Daniel Ruf

Looking For The Needle In The Haystack

"A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something."  Frank Capra

A few weeks ago I was chasing a few clouds along the southern border of Minnesota when I came upon this scene in a small clearing of farmland.  The wagon seemed so out of place for our time and I couldn't help thinking about how it had survived so long from the Minnesota weather.  As I started shooting the scene the center cloud was far to the left side, but while minutes went by I noticed that it was traveling in the "right" direction, meaning becoming a part of the scene.

Clouds are such a magical thing to me...that they are formed from mini water droplets drawn from the earth and then given back to us in the form of rain.....or snow, while during the process providing us with a myriad of forms and backdrops to witness.  It reminds me of a comment made to me by a west coast photographer regarding the lack of clouds as we see here in the midwest in his part of the country.  I was astounded since I only assumed that everyone had these same puffy white masses in their sky as well.

During the editing process I processed this image in the new Topaz B & W Effects and was pretty impressed by the amount of creative options that are available and the ease of doing custom adjustments.

It was then that I decided to take it a step further using the transparency adjustable slide to add a small amount of color to give the image the more vintage look seen below.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to comment on your favorite of this post.

My book "Places I've Been, Things I've Seen" can be purchased online at-

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1868649

For more views of my work visit;

"A Piece Of Work", Spirit Lake, Iowa  http://www.apieceofworkinc.com

Lanesboro Art Center, Lanesboro, Minnesota   www.lanesboroarts.org

BetterPhoto.com   http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V

Sometimes...

  

"Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors."

W. Eugene Smith

...you just have to turn around to see the image you have been looking for and in this case, on an extremely hot day at Ft. Defiance State Park, such was the case when I turned from the actual coneflowers I was shooting and found this window view staring at me.  Sometimes it's a no brainer...even if the brain is in sleep mode.

The original capture, actually two of them are below and due to the low light conditions it was 

necessary to make two captures with specific focus for the window frame and the flowers.  During the editing process the two were merged as combined layers and the flowers were then painted into the window frame areas.  After some adjustments in Photoshop CS5 for brightness and contrast the next step was to go into Nik Color Efex Pro to make additional adjustment in tonal contrast and foliage color.

The last steps included some color work in Nik Viveza using their fantastic "U-Point" technology and then doing a little "copy and paste" to rid the window frame of the obnoxious chip in the lower left.

Finally some work was done in Alien Skin's "Topaz" to give the scene a slight painterly effect for the final blog image at the top.

As I remind participants of my local workshops most subjects have at least 6 sides to explore which can give you at least 6 different lighting scenario's.  In this case, though, it was necessary for a 180 degree turn from the subject to see what was behind both me and the camera. 

Move your feet and take the time to investigate all the possibilities.

Thank you for stopping and feel free to comment.

My book "Places I've Been, Things I've Seen" can be purchased online at-

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1868649

For more views of my work visit;

"A Piece Of Work", Spirit Lake, Iowa  http://www.apieceofworkinc.com

Lanesboro Art Center, Lanesboro, Minnesota   www.lanesboroarts.org

BetterPhoto.com   http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V