angles. I can put one 360 degree game camera out versus 3 or 4 regular game cameras. Humm, tough choice…

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

Title: Buck Heard the Click

Posted on September 10, 2020September 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Front Row Seat Sunset

The horizon is a ridge 40 miles out. Those bumps are full grown pine trees making the saw teeth on the horizon. The perspective is deceiving. The area of the sky covered in this image is about the size of a postage stamp at arms length. Telescopic lenses literally give you a front row seat by crushing distance and thusly perspective you perceive. Such large celestial objects are possible. The relative apparent sizes mess with you… This actually makes the trees look HUGE relative as the sun. 863,000 miles across for that sphere, 50 feet for the tree. Based on that comparison, the sun must only be a few thousand feet tall. (shaking head side to side)…. Early Scientists/observers had it rough. They came up with the “Flat Earth” theories….

All the smoke in the atmosphere these days is good only for photography. Giving me crimson, yellow and black as my entire color pallet to capture. Three color, color schemes are fairly hard to find in nature typically. You have to narrow your search with the telephoto. There was a MUCH bigger sunset on going all around this close up. Many more colors started to appear. But when looking directly into the furnace, you only capture what light makes it to the camera. The smoke stopping ALL colors but Red/Yellow =Orange from making it to my photon traps. I can only record what is sent my way after all . I’m pretty sure that the time spent watching backcountry sunsets is not taken off your life’s timeline by the powers that be. It’s all free time….

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

Title: Front Row Seat Sunset

Posted on September 10, 2020September 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Mirror Mirror Cloud Art

All work and no play makes Frank a dull boy. This is ART. Did I mention it’s art?. Viper Sky

But I really didn’t do that much to the original image which is a legit Sunset taken from my back yard. I typically can instantly visualize a sky that has been mirrored back on itself in the camera. This one, I saw the possibilities for mirror art before the camera is even involved lol. This is the same photo seamlessly folded back on itself like two mirrors at 45 degrees to each other. The left 1/2 was the original image.

In my Pareidolia infected mind, I see a large Snake with big fangs about to reach out and touch. Alternately there is a WONDERFUL Bearded Old Mans face dead center top frame. I never know what is going to magically appear at the “totem pole” that is usually formed at the “crease” where the two images are merged. I take great care to precisely align the center. Clouds and Trees are my favorite visual materials for this kind of photography and post click mirroring. I did very little to the image after the fact. If you have white clouds AND yellow/golden clouds in the same image. There isn’t much color manipulation that has occurred even though this is art and I have no rules.

This was a storm at sunset with rain falling but evaporating before it was hitting the ground. This is otherwise known as Virga. That would be a good google word for the morning … Have a great day all…

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands.

Title: Mirror Mirror Cloud Art

Posted on September 3, 2020August 28, 2020 by Frank Bliss

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

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Posted on September 3, 2020August 28, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Mule Deer Family Portrait

Overall it’s a fairly excellent photo from a game trail camera (GTC). Each and every one that I finish takes a lot of attention to detail to fix the issues inherent with GTC images. Finishing them this well takes a LOT of luck. This is Jane Doe and Twins in the early summer.

I’ve been watching them all year and they are currently starting to loose their spots. Probably should name them as they are going to be future stars of my photography. You can’t see it here but one of them has a chunk out of it’s ear which makes it easily identifiable. The other one will present a problem to differentiate from another random doe. No Notches on her. Jane’s left ear is slit nicely which makes her easy to discern in the crowd. I ran across these guys the night before I typed this narrative.

Of late I’ve been collecting most of the “Chips” (SD cards) from my network of Game Trail Cameras (29 currently I think)…I only see some of them once a year or so depending on where I planted it. Collecting them spread out over s 6 square mile area is a chore. So I can’t visit every location in one day. Usually I do this over a week in the later summer. Then I look at THOUSANDS of random automatic camera images (99 percent crap) over several days. Just occasionally I get a good one. This particular 360 degree sensing camera is planted nearby a path to a stock tank that this particular family unit waters. It literally will detect and take a photo anywhere in the full circle (not a panorama). Normally it takes 3 or 4 cameras to properly cover a likely spot.

