Daniel Ruf

UFO'S

 

"A landscape, like a man or woman, acquires character through time and endurance."  Edward Abbey

A couple of days ago I was driving my sister-in-law to catch a shuttle for the airport and on the 2 hour trip we talked a good deal about her passion, quilting.  My sister in Texas is also a quilter and because of these two generous artists our house has it's share of beautiful quilts to keep us warm on cold days and nights.  I've become very fond of the artistry of quilting and regard it as a fine art which often reflects the elements of true craftsmanship.

During the discussion we both were laughing about the residue of our crafts that are in a closet or some corner of a computer and she said that she calls these items UFO'S...Un - Finished - Objects, which struck a me as odd until I had time to think about the phrase on the way home when it came to me that much of art, or the varying concepts of art, are UFO'S, waiting for a new idea or technique to try, mold, or influence a "finished" work or work in progress.  With my photography many of the pieces that finally make it to a gallery have been the result of trial and error, re-shooting, re-visiting, or new software techniques which bring the image to a closing point.  In some cases the closing point has turned out to be a resting period until I revisit and tweak once again.

And isn't this all true about life?  How we all are an unfinished vessel honed into a finished product as we pass from one life experience to another. Some choosing to beat a life experience to death while others choose to gather the seeds, grow, and move on, something that I am slow at learning.  It has become my belief that all experiences, bad or good, prepare us for the next turn in the road, the next meeting, the next incident of the Journey.

The blog image is of Wolf Creek Falls in Banning State Park near Sandstone, Minnesota and while our meeting was brief due to inclement weather, I plan on being back in October for the fall festivities.  Very little work was needed to bring this to the "final" stage, but who knows what the final stage may be.  The overcast lighting presented excellent lighting conditions for the shot as well as a saturation of colors to give the foliage a stronger presence in the scene.

Thank you all for visiting my blog site and enjoy the summer with family and friends.  I've enjoyed the long evenings on the front porch watching the "fire flies", listening to the Robins and gazing at the colors of sunsets.

For more views of my work visit;

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

"Art On 16th"  http://www.hankhallarton16th.com

Artisans Road Trip www.artisansroadtrip.com  

http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V1

Gifts

 

"Our world is so full of beautiful things: Fruit and ideas and woman and banjo music and onions with purple skins."    Edward Abbey

My last day at the Tony Sweet workshop was spent catching up with various spots I wanted to revisit for some private camera experience, but during the afternoon the skies were clear and I happened to pass a small stadium where the local FFA chapter (Future Farmers Of America) was having a rodeo and decided I'd take part in some recreational photography until late afternoon.  One of the first events on the program was "cutting" which is where a contestant has to separate a certain number of cattle from a larger group and then "cut" a single member from the smaller group and keep that individual separated for a certain length of time. (I'm sure that someone with some experience could explain this a lot better!)  It took me awhile to figure out what was going on and where to be pointing my camera, anticipating the next move of horse, rider and "critter".  From what I can tell it takes a special cutting horse and some quick hands to stay ahead of the escape attempts of the animal in question.

As it turned out, this unexpected departure from nature photography yielded at least one happy result, which is the enclosed blog image.  The concentration of the rider, named Hayley, the position of her left hand and the grouping of cattle worked for a great combination, but I did have some issues with the background.  Originally the background did have some trees, as shown, but also a very objectionable trailer (or something like that) that, while not in sharp focus, was a real distraction.  The only choice I had was to clone out the trailer and then use the "quick selection" tool in the Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 software on the background so I could separately blur the area so that it didn't compete with the main subject.  After stumbling through some of the process I finally got everything to come together.

The whole rodeo experience was a reminder of the days when my children were involved in 4H and showed our dairy heifers (females) at the local county fair.  The process of showing involves not only teaching a calf to a get used to a lead rope, but also other show related intricacies such as washing,grooming and trimming of the calf prior to show time.  I know there were times when our kids had other things on their minds, but these types of life events teach them care of another being and learning activities that made them focus on developing a certain expertise to prepare a heifer for show.  It was more about selflessness than a show ring, and those that mastered this worthy characteristic were not only winners in the show ring, but also in later life where dealing with needs of others is a real quality trait.

To learn more about the FFA copy and paste the enclosed link to read what Mike Rowe has to say;     http://www.mikeroweworks.com/2010/05/the-future-of-farming/

Thanks for visiting and remember our veterans on Memorial Day.

For more views of my work visit;

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

"Art On 16th"  http://www.hankhallarton16th.com

Artisans Road Trip www.artisansroadtrip.com  

http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V1

Real Cost

"Though men now possess the power to dominate and exploit every corner of the natural world, nothing in that fact implies that they have the right or the need to do so."    

