Tower Archives - Bliss Photographics

Posted on May 17, 2020May 17, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Crook County Wyoming

I have to drive about 10 miles to get to this location viewing the Devils Tower/Missouri Butte Volcanic Neck Complex. This is a rare sunset early golden hour photon hunt. I’m not usually headed this direction in the afternoon with a tendency to go deep backcountry. This hunt was a road trip mostly watching the storm move through. My bucket list is to get a rainbow against this scene….

Devils Tower was the nations first National Monument is on the left. The “Three Sisters” (right) as they were known to the wagon train pioneers, are related to the Devil’s Tower. Related in space and time and are all remnants of ancient volcanic necks. Exposed by eroding the material away from above/around them.

Formerly deeply buried, these volcanic necks have been exposed on sand grain at a time. The “Little Missouri River” washed away thousands of feet of sediment down to the Gulf of Mexico a little at a time. Rivers very slowly but surely move miles of thicknesses of sediment to expose structures of very deep origin. The 3 Missouri Buttes the real name) is about 30 miles drive from my cameras vantage. The tower is closer to 45 miles out. View from the Northwest (the side the tourists NEVER see).

The lighting this evening was spectacular. I find you are where you are when the “Golden Hour” hits with it’s long shadows and rich earthy tones. This is big country here in the borderlands of Wyoming and Montana (looking southeasterly into Wyoming). Thousands of square miles of less than 2 people per mile population density.

Location: Wyotana

Title: Crook County Wyoming

Posted on April 13, 2020April 7, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Rockypoint Pass Back Show

Later in the Golden Hour having worked the scenes leading up to this spot, the sunset over my right shoulder. I position myself at the top of the pass on Trail Creek Road that leads from remote to very remote country. The 35 mile distance to the Devils Tower on a day where only the sheltered hollows have snow remaining. The sublimating snow added moisture haze directly to the atmosphere bypassing the water phase entirely in this dry air.

The clouds to the west Shaded the National Monument (Devil’s Tower) to the far left and the subject of this composition the Missouri Buttes. These Exposed Volcanic Necks are erosional remnants of certainly thousands of feet of “volcanic neck” that have been removed. The Original Material (Volcanic Porphyry) stands tall. The sedimentary aprons surrounding the central mounds are the alluvial fans all merged together over time. The google word is “Fanglomerate”.

IT was the light that attracted me to capture this scene. I see this stuff visually and have to coerce my camera’s to properly configure. It’s a process up stream against the chaos principal certainly. After all I do deal with various rules of the universe in my daily travels. Unfortunately for me I can’t ignore some of them. Others I can’t miss. The play of light in this image led to a nice brown season layered landscape. Taken two weeks ago when as this posts.

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

Title: Rockypoint Pass Back Show

Posted on April 6, 2020March 31, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Windmill Cutting Cheese

It’s a Moon Monday ! as this posts.

Narrowly avoiding disaster, I talked the Windmill from cutting into that cheese… Save the moon yet again. GOOD thing I’m standing up wind..👀

“Sneaky Pete”the Windmill here provides a perspective regardless of his intent to photo-bomb this moon capture. I have no control over his actions. He just likes the attention. He and his bigger older brother “Re Pete” live and work here on ranch. They seem to work their way into my landscapes way higher than the statistical average compared to other ranch creatures. 😜😜😀 Windmill Weekday Windmill Junkies Unite : 🤘

Photographic Musings:

Manual Mode Phobia: (You know who you are) ….📸

Close / Far perspectives are a complex photographic challenge for all of you. An automatic setting on your camera is not going to do this image.

I’ve gone through the basics a few times and will entertain questions below for photographic solutions to your working on manual mode aversion. (Kind of like fear of swimming). You just have to jump in and turn that top dial to M. Then you figure out which control wheel controls each of the three settings you change in manual mode. ISO (Camera Sensitivity), f-stop (size of the aperture/pupil in the lens), finally Shutter Speed.

You only need to understand those three things to run on Manual mode. Their relationship to each other and how messing with one, requires you to mess with the others a tad to compensate the amount of light coming into the camera. Your riding a three way light teeter totter trying to balance those settings.

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

Windmill Cutting Cheese

Posted on March 6, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Wooden Tower Windmill

I traveled 180 miles to get to this windmill before sunrise and of course have a whole timeline of this trip but this was the best capture of the drive. I was doing a presentation to a committee for a donation to the our 501C3 fundraiser for wounded warriors we hold every July.