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

Title: Mule Deer Family Portrait

Posted on September 3, 2020August 28, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Hail Shaft Incoming

Boy I was traveling and I sure didn’t want to get under that. It’s hard to predict the motion of something like this and drive at the same time. You have to stop. Which is where it overtook me. It’s about 7 miles away from me at this point and heading right my way. I weathered the storm behind a stand of large well needled pine trees. Trees are of course a dangerous place to be during lightning but this really wasn’t an electrical storm. I was on rubber tires so I wasn’t too worried about ground currents in the truck. It was definitely a hail storm and that was a VERY heavy shaft of rain/hail. I call that a “Water DUMP” .

When streams run up here high on the ridges, there is going to be high water down drainage for sure. All this surface area really adds to the number of gallons concentrated in the valleys. Some canyons off this ridge are a hundred feet deep cut into the Cretaceous Sandstones underlaying my parking place. I saw more running water after this passed than I’ve seen in years. The hail was small marble sized fortunately but we got a bit of it. There are many more (many) more photos from this weather event’s timeline.

The events in the aftermath of this were VERY interesting to me. I saw some phenomena I haven’t seen in decades. Click, Click, Click, Click …. So many choices, so little time ….

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

Title: Hail Shaft Incoming

Posted on September 3, 2020August 28, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Windmill Smokey Sun Fading

The air was quite unhealthy. Similar to smoking outside except one can’t get fresh air between puffs. There are a variety of health effects with a new study indicating even “Gut” health is related to air quality of all things. The SUN (not the moon) was setting into the Pall… Close/Far Perspective with Smoke Filter… Not a condensation cloud in the sky, this is ALL ground level smoke.

There are hundreds of fires burning in the west. Many in California but every western state has something burning. Most are lightning related other might be a bit more suspicious. None the less the smoke has spread far and wide to the point where my copy of “Weatherwall™” shows me where it is the thickest. Some of the applications out there now will actually have a choice to select where the fires are. The map is covered…😔

I have only had to fight one fire this year so far fortunately. I understand the forecast is for cold weather. This is a good thing lowering the fire danger considerably. Last night was a .2 rain here with a hard rain surrounding us. There isn’t much grass to burn in this area due to drought and grasshoppers eating what’s left. Basically it doesn’t pay to run the tractor and other equipment to harvest hay. It’s very desert like this year. We normally get 14 inches a year mostly in the spring. This year the spring did not deliver AND the last two months have been VERY HOT and DRY as this narrative is written.

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

Title: Windmill Smokey Sun Fading

Posted on August 27, 2020August 20, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Good Evening All

Dramatic occluded sunsets are typically dark. I present this dark because it was lolol. . It’s the color I was after in the highlights. It was dark enough that the dynamic range (DR) of the camera was apparent. The lack of DR there of is my point I’m thinking. My eye could discern much more detail in this lighting environment. There is a point. When the full sized sun popping through a thin slit on the horizon. Is effective already down. More of a candle light than the furnace it would be with the cloudy obfuscation. Most images would have a completely black / silhouette landscape in this light. Cameras dynamic range is lacking compared to the human eye. There are some that are better than most others lol. Give the technology a few years

There is a LOT of detail in the landscape buried in the “black” . Most of the ground here is 400 feet or so below the hill I chose to climb that evening. Driving up these hills can be challenging, but then the sun goes down and your still up the hill…..😜 One of the few disadvantages of “Clever Girl” versus my old Jeep Grand or even my Polaris Crew Ranger is being able to see over that big hood. IT does have a camera up there though…… 📷 It is also a full foot wider than my Jeep Grand Cherokee so fitting between trees I used to fit through becomes a considered thought process lolol.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands (Wyotana
Title: Good Evening All

Good Evening All

081820C

Posted on August 27, 2020August 19, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Mopping Up Range Fire

This is from the early July fire. Just got to this. The crews that fought our range fire each took on a little part of the blaze. The 20 mph winds didn’t help this job. We emptied our 1000 gallon tank three times during this blaze. Here it is all over but the busy work. We and others just managed to keep this fire out of the trees just over this hill. There are 30 acres of nice north slope pine over that hill top. This tree was slightly singed by the heat. The fire was out above ground but was smoldering /very hot under the pine needles at the base of these trees. We responded to the scene within 15 minutes of me seeing it. I automatically go up on the ridges after a lightning strike.

