Daniel Ruf

Refining

"I don't really have studios. I wander around, around people's attics, out in the fields, in cellars, anyplace 

I find that invites me."

Andrew Wyeth

A few days ago my good friend Mike Houge (www.mikehouge.typepad.com) joined me at a heritage site near his home that is a collection of farm home and outbuildings including a barn.  Up until now snow has been a fleeting memory this winter, so we've had to entertain ourselves with subjects that don't include drab backgrounds.  There were a couple of areas in this barn that solved those issues and we set up shop for a long afternoon of photography.

Even though we were in the same area of the barn at one point we both were occupied with different subjects and were either mumbling to ourselves or trading "pot shots" at one another.  At some point I realized, from the activity and mumbling, that we were each refining our approach or vision relating to our particular subject.  This got me to thinking about how much we both have changed our approach and creative vision over the years that we've know one another. It's my belief that a lot of this is an occurance of time spent with photography, or any medium of art for that matter, including sitting in front of a computer defining our own visual concept of a subject. 

In my work experience, whether it has been machining parts for a large company or dealing with the everyday demands of livestock farming, time and knowledge have determined the approach and results with respect to all my endeavors, even personal growth (the last being the one of most demand!)

The blog image resulted from an afternoon of excitement...first when I saw this cluster of horse collars and then when I began to invision the possible outcomes.  Image capture was with a Canon 5DII with processing taking place first in Nik HDR Efex Pro, then Adobe Photoshop CS5 and final developments coming with Nik Color Efex Pro 4 and Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.

Thank you all for making the stop at this blog site and I hope that you have gained some insite about the thrill of photography.  Please feel free to comment or ask any questions.

Sic 'em Baylor 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

People, Too?

"There are many teachers that could ruin you.  Before you know it you could be a pale copy of this teacher or that teacher.  You have to evolve on your own."

Berenice Abbott

Yes, I too can photograph human beings,  but I try to capture a special moment and I usually am more comfortable around family.  In the case of the first blog image the family was in San Antonio to atttend the Valero Alamo Bowl and we happen to be walking along the beautiful River Walk.  My daughter and granddaughter were on the other side feeding the pigeons, a task that my granddaughter loved to do, and, with the backdrop of the various store fronts, the right pose presented itself.

My daughter has a surprisingly deep affection for our two granddaughters, which I find incredible considering the trend of a lot of today's young adults.  Yes, she is absorbed with her Ipod, her job and friends, but when it comes to her niece's she is a first class auntie and I'm so proud of the affection she gives towards the girls.

The capture is from a Canon 50D, processed in Photoshop CS5 and then worked in the Topaz B&W Effects plug-in.  I used a transparency filter to bring a little faded color back into the image and then added a slight blur to the entire scene.  With a layer mask I then brought some of the original color back into the primary subjects and the pigeons.

In this second scene at a court yard inside the Alamo area I was hoping to get a capture of the beautiful lighting in this fountain area, but finally went with the smallest amount of "human intervention" that would work.  This was processed in Photoshop CS5 with Nik HDR Efex and then converted to a black and white using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 which emphasized the lighting as well as the textural qualities of the scene.  Again, using a layer mask, I brought back a hint of flesh tones in the young girl.  I'm really glad that I didn't walk away from this scene and decided to wait for an opening when the crowd melted away.

I often surprise myself when I do these types of portrait situations since I spend a large part of my time searching for grand landscapes, clear waters or summer skies that are void of appearances by people.  I guess, when one really thinks about it, people probably have more of an influence on our lives compared to our surroundings which can define the person that one becomes.

Thank you for joining me today and please feel free to comment.

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

I Can Smell The Ocean

"Look and think before opening the shutter.  The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera."

Yousuf Karsh

A week or so ago we happened to get a nice soft snowfall that just covered the aged dirty snow of a well seasoned winter and it was just enough to give a whole new gown to the landscape.  I slipped away early in the morning while the large flakes were still falling to record a few of my favorite areas and then happened by one of my favorite trees.  I've been here often, but usually at the wrong time, you know, bright seamless skies or somber gray veils that suck the life out of the available light.  It was a little different on this day with the gray sky at least showing some volume and form.

After mental discussions and circling the tree several times it appeared that the best shot was going to be a "belly shot" meaning to lay down on the carpet of new snow and then finding an angle that would take advantage of the character of the surface of the land.  This was an HDR with the idea of not having any blown whites and then was processed using Nik HDR Efex and then run through Nik Silver Efex to develop a black and white from the original image.  A little tweaking in Photoshop CS5 to bring out the textures and "Voila", the finished product.

Since the time of this capture Spring has been gradually surfacing in our area of Iowa.  We've had some warm temperatures, thousands of migrating waterfowl and eagles, and a lessening of the snowpack.  It's during these times of late winter/early spring that we get days with a southerly airflow that I think it's possible to smell the ocean on the wind.  It brings a weakening of winter's grip and a smiling of the heart all at one time.

Enjoy the wasting of Winter and the coming of Spring flowers.

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

Homework

"Most photographers would feel a certain embarrassment in admitting publicly that they carried within them a sense of wonder, yet without it they would not produce the work they do, whatever their particular field."

