WaybackWednesday Archives - Bliss Photographics

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

Lookout Butte Volcano Illusion

Lookout Butte Volcano Illusion

Exactly on the Wyoming / Montana border, this Volcano simmers at behest of forces beyond our control. This of course is a satire and illusion of a volcano created naturally by a confluence of events and my position.

I love the long distance perspective of a properly involved deck of clouds colorcast by Alpenglow. These are real colors not unknown in this remote high country. The 180 mile long cloud deck positioned above a clear icy window to the sun. Our “volcano”, called Lookout Butte has a commanding view from the top as it’s name suggests. Being an “Insulberg” (google this), it has few characteristics resembling a Cinder Cone Volcano but for it’s shape. All form and no substance passing for an event of geologic significance in this fleeting moment. The chances of a thick layer of clouds across the sky lining up with the top is not terribly high so I cheat and move. The levers my ability to get just the right angle. The ability to move quickly from place to place is really useful for this kind of opportunistic photography. 👀

I don’t always work sunrise, but when I do, I always like a simulated volcano going off in the photo.😜. Illuminated by a dynamic gradient of long traveled cinema quality light, the actors of the stage show have a huge projection screen to perform under. Sometimes dramatic plays happen overhead taking over an hour from start to finish. I have a tough job watching entire sunsets and sunrises as they mutate from second to second.🕺 This show was the directors cut. 📸

I might take 800 photos of a particular sunrise as this. Maybe 2 or 3 images from the twilight will be finished. All the images from the timeline that morning but with different frames were equally as dramatic. Skies as above are rare but the high ridges I work have their share.

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

Title: Lookout Butte Volcano Illusion

Posted on June 3, 2020May 26, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Veiled Sunset Rattlesnake Ridge

One of my favorite antiques on the ranch is this 1920’s-1930’s Deering Seeder sitting on the toe of a high ridge. The Cretaceous Sandstones capping/covering this isolated plateau of Sage and Spanish Dagger are these hard layers and lenses of hardened sand. This hard sand/rock was cemented harder than the sandstone taken away by erosion around it. Harder due to differences in the “Diagenetic” processes that turned loose plastic sand to rock. Notice I didn’t say magic processes. Good google word for today… It’s the reason the ridge is there… Hard rock protects the softer sandstone below…

The hard cap rock this scene is built over was laid down by just one act of a 3 million year long stage show. At the End of the Reign of the Dinosaurs on the coastal slope (piedmont really) toward the Cretaceous Era “Inland Sea” Sea sediments are 900 feet down here. Above them, the Beach Sand above that marine sediment. That is named Fox Hill Formation. From the old beach is where we get our water. Above that (below me) is another 700 feet of River Sand (Hell Creek/Lance Formations) that many ancient rivers carried lazily here.

I say many because these watersheds with rivers miles wide.. (think anastomosing braided channels of dendritic sand choked channels on a massive scale. Similar to the amazon water shed. This was the last stage for the dinosaurs to live out their last moments. The coast was extant from Canada to northern New Mexico. All along the coast of that land a mere 66 million years before present.

There were untold millions of high water/flood events in the history of this land. Mountains long gone to our west fed vast quantities of sand worn from them by wind water and ice. Our Ranch lies on 14 mile wide strip of Hell Creek/Lance formation exposed on the surface. This exposed due to streams and rivers moving thousands of feet of sediment that used to be above us away. Cutting into these old beds at a slight angle. Youngest rocks west with Older to the east.

Then somebody came along and “dumped this 100 (ish) year old farm implement here giving me a subject in this remote environment. What are the chances lolol.

In my world, the past is the key to the present and the future. Integral within our processes of the present exists hand me down learning from the past. Geological process occur without our being aware of them or not. My point is understanding the past helps predict the future as well as interpreting the present.

Oh, My LED lightbar on “Clever Girl” added some flavor to this freshly rained upon dynamic sunset through a storm in the deep backcountry.

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

Title: Veiled Sunset Rattlesnake Ridge

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

Crazy Corriente Cow Tongue

In early morning light, I got this silly capture the other day out in the small herd of Corriente’ cattle that let us live here. This old Spanish breed generates individual cows that are each their own character in a circus skit. Being no exception, this 4 year old mother to be has the physical limitations of not having fingers to reach in there and yank that cactus spine out of there. (I’m just guessing it was a sticker but certainly it might have been some NASTY tasting plant). Alternately, she was probably just telling me what she thought about having a long lens pointed at her.

