Thursdaythoughs Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on May 28, 2020May 19, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Polarized Light Feather Filter

The science of this is a little complex but here it goes. The light source is the late day setting sun but bouncing off my back Ford Raptors hood…you know…glare..😎 That bounce is important though in getting the photo as it effects the light…

The reason you guys buy polarized sun glasses is due to that reflection. When sunlight hits the hood, the light bounces off with a majority of it being horizontally polarized. Mostly all those reflected light waves are in the same plane, not a bunch of randomly oriented waves. The sunglasses you buy are plastic lenses with all vertical lines which only allow in light that is vertically polarized. This blocks all the glare horizontally oriented.

SO that is called “Crossed Polarizers”. A double filter as it were. Take two pairs of polarized sunglasses and cross them at 90 degrees and try to look through them…. They go totally black.

NOW put something between the source of the polarized light (either the hood or the first pair of sunglasses). I used here a delicate transparent feather that will pass light…. It bends/ refracts light a little bit out of that horizontal plane so some of it makes it through the second filter this side of the feather. So you see the colors as a direct result of a single polarizing filter on my lens (hand held and rotated), the camera on a tripod and pre focused. F22, ISO 300 and 1/100th to get your camera close .. It was very bright but the filter cut out 80 percent of the light but you can change that by rotating the back filter…. . 90mm macro.

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

Title: Polarized Light Feather Filter

Posted on April 9, 2020April 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Rising Full Moon Ridge

Perspectives of Close/Far are a favorite pursuit of mine particularly if the Moon is part of the photo. In the gamut of my photography, chasing the moon seems to be a constant. This chase is literally a sub-hobby of mine. Nestled within the larger business of pursuing the possibilities of light on a broad scale. I consider my self to be a landscape photographer. I find myself distracted by any movement or unusual angle most of the time. This Evening the skies had me working at an operational tempo most seal teams would envy. One of the things I try really hard to do during a moon rise this clear is “keep busy” lolol.

A photographer is only as good as his the source of the photons we capture. It’s harder than heck to get the moon to sign a model release I have discovered. The hillside was WAYYYY easier to get to “sign”. This was a cool evening by the way. It was around 15 degrees at the time, 3 inches of snow all over the ranch land.

Remember trying to do a terrestrial object with the moon, distance is your friend with a telephoto. Further back, the hillside would have looked much smaller to the camera. This relative to the moon which would look bigger compared to the normal hillside. Topography is my master.

It was very dark for this and is sort of a time exposure for a full moon. I’m digging seeing the highlights in the grass on either side… First time I’ve see it.

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

Title: Rising Full Moon Ridge

Posted on April 9, 2020April 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

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

Posted on March 26, 2020December 9, 2020 by Frank Bliss

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

Posted on March 5, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

BigHorns Landscape Ladder

This view of a BigHorn Mountains Landscape Ladder was taken 6 months ago. The grassy remote ridge top I was on, gives way to the Little Powder River Valley. The next ridge is the Red Hills backed by the 13000 foot high peaks of the core of the BigHorn Mountain Uplift. The Little Powder RIver Valley and the Powder River Basin lie between the Mountains and my ranch. Geomorphologically, I’m living right on the edge between the Wyoming Black Hills and the Powder River basin. Just west of my ranch, dinosaur fossil Bearing rock that is older than the Big Horn Uplift dive under the sediments worn off the BigHorn Mountains.

Our Ranch is as high topograpically above the Little Powder River Valley Floor as the dark 40 mile distant ridge. It allows me to see the peaks at this 130 mile distance. Weather windows to the BigHorns have been plentiful this year unlike previous ones. The sun is currently setting well north of these peaks from my vantage point at the moment. I won’t see it set over the big V notch until next fall again. The sun will continue to set a little more north each day until June 21’st. Then t starts to rise and set a little further north each day until the Summer Solstice.

I try to be very in tune to such things as my daily photographic activities take into account moon rise, sunsets with the time of year. Angles of sunrise and sunset are critical to where I go these days. Weather has the greatest impact of course.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: BigHorns Landscape Ladder

Posted on March 5, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Waves of Grain

Our here in the high ridges of the borderlands separating Montana / Wyoming there are millions of acres of grasslands. Overhead was a wonderful twilight sky clouded above to an under lit cloud deck. The combination of the two required a foreground for the image to suit me. I adore grass light filters 👀📸

To use the still green seed heads of this prairie grass to grace a veiled sunset is not a new effort but is always a worthy subject. Grass contains such an elegant form. Smooth curves and Geometric forms abound. Over the years I have found that “you are where you are during the final minutes of sunset”. My mind wanders to the “filter materials at hand” for this kind of Close / Far perspective. When your in the middle of a square mile of pasture land, you have to act fast with a wonderful sky /use these seed heads.

I am generally soured on using glass filters in front of my cameras while shooting into the sun so I don’t carry them. I WAY prefer to use “cellulose” filters to reduce the amount of light coming into the lens.. Any photo is a light balancing act inside the camera. You only have just three settings to play with . I suggest to you that it would be good to learn to use that camera on Manual Mode finally. (If you don’t already know how). I am happy to keep talking about HOW I take my photos for you guys to follow. Ask if you have a question. 🤔📷

Oh, I’m using the LED lightbar on the front of my ATV for this shot. Twilight behind.