We had to pull about 300 feet of hose to get back into those trees. The ranch uses a 5 Ton M813 truck with 6 wheel drive, a big old diesel, 10 speeds, transfer case and the works lol. I’m the driver. No air conditioning as I like to know what the crew is doing in the back is experiencing as far as heat and smoke. I could drive through places that those guys on the back might not like too much with the windows up lol. I’m a good driver on air suspension seats which help my bad neck. I wear a brace driving that big boy. It’s a tad accurate in reproducing the uneven ground under the the wheels (It’s bumpy). 54 inch high radials too lolol. One of these days I’ll post a photo of the source of this water stream lol.

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

Title: Mopping Up Range Fire

Posted on August 27, 2020August 27, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Whitetail Doe Right Face

A full frame capture of a Plump White Tail Doe (tending for a young just off screen). Note NO black on the tail? Not a mule Deer plus the ears are not right either. Taken in one of our corrals, there is a watering hole that is open 24/7/365. Many deer winter over due to the presence of flowing water. They would be forced down river to find fast flowing water otherwise. I bet we water 50 critters not counting birds most days over 4 tanks. Each in different location watering an area of about 3 square miles. I’ve built a little water jet that always keeps the tank open (so far through 1 winter). It saves a LOT of money pumping water.

The critters don’t mind at all. I’m waiting for one of my game trail cameras catching someone drinking out of the water jet lol. I’m still trying to figure out how these guys get in and out of the corral. They get into this enclosure earlier than I like to get up. I couldn’t catch them with conventional gear anyway lol. Too dark that time of morning. I use game trail cameras for that kind of thing usually.

I have all sorts of wildlife encounters around the stock water tanks. More time needs to be spend around those tanks. So many hours in the day….

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

Title: Whitetail Doe Right Face

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Posted on August 27, 2020August 19, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Twin Forces of Nature

Close / Far Perspective

If you don’t think one is dangerous and the other isn’t, you need to live up here a while. It would change your opinion. Two things that can mess up your day are in this image lol. You might have to look closer to see the 5 deer and one bedded Pronghorn. The thunderhead (Mesocyclone) Anvil is about 80 miles distant from the Bull. The sub-irrigated field still green even this late in the year.

Bulls are of course known to be temper-mental. I find generally they are lazy unless there is a Cow involved. In which case 1800 pounds of moving muscle on the hoof is a lot of hamburger to flip on the grill. This is the sized animal that if it decides to screw with you, your best bet is to start turning faster than he can lol. It’s your only hope lol. Being on a good cattle horse is a whole different experience of course.

The Huge Mesocyclone off in the distance is known to be temper-mental. Their bad behavior is due to the heating of the land by the sun during the day. The rising warm humid ground air coming into contact with cooler air aloft causing cloud growth. Like the bull, you can never predict what they are going to do.

Both will run right over you if you get in their way :(.

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

Title: Twin Forces of Nature

Posted on August 13, 2020August 8, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Twin Mesocyclones over Wyotana

This pair of 30 mile across spinning tops of a storm called a “Mesocyclone” stretched across the Montana /Wyoming border 20 miles south and 45 miles north to Broadus MT. Internet Radar showed it pretty well considering. We are in a Doppler Radar shadow zone between Rapid City and Billings. These storm showed up paired up which I don’t see too often. Two alien ships approaching as in the movie “Independence Day”.

These Mesocyclones are a curse and a blessing depending on where you are when they go over you. Usually there is a rain shaft or two in them. Sometimes it just rains like heck and the storm parks over you. We got .45 inch from this storm “front” moving through. That is a HUGE amount of water during a very dry summer. We feel fortunate to get it.