I was working photographically this “lick after lick after lick” scenario for a few minutes anyway. I’m never sure how long some timelines occur over as a time warp surrounds me during camera clicks. I try to train myself NOT to have tunnel vision particularly when shooting pistols and cameras. Going focus forward (tunnel vision) situation will cause you miss things going on around you. I wasn’t looking for this while working a mother and calf about 70 degrees to the right. In my peripheral vision I saw a motion, got it. Rule 1.1 of photography: Have a camera with you.📸📸

This was actually framed live this precisely with the horns JUST fitting into the frame IN the camera not cropped after the fact. The problems using a fixed (non-zoom) lens is that you have to move back to make the subject fit into the frame. Usually by the time you move, the opportunity is toast. Rule 1.2 of photography: Get the picture… 📸📸

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

Title: Crazy Corriente Cow Tongue

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

Horned Owl Grounded

Gotta look close here….

This is not something I see everyday lol. Owls bolt quickly if approached or I don’t see them at all. They blend in rather well. I was “quietly” driving down low in a wash/gully in my UTV. Owls as a whole, stay tree perched. This one was eating a tid-bit of something, perched stationary on the side of a hill/ground. He was VERY well camo’d and I just caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. His feathers are a disruptive camo to your eye. I have NO idea how I saw him… 😄

A Great Horned Owl is a big bird with plenty of presence. They can live 15 years in the wild and have up to a 5 foot wingspan. The predators body can be up to 25 inches long and they weigh as much as a blue heron at 5 pounds. They are all about claws and beaks though they have some of the best disruptive Camo colors/pattern I’ve ever seen. These guys are easy to recognize due to their “plumicorns” which are feather tuffs resembling horns. . They are not ears. I understand they are the most common owl in the Americas. They range from the Arctic to South America. Interestingly, the male Great Horned Owl is Smaller than the Female but has a much lower pitched call than his mate. “Hoo, H’ Hoos”!

My path taken here is the proverbial “Low” road . This ground is a wonderfully dissected steep topography. Low ground between the fingers of the drainage reaching to the higher hills nearby . This forest has the spirits of dinosaur walking about as fossils do roll out of the golden Cretaceous River Sands here. It seems to me that all the Dinosaurs didn’t die at the end of the Cretaceous with the meteor/bolide that “killed the dinos”. That Extinction Level Event (ELE) killed 80 percent of Life on the planet . Took place a mere 66 million years back if you believe a geologist/paleontologist.

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

Title: Horned Owl Grounded

Posted on May 6, 2020April 29, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Rockypoint Wyoming Community Center

Rockypoint was located 52 miles north of Moorcroft and 57 miles northeast of Gillette. I’m not sure at this point where “Rockypoint “is” but I know where it was. About 4 miles south of this Wyotana structure that serves as a Community gathering point.

I’ve seen over 100 people crammed into that building eating some of the best pot luck dinners that rural Wyotana communities can put on. Everyone brings their best dishes for all to enjoy. I’ve been to dozens of dinners there. Locally, there is no better place to catch up on local news and gossip. Not that anybody here gossips much. We are naturally remote with a population density of less than 2 per square mile. Folks from 20 miles in all directions show up for Christmas, Thanksgiving and any other purpose those in charge decide to celebrate with a community meal. I’m thinking for the next year, it might be a little slow up there…. 😔

This was built by local families on donated land to serve just this purpose. The local ladies club that “runs” this building have fed folks remotely for numerous activities to raise the funds necessary to keep this all up. Feeding booths for rodeos, funeral dinners, and celebrations of all kinds have been served by this group. Everybody does something but hats off the the roughly dozen ranch wives that have for decades, served the community. Nothing from the gov’t here, all local.

Location: Rockypoint Wyoming, (Wyotana) about 2 miles south of the Wyoming / Montana border.

Title: Rockypoint Wyoming Community Center

Posted on April 15, 2020April 9, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Ford Raptor April Moon

I will take a photo of anything in Perspective with the moon. The Far Ridge is 40 miles out. My truck/office/photostudio is about 200 yards from the camera. I just love how telephoto lenses CRUSH perspective. This is the “Pink” moon in it’s true shade lol. I guess it was less embarrassed that it has been in past years and just went orange just for this sitting.

From here on down I worked this moon extensively. This April 2020’s Pink moon had a window to it’s rise and set every time near full illumination this month. I seldom get one chance a month let alone 3 terminator crossings in a row while full close to the horizon. This was a rare weather window. I’m about a week behind with most posts. I bring some images forward ahead of the line to finish the same day but not very many.

From my homestead, it’s about a 3 mile two track trip to get to this high point on a remote ridge in Wyotana. This was still 20 minutes before sunrise which would occur over my shoulder. You get a glimpse of that sunrise in the Ford Raptors aluminum wheel. So far this is an exemplary expedition vehicle for me. New in December I have 1200 miles on it with 800 of that being in the backcountry. It is literally a ranch truck that I’ve been known to take into town. I used to go into town about once a month. These days, I have gone into town more than that as I was delivering product from my day job. I work in an “essential” occupation according to Homeland Security… . Nuff Said on that.