The butte behind was such a good background I was torn how to compose this and settles on this. I had to stay on the road as this was well fenced off plus it isn’t my ground so I tend to stay off working only from the road. There is plenty to do from the road I point out.

Old Wooden Windmill towers are good for MAYBE 50 years. Some may last a bit longer. This is over in southern Campbell Country. . . There is big backcountry down there south of Gillette. . Very few 7-11’s about but commerce / ranching happens here. It is genuine backcountry Wyoming.

Middle of the day with the sun behind me is a rare image for me lol. Mid summer and me getting away from the ranch is a rare thing. I often go on short road trips on Wyoming/Montana backroads and not see another vehicle. Breaking down is not an option up here without LOTS of survival supplies this time of year. Blankets, sleeping bags, food and basics are all on board. I do have a very good radio that communicates via repeater from 30 miles away if necessary. Not to worry.

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

Title: Wooden Tower Windmill

Posted on March 4, 2020March 2, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Devils Tower Landscape Ladder

Devils Tower Landscape Ladder (7 months ago for Wayback Wednesday)

There are some contradictions in this image of the landscape leading up the the Devil’s Tower. Viewed from the northwest, this image has green fields with cut hay bales on top. This last fall of 2019 capture resulted from a very well rained on summer. Wet late in the high borderlands of MT/WY.. Captured in August, it ALL should be brown. The grass was a green as the spring in the sub-irrigated fields overlying the Fox Hill Sandstone aquifer . Usually the sub-surface geology controls the vegetation on the surface.

That 5112 foot tall Devil’s Tower National Monument is standing 1267 feet high above the surrounding ground. The high ground looks pretty close but those mounds of phenolytic porphyry are pretty distant/ big. The Tower buried by thousands of feet of sediments, stands unsupported. Those rocks surrounding them and supporting the hard rock volcanic neck up thousands of feet higher than it is now.. The soft sediments were removed all by the action of the Little Missouri River plus the Belle Fourche River Drainage. Those two drainages providing the bulk of that work locally. The soft rock is removed while the harder material makes mountains. That’s pretty much the way it works all over the planet.

The Devils tower about 40 from my vantage point on the Pass to Rocky Point Wyoming on Trail Creek Road. I’m standing Campbell County Wyoming.
This is the view that tourists never see as they are all on the other side of those hills. You can see South Dakota from this site on a very clear day…completely across Crook County Wyoming. That is a BIG county 80 miles wide anyway.

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

Title: Devils Tower Landscape Ladder

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

Wyoming Volcanic Necks Diptych

Wyoming Volcanic Necks Diptych (2- 20″x20″ images)

That’s Devil’s Tower on the left and the “Three Sisters”

This country is big. The high ground looks pretty close but those mounds of phenolytic porphyry are pretty big thusly far away. . These bumps on the landscape used to be buried by thousands of feet of sediments surrounding them. The hard rock volcanic neck rose up thousands of feet higher than it is now.. The Little Missouri River removed some covering sediments from the west side. The Belle Fourche River Drainage providing the bulk of that work to the east. The soft rock is removed while the harder material makes mountains. That’s pretty much the way it works all over the planet.

This was a beautiful evening for a partly cloudy sky sunset. . These kind of evenings are all about the side shows, not the sunset itself. It was calm, little or no wind (rare), you could hear cattle calling from miles around. The air was crisp and icy as can be. It was only 5 minutes to sunset at this capture so the shadows are very long. The contrasts are all building as the “Golden Hour” draws to a conclusion.

That detail on the Devil’s tower is from 40 miles away. In maybe 100 trips to take this scene, this one might be the clearest view from the Pass at Rockypoint that I have in my portfolio.

Location: The Pass at Rocky Point Wyoming, On the border of Crook and Campbell Country about 4 miles south of Montana.

Title: Wyoming Volcanic Necks Diptych

Posted on February 5, 2020January 30, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Whirling Windmill Cutting Cheese

Narrowly avoiding disaster, I talked the Windmill from cutting into that cheese… Save it yet again. 👀

Photographic Musings:

Manual Mode Phobia: (You know who you are) ….📸

Close / Far perspectives are a complex photographic challenge for all of you. An automatic setting on your camera is not going to do this image.