If you look at the trees on the landscapes first ridge, you can see the burnt area from recent grass fire on ranch. We BARELY kept it out of the trees on the other side of that hill. Starting on the right, blown to the left It did run about 1/2 a mile. If it had been unattended, it would have made it across the 10 miles to Biddle Montana by the next day. The phone tree worked resulting in neighbors with water/sprayers on their truck coming out of the wood work. It takes a community. 😀

Seen from the hill I climbed after a lighting storm to “look around”. When I first saw it, it was very small. 20 minutes later, the first break in the fire left to right was us driving across in front of it. It still got past our first pass as the 20 mph winds drove it.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands

Title: Twin Mesocyclones over Wyotana

Posted on August 6, 2020July 28, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Backcountry Wyotana Mayan Sunrise

Mayan Pyramids on the Montana border…. Perhaps but the geologist in my pulls my imagination back in lol. Timing and position is a critical factor in this kind of image. The hill top is over a mile away with me watching the sun slowly rise while climbing up its left side. You see the sun moves up yet but it always moves to the right horizontally as well. More “Diagonally” up the sky than straight up.

So I started vividly imagining this unfolding stage play of the Mayan King awaiting the mounting of the sun god on the great pyramid. This “pyramid” is literally located 1/2 way between the Equator and the North Pole. 45 degrees North Latitude about where that tree stump is on the left. This must be a far northern suburb of the Chacchoben, Place of the Red Corn in Yucatec. But wait, the Hill seems to have fossil turtle remains, and dinosaurian parts and pieces in consistently sandstone/mudstone sequences. It is/was not built by stacking man made blocks as ancient cultures were so adept at constructing. Shape is a poor indicator of what things are. As we Pariedoliacs well know eh? The substance has to be there…

Photographic Musings:

The area around the sun is VERY bright. You will need a mirrorless camera as looking into the sun through a DSLR camera could blind you. It’s a direct light path from the sun to your eye. I look at a video screen inside my camera so it’s impossible to blind yourself with one of the mirrorless cameras out there. However I suggest you check with the manufacturer to see if your particular camera can take this kind of abuse. A good use of negative space I think…. 😜

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

Title: Backcountry Wyotana Mayan Sunrise

Posted on July 23, 2020July 18, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Dewey Daddy Long Legs

A Daddy Long Legs spider surrounded by it’s 3 dimensional home/web decorated with hundreds of condensed dew drops was a lucky find. Talk about a harmless spider. (I know, some of you REALLY don’t like spiders). Others buy them as pets. I always thought they were too fragile personally as the big spiders crack like an egg. Some of you may not know my wife and myself ran the only pet shop for 6 years in a big college town. Sold that in 1986…. (one of my 9 professional careers). I have sold a LOT of Tarantulas to Frat Houses before. They seemed to like scorpions too. Needless to say I’ve been bitten, stuck, stung, and otherwise generally chewed on for 6 years by all the exotic stuff that went through our pet store.😜 I was much younger then.

Setting the stage:

We are in the middle of a 6 month long drought. That morning was HEAVILY pea soup fogged. The sun was deeply veiled to the point of the fog filter being quite effective at making this possible. Pointing the camera into the sun to capture darker detail is the challenge. Don’t try this with a DSLR camera. Mirrorless cameras won’t blind you in the process. That is a very bright sun at the top. Looking into the furnace as it were.

So when the relative humidity hits 99.9 percent, dew condenses on any cool object. Droplets in the moving air collide with larger drops nucleating around intersections or rough points in the webbing. Anywhere there is a SLIGHT disruption of otherwise smooth air flow, frost or dew will deposit there. That depends on the temperature. For a good google this afternoon, search “triple point of water” in google and see what comes up.

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

Title: Dewey Daddy Long Legs

Posted on July 23, 2020July 18, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Grasshopper Escape Hungry Fawn

Quality Game Trail Cameras can capture very candid scenes. Each and every image I’ve ever posted from a game trail camera took me a relatively long time to fix problems with them. They have inherent issues built into every one of the .jpg file (image) they put out. But they are, to a one, capable of capturing situations that no one would ever see without those cameras out in the bush. Such as the wonderful result here lol.