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

Title: Ford Raptor April Moon

Posted on March 11, 2020March 4, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Autumn Mud Hills Overlook

Autumn Mud Hills Overlook (Brown Season)

I am literally shooting across the Montana/Wyoming border taking this shot. The trees in the foreground are in Wyoming. The range to the north in Montana. This is a favorite overlook of mine. A view to the north of the Mud Hills which is the first range north of my ranch across the Ranch Creek Drainage.

Called the “treed” pasture this fraction of the ranch is about 2 square miles of grazing patch of mixed pine trees and grassy hills and gullies. It is a land of many uses: Cattle grazing during the summer pasture is a major use here obviously. Cattle can’t be pastured around pine trees in the winter as they will eat the needles. Those needles contain turpentine which will cause the pregnant cows to spontaneously abort. Several hundred cow/calf pair hang out around here for a month or two during Late May through Early July.

We move cattle out of this pasture in early July. This facilitates the Wyoming Tactical Rifle Championship courses 3 and 4 use. This ground has been home to a nationally ranked Team Tactical Rifle Championship for 18 years. Almost 4 miles of groomed rifle courses in 16 shooting stations. All exposing 150 fixed reactive steel Targets out to 1200 yards. This location is the last (or first) station on course 3 lolol. Snipers nest with literally thousands of precision rifle shots at those reactive steel targets down range.

There are a few dozen locations (I’ve found so far) within this “Pasture” that has Hell Creek/Lance Formation. These rock contain dinosaurian (and others) fossils. I found my first dinosaur tooth in this pasture 18 years ago. I knew they were here, I just didn’t know where. You do have to look though occasionally I stumble on dinosaur bones laying in the grass. Just like any other stone in the middle of the prairie lol.. I have found several fossil locations that way. You can’t find them if you can’t see them lolol.

We even have had a nationally released 4×4 video in 2008 filmed here. Peterson’s 4 Wheel Drive and Off Road Magazine filmed part of their “Ultimate Adventure” video series here that year. It’s out there if you want to watch several high end jeeps flip over. All trying to climb out of some of the soft sandstone lined gullies. As I say, a land of many uses…

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

Title: Autumn Mud Hills Overlook

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

Bearded Iris and a Bleeding Heart

Way Back Wednesday: Back in early June of 2019 (or fast forward 3 months) this scene appeared in front of me. I often walk around our ranches “compound” . We have an electric fence around it precluding deer from entering. So we actually have landscape plants and flowers that survive. You can’t believe the amount of work that fence took lolol. It was absolutely necessary however with the average lifespan of a freshly planted tree being measured in days before the fence. Deer cost me many thousands of dollars before I spent more on the fence to prevent the former. 😔. It was a good project to complete…

Setting the stage:

It had just rained, everything was green, a smell of ozone was in the air, almost a chlorine smell it was so clean. After the long “Slog” through mud season, the ground started to firm, the plants start to grow. The average last day of frost here is mid- may. A lot of the perennials here come up earlier than that last frost. It was very late last year with Lilac blooming into July 4th (noted specificially).

Here in early March 2020, a blizzard just came through. When this posts, we have just had a warm week with all the snow melting and starting that mud season. The cycle repeats….🤔😀

The Iris is Native to Croatia. The Bleeding Heart is a form of Poppy native to Asia. Both hanging out on the Montana/Wyoming border. What are the chances…..😜

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming / Montana borderlands.

Title: Bearded Iris and a Bleeding Heart

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

Twilight Patriotic Windmill

From the Summer of 2018 which had a variety of smoke effects that I observed. This Red, White and Blue themed July Sky was appropriate for Wayback Wednesday as well as Windmill Wednesday…. Oh wait:

Windmill Wednesday: Windmill Junkies Unite : 🤘🤘🤘😜📷 Don’t let your mother know you look at “stuff” like this 👀👀

I’m trying hard to mix up what I’m posting daily OR going thematic like Moon Monday. As I am finishing my portfolio, working on images, I sometimes do a search of my files for a particular Subject) say “windmill”. I get several 1000 images across my entire computer but on my “to finish” drives, I have narrowed that field a bit. Only several hundred to go there lolol. Of course I have to deal with all the currently taken images daily too lol. I ultimately posses pretty a “set job” security just finishing images I already have taken. Literally there are years of work just finishing images.

Getting a digital camera capture/file ready to print means it has to be “Clean” with no sensor dirt allowed so to speak. Ideally I don’t have any “artifacts or false gradients/colors/hues and or any other thing that detracts from photorealism of the scene. This image is so close to the right colors of Old Glory. . It killed me that the orange wasn’t crimson but hey, I try to leave colors as I saw them. Close enough for “government work lolol.