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

Title: Whirling Windmill Cutting Cheese

Posted on January 8, 2020January 3, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Windmill’s Green Spring Morning

I needed to finish this image as I sort of need the dose of green. Image 5 of 6 for Windmill Wednesday. All Windmills All day 🙂

Windmill Junkies Unite: 🤘

The red gravel country road winds around our homestead. It USED to run right through our current compound but the country decided to run the road around the house thus all the curves up here. (Thank GOD) I’ve seen days without tracks in the snow on our road. Most winters, we get stranded by the drifts up here. Only oil trucks and a few local ranchers travel this road surrounded entirely by our ranch for 3 miles across 2 states.

With the green season above, there are three seasons up here. White season or simply “the snowy time”. Brown Season hereby defined as ground with no snow. And green season, when there is no snow and just a little brown. Last year was a VERY rare long green season when AUGUST had green grass. Almost unheard of up here in the borderlands. This was certainly the most wet year in my 20 year memory on this ground.

I consider winters here easy. I spent a decade in Jackson Hole Wyoming dealing with 6 feet of snow flat every year in the back yard. We do get some good snows with WINDS here on the border. Jackson Hole is not overly windy. We have WAY more drifting than Jackson did. I used to snow blow a foot of powder snow a couple of times a month. Snow seldom drifted like it does here.. Jackson Wins the snow amounts hands down over here in the borderlands. We win here with the amount of wind. Jackson is Colder of course.

I’ve lived 30 years in Wyoming this year. I first came here as a student of geology 40 years ago in 1980.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title: Windmill’s Green Spring Morning

Posted on November 18, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Windmill Shack Orange Alpenglow

For me to get to this location, I have to leave about an hour before sunrise “Windmill Shack Orange Alpenglow”. It is well down into Crook Country Wyoming about 40 miles towards Devil’s Tower. If that hill weren’t in the way, you could see the big thing.

Normally I would just drive up there. This isn’t my ground and I’m not big on trespassing on others ground. This shot was from the country road It is now filed in my “Wyoming/Montana backroads folder. All of the backcountry roads up here are gravel with an occasional Concrete/asphalt highway cutting across no mans land. It’s about 40 miles in any direction from this spot to a Wyoming State paved road. It’s all county road department maintained here.

There are some rough areas of course to get here. But if it’s frozen, the mud is no longer a problem but for deeper than your tires ruts lolol. Driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee where taller pickups leave tire grooves is always exciting. I’m still waiting for my now officially issued VIN number model year 2020 Ford F150 to be built. It should change the height at which I take images sometimes lol.

I get lost in reconstructing past lives and events, the comings and goings of old homesteads. This wasn’t much more than a cowboy bunk house with a wood stove for the “hands”. You had water with the windmill and I suspect an outhouse long since gone somewhere nearby downward of the prevailing wind. This land has had cattle or sheep on it for 100 years and slightly more. That’s 5 generations of cowboys that stayed the night or the summer in this treeless pasture.

This is very big country open back country with many square miles of grass attached to any particular ranch. This is a steel windmill which is more expensive than building the wood towers was. This water pump is still standing though. It looks to be in working conditions.

Location: “D” road, Crook County Wyoming.

Title: Windmill Shack Orange Alpenglow

Posted on November 13, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Volcanic Necks Framed and Braced

Volcanic Necks Framed and Braced is the real deal lol.

That is a fence brace, it frames, rustically here, 4 exhumed volcanic necks from the of Northeastern corner of Wyoming. The three on the right are of course the Missouri Buttes and the one furthest left is a little known place called Devil’s Tower National Monument. These 4 piles of hard rock that resisted erosion that removed all . This view is covering about 35 miles of landscape from this ridge.

This country is big. The high ground looks pretty close but those mounds of phenolytic porphyry are pretty big. These bumps on the landscape used to be buried by thousands of feet of sediments surrounding them and supporting hard rock volcanic neck up thousands of feet higher than it is now.. The soft sediments were removed all by the action of the Little Missouri River and the Belle Fourche River Drainage providing the bulk of that work locally. The soft rock is removed while the harder material makes mountains. That’s pretty much the way it works all over the planet.

From a strictly rustic standpoint, there is a lot of engineering that went into that brace. All those force vectors resolving to shunt all the tension into the ground. They are elegant in their design. The cowboy/fence builder will always use what is handy to act as a lever on that diagonal wire. Diverse items as cow bones, pipes, sticks, boards and anything else laying around is used. What ever you use is going to be there a while lolol.