I can imagine 100 hillariouis scenarios for this image but I’m thinking that grasshopper was escaping that lizard tongue. Now I’ve seen a LOT of deer tongues over the years. Done some hunting, a little photography, I’ve never seen one quite that much of a flapper before. This is a month and a half old fawn at this capture.

Running a network of 29 cameras (currently) is a matter of keeping manufacturers of AA batteries financially solvent. Cameras I set in the spring are just now starting to get low on power. Now where did I leave that Browning Camera at?. I run into them as I’m back on the ranch. Occasionally I find one I set the previous year and it’s battery dead. Oh the treasures it could contain. The only control you have over those automatic cameras are usually 3 levels of sensitivity to trigger, and 3 levels of flash (close, medium and far). Placing them in the right spot is the game though.

The hardest thing to match colorwise in any Wyotana photography is Sage Brush. Try it. It’s tough to get right .. 📷

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

Title: Grasshopper Escape Hungry Fawn

Posted on July 2, 2020June 25, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Moon Stuck in a Rut

If I’m in the right place at the right time, I often catch the moon pausing on it’s journey to it’s zenith. I’ve even seen it casually reclining on various soft surfaces but not this time. Here’s I caught it stuck in a rocky rut on the way to work. Sometimes it takes a while for someone to come along and give you a push in this country. I’ve seen stretches of “main” road go a day with no traffic before up here. Worse this is in the deep backcountry. Fortunately… Yet again I happened to come along at the perfect time and free the moon up. Saving tidal tables world wide from being off kilter. You can’t delay clock work schedules. All it took was a nudge, a word of encouragement then onward climbing it went. 😜

Photographic Musings:

It was getting fairly dark at this click during the timeline I was working to get this. If I have a clear rising or setting moon, I will try to involve a close / far perspective. Usually this is initiated by a trip out to some backcountry parallel Ridges where I can have multiple horizons just by moving my positions. Distance is always your friend for this kind of work. You want a big length focal length lens. 400mm or greater comes to mind. Also it is good to be at least 300 – 400 yards out (depending on what lens) away from the fore ground object(s). If the moon rises, I walk down the hill I’m on and get another chance at it. If it’s setting, I just climb up a few steps and keep on shooting. Tripods don’t work well for this but a monopod has some applications here.

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

Title: Moon Stuck in a Rut

Posted on June 25, 2020June 19, 2020 by Frank Bliss

WindmillTree and Cloud Filter

Clouds hundreds of miles away accentuate and attenuated this image filtering the light before it reaches my lens.. Various levels of smoke from burning forests, dust and moisutre give western photographers opportunities. I am not ashamed to take advantage of it though my heart goes out to those that the fires impact.

I’ve physically fought my share of grass fires living surrounded by a giant sea of grass. Fires used to burn here from their start to the first snows putting them out. I’ve seen some tremendous sunsets as a benefit to natures actions cleaning up the dead fall that we have allowed to accumulate to dangerous levels.

Photographic Musings:

I’ve said many times before that I don’t use glass filters in front of my lenses. When shooting directly into the sun, the best filters have leftddfff a ghost of the sun in my images. Offset reflective artifacts are not generally welcome to a photographer that tries really hard to be a photorealist. I will occasionally wander using lens reflections/flares in my work, but not here lol. 📷

Big Long Telephoto lenses have a tendency to CRUSH perspective like a compressed accordion . Getting topography, Windmill and Sun all to line up at the same time while at the same elevation as the sail…..not that regular an occurrence lol. I know the topography I work pretty well after ‘working it’ for decades. Knowing the direction the sun is going to rise is a matter of looking it up on google which would be about as far north as the sun gets mid June lol.

Get a compass, a map (in my head by now) and figure out “what two or three things” can line up. I never know WHAT the show is going to be when I go out with cameras. I do usually know WHERE it is going to take place though. 😄

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

Title: WindmillTree and Cloud Filter