Daniel Ruf

A Twist

"Creativity can be described as letting go of certainties."

Gail Sheehy

This week the gallery know as "A Piece Of Work" (APOW)in downtown Spirit Lake will hang a show comprised of work by member artists that are also employees of the gallery.  The reception for this show will be on March 11 at 5:30pm and will give the public the opportunity to see creations by staff artists and also listen to them speak about their work.  I will be among those artist and will "unveil" some new work that I have been working with during the winter months that is a bit new and a "twist" on my previous style of photography. 

This past winter has been a little unusual since part of the time I was in recuperation from surgery and its effects and much of the winter weather has been quite gloomy with the touches of snowfall, ice and heavy winds thrown in for good measure.  Due to these factors I spent a good deal of time indoors, which had me going a little "batty", and forced me to finally really start to learn Photoshop CS5, read a fantastic book "Layers" by Matt Kloskowski, and get some technical and artistic support from my good friend Anthony Vodraska (check out X-Alt Studio in side bar to the right).

It was during this time that I also had the opportunity to revisit my image files for some needed house cleaning and that journey led me to the conclusion that there was a lot of work that had promise for the use in making composite images.  The blog image is one of these composites and will be one of the examples of this new direction that will be in the staff show at APOW.  While this change in my work has been enlightening and exciting, it will certainly not replace the style that most are accustom to seeing, but will be another avenue that I believe will strengthen my creative process.

In the case of this blog image I was reunited with a capture from a couple of years ago of a shot of Anderson Prairie with a looming wall cloud passing over.  I had always loved this shot, with blooming wildflowers in the foreground, but it was a bit empty and really never went much farther than one exhibition print for a local prairie photography show.  It was during the "house cleaning" event that I discovered a barn that I had photographed, a few years before the prairie shot, and thought that it would serve an honorable purpose of being an "anchor" in the landscape while the addition of a line of geese is the bond for "Fall Voices" which becomes a compilation of many of my Fall memories of landscapes and fading calls of migratory geese on crisp autumn days.

Thanks to all that stop by to visit my blog and happy shooting.

    My new 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=V1

 

Redefine

"We are,each one of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another."    Luciano de Crescenzo

 

The exciting thing about digital photography is the idea that no image becomes old as long as the photographer is engaged in the learning process and upgrading his creative skills.  With winter settled in here in our corner of the world we've been hunkered down with our share of ice, snow and gloom and, with my being close to the grips of "cabin fever" I have finally begun to deal with Photoshop CS5 and some of its tools.  I've avoided learning this editing software because Adobe Photoshop Elements has been just fine, but just like young boys learning to coexist with young girls, I decided to move on in the creative process...on a first date basis.

The challenge is really no different than learning new tools in the wet darkroom except for the fact that the digital world is never standing still.  The one thing that I've had to come to grips with is that no matter what I learn today, tomorrow is a whole new lesson.  While this may seem to be a never ending challenge, in truth it means that not only is ones creativity always on the move, but the persons work may always have new meaning day, months or years later.  Add to that the fact that when a photographer is lined up in front of a subject they have more skills to use for the "previsualization" of the final outcome of an image.

The above blog image is something that happened on a trip to Florida several years ago that started out in frustration.  This Osprey had been combing the beaches nearby and while I had a 100 - 400mm zoom loaded on my camera, I was really having a hard time trying to get some "pass" shots of this marvelous creature.  As I've said many times before, "as luck would have it" the Osprey found a stream of air overhead and for several seconds we stared at each other.  "What can it be like to have the use of wings?", I thought right before making this capture.

Once at home I was delighted with the image, but disappointed with the blank blue sky overhead.  It seemed to suck the life out of the living creature, but recently I've had the opportunity to revisit this image with a new tool called Fly Paper textures at http://flypapertextures.blogspot.com/ .  These textured overlays are exciting to work with and offer a bundle of choices for creative use.  The result put a whole new life in the capture and also a whole new impetus in my learning experience.  Also, one other great resource for learning is a new book "Layers" by Matt Kloskowski, which was suggested to me by my good friend Anthony Vodraska of "X-Alt Art Studio", and has provided a great starting point for learning about the use of layers in editing.

Of course this simple lesson for creativity is applicable in our daily lives giving new purpose to what may seem to be mundane occurrences or tasks that surround us.  We are all born with a creative Spirit and, like learning to walk, if we don't get up on our feet once in awhile, we forget how to move forward.

Christmas is just around the corner, a time to embrace one another, and new years is next, a time to reinvent ourselves and our purpose!  Wishing you all the very best for the season and a prosperous new year.