We have quite a bit of snow at the moment….for early November. I would expect a very long winter as it’s already been a very long winter and it’s still just starting. Live up in hight the Wyotana borderlands can be chilly at times lolol. Never a lack of things to take photos of though 📸

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Volcanic Necks Framed and Braced

Posted on November 11, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Devil’s Tower/Missouri Buttes 3:1 Aspect

This Capture of Devil’s Tower/Missouri Buttes 3:1 Aspect is very high resolution composite:

It is composited from three high resolution 1200 mm telephoto images combined back into one image in the digital darkroom. Left image + center image+ right image = this photo… This is not taking a cell phone and swinging a phone lol… I’m considering this one of the best daytime shots I have of Devils Tower from the Pass at Rocky Point and that’s saying something 📸 This is a distance of 35 miles. The sun was setting golden hour, the air was full of ice but hadn’t gone pink just yet. Maybe 1/2 hour to sundown.

This image was taken from the snow line on the pass I was on but you can see the valleys were not covered at this capture about 10 days ago as it publishes. The snow we got last night and today took care of the snow cover in the valley. We’ve had a very early winter up here so far. The long term forecast looks to be cold and snowy. We always need the moisture but it’s a trudge sometimes to deal with all the snowfall each year.

In all fairness to the rough weather we have here in the NE part of the state. Hat’s off to the folks in Jackson Hole and the high country along the western part of the state. It’s relatively mild living here compared to the decade I lived in Jackson Hole Wyoming. We used to get 6 feet flat in the back yard every year. Closer to the range folks would get 10. Cleaning snow off roofs is an industry there :).

We just enjoy MUCH more wind than Jackson Hole does. I’m not sure anyone living there appreciates the difference but I may be wrong. Migration of Wyoming folks are moving outwards not toward that area. 🙁

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Devil’s Tower/Missouri Buttes 3:1 Aspect

Posted on October 25, 2019November 16, 2019 by Bliss

Western Woodgrain Skies Through a Windmill “Filter”

“Western Woodgrain Skies through a Windmill Filter” is a 300 yard distant telephoto capture of “Sneaky Pete” the windmill who is notorious for Photobombing my landscapes and sunsets. He attracts lightning and otherwise gets in my way so just ignore him in the photos and enjoy the sunset😜

Woodgrained skies are not that common but I’ve seen a few of them this month and as I type this, both sunrise and sunset today were similar to this. I have yet to download those images from my cameras lolol. I’m literally slammed with images to finish. That is a good thing though lol.

Have a great day and get that cup of coffee going !

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on October 1, 2019September 27, 2019 by Bliss

Devils Tower/Missouri Butte Volcanic Complex in Twilight

I have to drive about 10 miles to get to this location viewing the Devils Tower/Missouri Butte Volcanic Neck Complex well before twilight to set up.

Devils Tower was the nations first National Monument. The “Three Sisters” as they were known to the wagon train pioneers, are related to the tower in space and time and are all remnants of ancient volcanic neck that have been exposed by eroding the material away from above. Many thousands of feet of sediment were washed down by the “Little Missouri River” to the Gulf of Mexico.

The 3 Missouri Buttes the real name) is about 30 miles drive from my cameras vantage and the tower is closer to 45 miles out. View from the Northwest (the side the tourists NEVER see). There has been a LOT of purple in the skies of Wyoming this fall. Not sure why more than normal though. 🤔

Location: Trail Creek Road, Pass at Rockypoint Wyoming.

Posted on September 5, 2019September 7, 2019 by Bliss

Buck Head and the Tower

Good Evening at 8:13 this Thursday Evening. I’m sorry we didn’t get much work done on the website today as I was called off for a stock water well that stopped working (didn’t fix it). But it took the whole afternoon so I haven’t had a chance to visit even here on my personal page most of the day lol.

I hope to make up for it in the next 15 minutes.

:).

This Game Trail Camera capture has everything going for it. …

The moon, a lone tree, a pretty good buck in velvet, my com tower. It was a black and white night vision shot but I “colorized” it to a degree to mellow out the B+W effect of the late twilight this was taken in. This is certainly colorized and thus ART directly off the original photograph. Only the color was changed ….