Daily Photo – Our Night Under the Stars

I’m in the middle of a great trip to a ranch in Montana that I’ll never forget.

The nights here are always strange and different.  I’ve only gotten outside a few times to take photos, mostly because of inclement weather.  During the first week or so, the moon so high and bright that it caused everything to get blown out.  That’s no good and makes for a boring night.  Who needs a boring night?

The moon was just about to rise behind the mountains, and the night air was crystal clear. The soft cloud from top left to bottom right is the Milky Way, and it gave the night a nice texture.

The triceratops definitely falls into one of those “Top 5” dinosaurs of my youth. Now there are so many, I hardly know where to begin. I go through my son’s dinosaur books and I am shocked at how many different names there are. I can’t keep track of all that. Plus, the names are kinda rough. Each one seems to have over seven syllables.

This was shot at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. It’s one of the top dinosaur museums in the world and the curator is Jack Horner. I was lucky enough to get a personal tour through it with Jack… he showed me all kinda of secret stuff throughout. Awesome! I have another friend up there named Dr. David Sands who actually found one of the triceratops that is in the museum. I can’t imagine finding something that big… If I did, I think I’d tell everyone I know the first time I met them. Hi, I’m Trey, I found a Triceratops!

I also made a new page here on the site in tribute of my favorite photographer, Edward Curtis. I mentioned him in a recent interview and it occurred to me people may not know who he is! So, I put together a grouping of some of my favorite photos of his. Be sure you read the bit about his ex-wife.

This photo from Butte, Montana, was much harder to take than it might seem!

First of all, these sunflowers are tall – and I mean tall! They must be between 6 and 7 feet in the air. I was on the ground with them, so, of course, I was looking UP at them. No one wants to see a shot like that…!

So, I put the camera on the tripod, set the timer to 5 seconds, extended the legs, set the manual settings correct, then jacked the whole thing in the air, holding it rock steady while it took the exposure. Getting a steady horizon while holding the camera 12 feet in the air is not easy… and after a number of takes, my shoulders were just about spent for the rest of the night.

As for the little announcement there, I am working on a short film. It’s from Patagonia and somewhat experimental. I expect the debut to be right here on www.stuckincustoms.com on Friday, April 17, so stay tuned! 🙂

I was driving back from the dinosaur dig up near Canada, feeling awfully tired on the highway between Butte and Bozeman. The hour was around sunset and then I suddenly saw this enormous field of sunflowers… it was just sitting there… with no one taking photos of it… I thought it was a shame so pulled over and ran out into the field to get some shots before the sun dipped below the horizon.

These sunflowers were TALL. They must have been 6 feet off the ground. To get the shot, I extended the tripod, kept the legs together, put the camera on a 5 second timer, and hoisted it in the air again and again until I finally found the angle I wanted.

For you cool photo-nerds (like me), I kept the ISO at 320 and EV+2. The lens was at 14mm and the ap at 4.8. The exposure was .004 secs.

We got colded-in in Bozeman. The weather was so cold that a lot of the service vehicles at the airport froze over and could not service the planes. When I woke up in the morning, the temperature was 23 below zero with no wind chill. It was not much fun going outside to start up the car!

Up in Big Sky, my friend text messaged me and said it was 34 below. When I landed in Dallas, it was 32, which is 66 degrees warmer than Big Sky… crazy…

Montana happens to be one of the world’s hotspots for dinosaur digs. Here in Bozeman is the Museum of the Rockies, where the famous paleontologist Jack Horner serves as curator. The museum has some very nice and unique dinosaur stuff that I had never seen or heard of before.

Below is an actual T-rex skeleton that was partially uncovered then transported here to the museum.

I remember when I was young – dinosaurs were so simple. There were only like five kinds of dinosaurs TOTAL. There was the T-Rex, the Brontosaurus, the Triceratops, the Stegosaurus, and the Pteridactal. Now when I watch any kind of dinosaur show or look at a dinosaur book, my mind has to say, okay well I guess that one is kinda like a Brontosaurus, even though it has a new name with 87 syllables.

Take for example this Torosaurus below. It’s a lot like the Triceratops, but different because some crazy scientist wanted to confuse people in their 30’s that think there are only five kinds of dinosaurs.