Daniel Ruf

Offerings

"I think if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up."

Mary Cassatt

The last few days our part of the world has been fortunate enough to experience a few days of fog and, to paraphrase Dorcas Lane of "Larkrise To Candleford"..."Fog is my only weakness", I've been out exploring a lot of different nooks and crannies.  On the day of the blog image I found an area of ground fog, while on the road, and was pretty excited since it was a perfect background to a farmstead that I've wanted to capture for a long time.  The perfect sunrise colors made it all the better so I made a hard right turn to find a set up location to wait for the "announcement" of the colors.

The image was processed through Nik HDR Efex Pro, then Photoshop CS5 and finally some touches in Nik Color Efex Pro 4.  Color Efex provided the Tonal Contrast correction and also the use of the Split Neutral Density Grad Filter which are two favorites and with the brush tool in the software filter allows the opportunity to paint the effects on the image.  The Nik brush tools and the U-point technology are great to use for those subtle touches throughout an image.

While working on this piece it wasn't too difficult to remember past mornings on the farm...out early to start chores, then in for a hardy breakfast at about 9 a.m. and then back out 'til noon.  While the days were long and full there was always a sense of pride in the American Heartland that went with the work no matter how compelling the day.

Thanks for visiting the site and don't forget to stop to take a deep breath...Spring is here, my friend.

A big shout for the Baylor men's and women's basketball team for having won their way to the final eight of the NCAA tournaments.  We're so proud.

My book "Places I've Been, Things I've Seen" and new book "Take What's Given" 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

http://500px.com/pigs4u

Finding Your Thrill

"...you can't always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need..."

Rolling Stones (Jaggar/Richards)

Recently I was checking out a favored blog site http://www.ianplant.com/blog/2011/12/21/photographic-quotations/ and came upon a favorite quote by the writer that simply defines the challenges of photography.  I wouldn't have guessed that the Rolling Stones would be the source, since their work is way out of my musical orbit, but then again, maybe the quote is also a reminder about being in such ruts!

The blog image is just one of those situations when the search wasn't yielding anything that was exciting to me until I found myself at a location near us that got my attention.  Yes, it's just a bunch of boats and, yes, it's not a landscape and, yes, there are no flowers, but sometimes one does have to "take the ride that is available or walk home empty handed".  In this case I liked the colors, the lines, the reflections and went with the opportunity.

The image was captured with my Canon 5DII using a neutral density filter on the lens so I could achieve a really long exposure to "smooth out" the ripples in the water and gain a stronger reflection.   It is an HDR capture that was processed with Nik's HDR Efex software in Photoshop CS5. 

If there is just one important lesson that I learn almost everytime the camera comes out is that flexibility is often the best tool that a person has in their arsonal of creative vocabulary.  It's also a pretty good tool for living life!

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a marvelous holiday season.

Sic 'em Bears!

My book "Places I've Been, Things I've Seen" and new book "Take What's Given" 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

http://500px.com/pigs4u

 

 

Never Too Late

"Know where to find the sunrise and sunset times and note how the sky looks at those times, at least once."

Marilyn vos Savant

"On a recent trip to the north shore of Lake Superior with my friend Mike Houge we were on our way back from a daylong shoot of fall color when we both took notice of the changing sky color as the sun dipped below the horizon.  We were close to the Split Rock Light House and knew a bay that just might be the place to be at the particular time and rushed to find a spot.  Being good friends we generally stay out of each others hair by heading in our own directions...I happened to plop down in some shallow surf with the water trickling in and out between the rocks beneath my bottom side. 

The required exposure with a Singh-Ray Vari-Neutral density filter was 8 seconds as I wanted to minimize water detail so I could maximize the reflection of sky and scenery on the surface.  In such situations a large number of exposures are necessary since one never knows when the peak of color is reached until the color begins to fade.  The good thing about sitting in such a beautiful setting is that a good deal of thinking and rejoicing takes place...as well as a slight bit of praying, crossing of fingers, throwing salt over the shoulder (if some is available) or rubbing the well used rabbits foot.  Even when one has a good sense of the numbers...shutter speed, aperture, etc...it is possible to get to the computer only to find something less than what was expected.  The one positive thing about such situations of light, color and magic is making a point of being there, front row center with a finger on the cable release.

It really doesn't get better than this and I believe this will be a night that I'll carry with me for years to come.

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

Opposites

"A work of art that did not begin in emotion is not art."

Paul Cezanne

Wisking down a road in northern Minnesota brought me to this tempting little eye catcher as I topped a small hill which immediatly caused me to swerve to the shoulder for a better look.  It was horribly windy, which at first seemed to be a real downer, but having a better look and being intriqued by the combination of a rigid steel dump truck that was sporting an antique set of bed frames was a little too much to dismiss.  The solution for the wind situation was to just let the wind do it's thing so as to become a backdrop for the solid subject.  I used a Singh-Ray Vari-ND filter which alowed me to slow the shutter speed to about 6 seconds giving the wind a chance to do a creative blur with the background trees.

The capture was processed in Photoshop CS5 and the further work was done in Nik Color Efex Complete with Tonal Contrast and then Polaroid Transfer.  The gritty nature of the truck against the softness of the background seems to really harmonize well together with the bed ends being the exclimation point. 

As in life opposite combinations that confront us can come together for a fulfilling result...it's just a matter of sitting back and letting "nature" take its course while rejoicing in the unexpected.

Thanks to everyone of you that stop at my blog space and a shout out to all the great Baylor people that are part of this community.  Sic 'em Bears.

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

Idle Time

    The last few weeks have been a hodge podge of recovering from surgery, traveling to and from Texas to visit our grand daughter, and sitting inside watching freezing rain cover the landscape.  My time in the field with a camera has been limited, mainly by a load limit placed on me by my doctors, but it has allowed me time to sit in front of the computer (not exactly like sitting behind the lens) and revisit some work with the colors of black and white in mind.