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

Title: Waves of Grain

Posted on February 20, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Sunset Snow Squall

Sunset Snow Squall (2:1 Diptych is 2-20″x20″ images) A snow filter to the light…..🤔👀📷

This might be a little abstract for my normal viewers. I like the artistic swash of color making its way through a tremendous dumping of snow locally. This was a wonderful moment of orange snowflakes falling heavily everywhere. They were big clusters of merged flakes the size of quarters some were. It was a very wet dump from above. Transitory as such things usually are, lasting about 10 minutes. Then moved on as it was getting quite dark. Time to go home. This storm left an inch on the ground in a very short period of time. Those dots in the sky here are ALL snowflakes from close to infinity frozen in their travels for this moment in space in time.

Here we are mid winter and the snow pack could be deeper. We have been having some smaller snows that are slowly adding up in accumulations. We have indeed had a strange weather year. All climate is local as the world has NO climate. It has ALL climates. Our climate this year started out with a month short summer. We had lilacs blooming on the 4th of July this year. Oct 1 is when winter started in 2019. It really hasn’t been cold here yet though. Most winters we see 20 below actual temps several times, not yet this year however. We have been below zero one period so far. This has been a pretty mild winter by local standards…. So far. (mid-february 2020)

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

Title: Sunset Snow Squall

Posted on February 20, 2020February 12, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Moon Roping by Frank Bliss

When my name is included in the Title, the image is ART, usually taken from real photos . I disclose when I screw with images to any significant degree. I had fun with this one.

This Image became ART by removing 2 inches of the center hombre’s rope loop to give the illusion of it going behind the moon. The gate that provided me the photons for this capture, is our front gate. (albeit slightly re-arranged for this art work). When I screw with images I really can do anything I want but this is actually pretty true to what happened. Just a bit a rope, a little movement of the horses from their real positions and I end up with this illusion. I do like to occasionally put some art up. As I’ve said before, “all work and no play makes Frank a dull boy”.

The metal work is my original design but I did have it professionally cut with a computer controlled plasma table. We put this gate up 15 years ago at the front entrance to the Dinosaur Ranch. . There is also a T-rex on this gate but I excluded him for this particular illusion. This is ART remember :). With no rules I impose on myself to be photorealistic, I get to move, remove, replace, resize, recolor or pretty much do anything else I want to ART work. There are no limitations in the digital world. lololol (laughing maniacially). 👀😜😜

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Moon Roping by Frank Bliss

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

Sunset with Aroma Added

Sunset with Aroma Added (Hybrid photo/art perspective)

I have always said, “If you can make a pile of SH** look good with a camera, you could be a photographer”. It’s all about the light/composition not about the subject. (I have posted this before and it’s now up to my “current standards” lololol).

In full disclosure, I added the old bearded mans face in mask profile using Highlights on the right edge of the “pile”. Sort of digital sculpting without any of the biohazard issues 😜 Channeling Bev Doolittle a bit perhaps (no insult intended to her)…… Other than that little area, everything else is un-affected by my machinations/mutation of an otherwise plain edge.

Anyhow, back to the composition. This Perspective is a close/far focus pretty much at water level of a small wetland area. The cattle of course tend to flavor the water. Drinking out of a natural body of water…..not so much of a good idea. Just my 2 cents. For that fact, most lakes…… never mind.

This sort of “encounter” is a common occurrence here in Cattle Country. Many a boot has met a hose as a result of this meeting. I consider this hazardous duty for my camera as the focus distance here is about a foot. Anywhere close to water is scary to me even though I have never dropped a camera from my hands ever. My luck, I’d drop it in the pile and bounce it into the water lol.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Sunset with Aroma Added

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

Guests for Thanksgiving Picnic Dinner

I obviously let the word out that there was feed in my barnyard from which I feed my flock of ducks, chickens from. The turkeys somehow found out about it through their channels. So these freeloaders come by now and again to supplement their diet. They fly over the electric fence. I’m still trying to figure out how they learned that. This is our side yard about 50 feet from my west side door.

I wonder if they know they significance of having ten (10) genuine Native Americans over for dinner. Here in America for a LONG time before humans. After all they almost becoming the national bird. Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to his daughter where he stated that the turkey was “more respectable” than the eagle, which he thought was “of bad moral character.” He argued vociferously for it. The turkey would have been on coinage/buildings/seals from the beginning. That instead every artistic portrayal of a regal eagle has been done since. The Eagle won, instead of the majestic soaring turkey (oh wait), well at least they are brave. Boy that snood is quite a protuberance as well lolol. . The males are plain annoying at times. I see dinosaurs in them.

Surviving the major extinction of the Megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene, the turkeys had a humble beginning in the Early Miocene. Their ancestors went back to avian dinosaurian history though. The Miocene was a time of high CO2, high biological productivity, and rapid growth of new species development from 22-9 mya.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Guests for Thanksgiving Picnic Dinner

Posted on November 14, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Bliss Ranch Snowflake Compilation

Here is a Bliss Ranch Snowflake Compilation that I pulled out of a series of photos where the lighting was all the same and the flakes were transparent in the lighting. I pulled each one of them out of the back ground and placed them on this parchment for an antique look. This could have come out of an 1800’s book stone etching of the same topic. It didn’t, it came out of mother nature and my digital dark room.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Bliss Ranch Snowflake Compilation

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