            Edward Abbey - from "A Voice Crying In The Wilderness"

The work goes on with the editing of images from my journey to the Tony Sweet workshop in the Badlands of South Dakota, though I think the end is in sight.  While it's been time consuming I am so pleased that the time spent in this beautiful space was so rewarding in so many ways.  The blog image is from the Pinnacles area of the park and, during my free time before the official start of the workshop, I spent many hours working this find.

The only real special application for achieving this capture was the use of a Singh-Ray "Vari-ND" filter which is a neutral density filter that is adjustable from 2 to 8 stops of density and allowed for a longer exposure that recorded the movement in the clouds overhead.  By using this effect it I feel a greater sense of depth is achieved.

The dawning of the technology age that we find ourselves immersed in has been cause for a lot of mental turbulence for the last several days, part of which has been spent with a phone in my ear while discussing a faulty download issue for a product that I needed to update.  While I will agree that digital technology has given photography a truck load of artistry tools that have made the medium all the more thrilling to use, I am struggling to find areas where the technological advances of the last 10 years have added quality to our lives overall.

As I traveled the roads of the Badlands I swerved or stopped behind vehicles that had an arm sticking out with a phone device attached to a hand which I assume was in the process of image capture with the camera phone device.  Somehow I just couldn't make myself believe that this process was anything more than a reflex reaction by someone unwilling to invest themselves, their brain, their eyes, or their ears in the geographic area that we were both sitting in at the moment.  There is something about being involved in hiking a trail or gazing into a great abyss that makes for a much more rewarding experience at image capture than the "drive by shoot" that was in progress.  The same is the case for waking up in a tent that one has taken the time to erect and, with the air still and the blackness of night all around, being able to hear a distant call of wolves instead of seeing a stuffed display in some park info station as the alternative.

Another example, and again I'm equally guilty of this infraction, would be the sending of an email to someone, which to me equates the operation of communication to being a chore, instead of sitting down to a handsomely rich piece of paper and actually composing a letter in ones own script, thereby making the process of communication more about caring and the literary process.

Have we gained that much with the advent of computers, ipods, laptops and cell phone?  It would appear that these "toys" have gained us material instruments in our lives, but have they appreciated the quality of our lives?  Those that are in the work force are probably getting more "through put" by the end of the day, but are the number of work hours in the day diminished from years gone by?  How has technology added "quality" to our living experience?

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

"Art On 16th"  http://www.hankhallarton16th.com

Artisans Road Trip www.artisansroadtrip.com  

http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V1

Losing Silence

The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.

Edward Abbey

While doing some reading on The WIlderness Society website I came across some data that was put together by the U.S. Forest Service.  It stated that the U.S. loses 6,000 acres of open area per day to such uses as industrial, residential and agriculture.  When I computed the figure over a years time I figured that in 369 days we destroy the equivalent of the entire acres in Yellowstone National Park.  I was wondering about these figures because I've begun to think about a natural resource that we are losing along with those acres...Silence.  The loss of trees, rivers and wildlife is huge in each of those 6,000 acre, but those acres, in many cases, are replaced by things that make noise or provide a platform for things that are noisy.

In a discussion today with my friend Mike we were relishing in the fact that one of the things that we liked most about the art of photography...or at least nature photography...is the connection that we have with the places that we photograph.  Unlike many artistic endeavors that are created in a man made studio, the outdoors is our studio and with that comes all the peace that comes with these location shoots.  And peace doesn't mean the absence of sound, for the very sound of the wind through the pines or waves sliding over a sandy beach give us a sense of peace.  As we stand behind our camera our view of the living image is enhanced by the sensations that surround our being, including the peace.

As luck would have it, Guy Tal, www.guytal.com , discusses these treasures that are a part of making an image on his blog today.  The hiking, the camping, the searching, the finding and all the other dots on the map of creativity in between, become part of the process of making an image.  The capture of the image becomes much more than pushing the shutter release, it becomes an internal record of a sense of place and peace.  Our hope is that our internal image becomes visual to the viewer.

I'm beginning to believe that the benefits of nature photography are as much psychological as they are artistic for I know that when I exit a forest I am better for the travel in this sanctum.  The question is...how long will it be before we no longer have these quiet places or no longer realize what we've lost?

For more views of my work visit:

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

Art Of The Vine Gallery http://www.artofthevinegallery.com

Artisans Road Trip www.artisansroadtrip.com  

http://www.betterphoto.com/Premium/Default.aspx?id=251674&mp=V1