The blog image is from my trip to the South Dakota Badlands when I was fortunate to be a participant in a Tony Sweet workshop.  While it has been a full 6 months since the trip I do remember thinking that final image was going to end up as black and white composition. Surprisingly I was so taken with the color rendering that I really didn't pursue the "dark side", being perfectly content with the original capture, but that might have been a big mistake on my part. 

The set up included an extremely long 25 second exposure using the Singh Ray Vari ND filter in the beautiful diffuse morning light, camera on tripod, mirror lockup and remote cable release.  It was my first experience using the Singh Ray filter and the results were beyond my wildest imaginations for this situation involving rapidly moving clouds and I wasn't prepared for the great separation that occurred from the motion blur.  The editing process was pretty simple with some touch up with Nik Color Efex and the general contrast and color tweaks.

Yesterday, while watching cars sliding down the street from my office window, I started playing with this capture again using Nik Silver Efex Pro and I believe the results are closer to my original concept adding a little more drama to the sky and highlighting the background peaks.

As can be seen in the works of other photographers, both film based and digital, the first horse out of the chute is not necessarily the final act of the play.  With some maturity of thought or creative process or new technical applications the original capture can almost become a living entity, changing with the whim of the artist.

I hope you are all having a marvelous Thanksgiving and thanks to everyone for connecting with my blog past, present and future.

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  

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

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

 

Surprises!

"It's not what you look at that matter's, it's what you see."  Henry David Thoreau

A couple of weeks ago I had the great need to get away from the house, daily chores, and prep work to just get out for some serious one on one time with the camera.  The minutes that can be chewed up behind a computer or at the printer can add up to hours and suddenly one finds dust laying on the camera bag from lack of use.  With that in mind I left home at about 4 a.m. wanting to be at a particular spot at a certain time.  I really hate trying to manage shooting time since most times I play things a little loose to keep my creative side open to any and all possibilities.  As I was driving through the countryside I looked out the drivers side window to catch the rising crescent moon and suddenly I knew I had to find a foreground to go with the shot.  Turning at the next gravel/rural road I came the casual morning trek became the frantic search for something of interest.

As time passed, my brain was telling me "the moon's getting higher, the moon's getting higher" while I also noticed that "dawns early light" was also going to become marker of time slipping away.  Finally, I saw a grouping of wind generators in the distance and thought that this might be a possibility, but wasn't really to keen on a landscape with a bunch of steel sticking up into what might be a beautiful sunrise.  I gave it a good look on the way by, thought "yuck" in the back of my mind and then that little argument starts..."you better stop"..."no, I don't like it"..."you better stop"....  Unfortunately, as I continued on to the west, the road made a big dip causing the surface landscape to disappear.  As I made the next rise that familiar voice..."You better stop and get out"...was screaming.  I slammed on the breaks, grabbed my gear and entered MOSQUITO VALLEY!  While throwing tripods up, swatting at pesky, hungry mosquitoes, putting on a 70-200mm zoom, yelling at myself that I couldn't get the whole scene in because the moon (go figure) had risen high enough to slip outside the viewfinder, cussing the two generators that weren't working, changing the lens to a wide angle zoom, slipping in a neutral grad filter and................Finally, yes FINALLY I was ready to get serious.  I was able to slip the tree on the left horizon in so that it wouldn't look so barren and get those wispy clouds in which help break up an otherwise boring sky.

Shot done, wind picked up, moon out of reach and that was pretty much the morning shoot.  Back at the ranch the editing was really pretty simple, a little Viveza on the moving blade patterns to define them a little more as well as giving a little more "body" to the thin, wisps of clouds and it was a done deal.  Of course, as with most captures, a person can sit there, as I did, and do the Monday morning quarterback thing of..."I should of this" or "I should of that", but growing in any artistic medium is about lessons learned, which lead to growth of both our vision and our results.

Heck, those pieces of steel don't look half that bad with the title of "Iowa's New Harvest" attached to the image.  Wind energy...using a renewable resource to preserve those that aren't.

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  

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

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

My America

With the heartland Spring comes the season of planting the new crop and, while I've been away from farming for a couple of years, I still am drawn to the excitement of the seasonal events of planting and harvesting.  Not only are the manly pleasures of large equipment at hand, but there is the thought that at this time of year thousands of farmers in our part of the world are involved in a concerted effort to either plant the years crop or harvest a bountiful crop.  With many farmers a season makes their livelihood and a good or bad crop will spell the comforts for the coming year.

As the years have passed Americans have become more and more removed from the rural roots of our pioneer ancestors.  With each passing decade our individual connections with farming, either through living in the rural community or having a relative that is actively engaged in the land, has been erased by the passages of life.  Today, much of America is probably unfamiliar with the day to day struggles and seasonal ebb and flow of the farming practices.  It still is a simpler world, but is being changed by ever increasing demands of larger farming operations needed to sustain family incomes.

I'll not soon forget the times in the field, from picking up rocks to having "lunch" at the edge of a harvested field and I'll never forget being in command of a large piece of farming equipment doing a variety of farming tasks.  I'm grateful for the opportunities that life's little curves have provided to a city kid and thankful that instead of saying "I've never done that before" I instead exclaimed "why not?"

The above scene was captured outside the small town of Fostoria, Iowa and after having seen the on coming of what could eventually be a beautiful sunset I combed that back roads of the area looking for the work of planting this years crop in progress.  A split neutral density filter helped to tame the brightness of the sky so that the image contrast would be reduced for the final processing stage.

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

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

Artisans Road Trip www.artisansroadtrip.com  

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