Taken mid-civil twilight.

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

Title: Twilight Patriotic 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 12, 2020February 5, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Stark Stoney Sunset

Sheep Herders Cairns from a day that Sheep Roamed this country more than a few years back. I find these piles of flat sandstone on hill tops here in the borderlands of Wyoming / Montana. Literally found in the middle of nowhere typically miles from the closest inhabited ranch. Somebody spent a lot of time gathering flat sandstone from far and wide. You see sheep wander the hills and herders would stay with them to protect them. They had some spare time.. The stone cairns were markers. They marked places to meet, places to drop supplies or a sign post marking borders..

The ridge tops are the highways of the backcountry. While forested ridges certainly exist, long grassy ridges generally cleared of pine by past fires provided easy walking for the Indigenous Americans. There is a documented “Clovis” tool site within a 20 minute radium of my place. I’ve never found Clovis artifacts on my place as of yet though I do find man made stone tools. I wouldn’t call them common up here on the high ridges. Only hunting camps were summer inhabited in this country. It is too high and too dry to sustain population very long. We do find “TeePee” rings now and again. Both springs by my homestead have teepee rings about them. Summer quarters this spot was.

I’m not sure If I could have found a flatter light than this. Occasionally I’ll look at a heavily veiled sun with no colors in the scene and instantly start with high F-stop close / far perspective anyway. This one was worth the effort. It was windy and cold up there. The bunch of grass in the mid-distance testifies to this.

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

Title: Stark Stoney Sunset

Posted on January 22, 2020January 16, 2020 by Frank Bliss

Great Horned Take Off

This is not something I see everyday lol. Owls bolt quickly if approached or I don’t see them at all. They also blend in rather well. Magic in the backcountry.

I was quietly driving down low in a wash/gully in my Polaris Ranger Crew. Owls as a whole, stay tree perched. This one was eating a tid-bit of something, perched stationary on the side of a hill/ground. Never got a look at what. He was VERY well camo’d and I just caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. His feathers are a disruptive camo to your eye. Makes you dizzy.😄 The path taken here is the proverbial “Low” road . This ground is a wonderfully dissected steep topography. Low ground between the fingers of the drainage reaching to the higher hills nearby . This forest has the spirits of dinosaur walking about as fossils do roll out of the golden Cretaceous River Sands from the famous “Hell Creek/Lance Formations. here.

It seems to me that all the Dinosaurs didn’t die at the end of the Cretaceous with the meteor/bolide that “killed the dinos”. That Extinction Level Event (ELE) killed 80 percent of Life on the planet . Took place a mere 66 million years back if you believe a geologist/paleontologist. MOST dinosaurs did indeed die but the ones that did’nt had feathers, a tail and teeth. Their modern descendants are flying around us now. There are two types of Paleontologists. (BAND and BAD). Birds Are Not Dinosaurs and Birds are Dinosaurs. Most are the Latter.

I have a few dozen good captures from this encounter but I have bigger “fish” to fry at the moment lol. . This G. H. Owl.

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

Title: Great Horned Take Off

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

Twilight Alpenglow Over the Big Horn Mountains

“Twilight Alpenglow over the Big Horn Mountains” was taken well into Nautical Twilight. (Do you know your 3 twilights and when they occur?) Bear in mind I consider anything sky in the morning BEFORE the sun crosses the horizon still to be at Night and in the evening, once the sun slips behind the horizon, it’s night too…. Lenticular Clouds in Silhouette are always fun. I bet they were impressive from the other side of the hill at sunset. They typically form over bumps in the terrain.

This sky started out Bright Orange at sunset with the same clouds but slowly faded to the longer wave length light red…finally to black with no stars because enough overcast to preclude/veil stars in the frame. This 5 second time exposure highlights cloud shadows and the still glowing atmospheric ice over the Mountains. (Alpenglow is caused by the scattering of the color of light that makes it through hundreds of miles of low angle atmosphere. Typically a deep winter thing every night but I see it every month up here).
Those 13000 feet high “hills” are 130 miles from my camera which is sitting on a 4000 foot in elevation ridge almost 2 full Wyoming counties east of the Big Horns.

Photographers notes. Unless your really steady (on xanax or something), you need a tripod for any exposure longer than about 1/15th second exposure and that’s if your really good…. No star tracking required here so just a tripod will do.

Gear.. Sony Alpha 7R4, Canon 800mm Telephoto (Vintage plus mixed cam/lens brands which actually works fine with the right Metabones adaptor between thank you). Tripod. Also a Big Tall Hill top in Montana looking across the border into Wyoming.

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