Bill Brandt

It looks like people in Northwest Iowa are going to be trapped by a weather system that is headed our way so I took the time to do a little "homework" yesterday by setting up my mini studio and playing with an idea that had been in my head for a few weeks.  The idea arose fromt the fact that my wife and myself are celebrating an anniversary today and the ideas took off from there.

The set up of this concept revolves around a love letter being penned and the props would indicate the note is being written by a women.  I had to do some searching to find the props that I wanted and I'm really glad that at the last minute I thought of adding a handkerchief to the mix along with some old dried flowers, a candle and plenty of lighter fluid.

The original capture was a three shot scenario with Nik HDR Efex as the output software.  Lighting was pretty simple as there was a blocked out window to the right of the subject allowing a very small amount of light onto the scene and the rest coming from the candle.  After running the captures through the HDR software I used Nik Color Efex to place a "glamor glow" and vignette on the image.  Finally, some touch up spotting and enrichment of some highlights on the "hankie" and that was about it.

While working on the color version my little brain was really wanting to see a black/white version and I know that my good friend Mike Houge would really want me to do a b/w so below is the result with using Nik Silver Efex Pro.  (The second version just arrived via Fed Ex!)

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

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

 

Atmospherics

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."  Mohandus Gandi

This past weekend I took off for a couple of days to do some shooting in northern Minnesota and north western Wisconsin.  Even though I promised my wife that I would stop on my way on Thursday night to catch a few winks, it turned out I counted sheep until I got tired of counting and kept driving, reaching a favorite spot on the north shore of Lake Superior by 3 a.m. on Friday.  While I waited for sunrise the vision of "sugar plum images" danced in my head as I wondered what the morning light would hold in store.  One of the problems with heading to other parts of the country to engage the camera is that it can be a crap shoot.  With camp sites reserved and time blocked out for such a trip, everything can depend on the weather and timing.

As it turned out dawns early light on Friday was dark and cloudy, which was a huge disappointment.  I knew that rain was in the forecast for Friday so I decided to spend the day scouting some new spots and some favorite spots to help in planning my weekend.  During one period of "rainlessness" on Friday I grabbed the camera and umbrella to head up to Caribou Falls to take a chance.  Half way to the falls the clouds opened up and it poured.  While standing in the shelter of a tree I decided that since I had walked about halfway to the falls I wasn't about to turn back.  After waiting several minutes I opened the umbrella and headed down to the base of the falls to make the best of a bad situation.  My idea, hoping that the heavy rain would cause a veil like screen in front of the falls, is that I could get a layering effect to the falls and the background while leaving the foreground rocks and stream clear.  Well, it may have been a good idea in theory, but it didn't happen.

The next two days turned out to be foggy most of each day, which did allow for some creative intervention from above.  The blog image comes from the Split Rock State Park area.  While waiting to get a "memorable" shot of the Split Rock Lighthouse surrounded by fog I had to settle for this alternative.  After some minor adjustments in Elements 8 I converted the image to a black and white using Nik Silver Efex Pro which really enhanced the separation of the hills.

With the help of some natural atmospherics I was able to steal a few good images before heading home on Monday, but not without being reminded that the earth does not turn on our time clock.  It seems that the farther one wanders from home turf the more difficult it becomes to get the stars to align in ones favor.  With all that being said it still was beautiful, the streams are still musical and the nights reading by candlelight in my tent, serene.

Thank you for visiting and take the opportunity to catch the tail end of summer with someone special.  The north woods tell me fall is coming...soon.

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

Weather.....HOT AND HUMID

"The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him (her) to keep on looking."  Brooks Atkinson

Two words...HOT and HUMID...explain the weather in Northwest Iowa for the past few days.  We're in the August doldrums and life after 8:00 a.m. is pretty horrible.  The good side is that with the excessive humidity we get HAZY mornings, which allows for some layering effects in rolling landscapes.  So, as you might have guessed, I was out bright and early to scope out the possibilities.

After running up and down a few rural roads, passing a few deer and jumping in and out of the truck, I finally found an intersection that looked to have some options to work with.  After a couple of shots it was clear that the most advantageous position was shooting across the road, toward the farmstead I was hoping I would find in my travels, while using the obvious compositional features created by power poles and fence lines.  I was using a Canon 70 - 200mm f/2.8 L lens, which I'm falling in love with, and this helped pull the poles closer together due to the zoom effect of foreshortening distance. 

From the time I set up the tripod THIS was going to be a black and white image, although I always take a color image...just in case....  As you can plainly see the humidity was doing it's thing and then a car came along to make things a little more interesting.  All in all, as a color image with the sun smack in your face, it's not too exciting.

After some minor work in Adobe Elements 8, I turned to Nik Silver Efex Pro plug-in for the black and white conversion.  There a several combination's and filter choices that will have significant effects on an image and it is much like looking at a new car and choosing the options that best suit your taste and inclinations.

After the visit in Nik software I turned to the Topaz "Adjust" plug-in to simplify the general definition of the image.  My main "theme" here, other than swatting mosquitoes and wiping sweat off myself, was the layering effect caused by the haze in the air.  By using the "simplify" tab the tonal areas of the image become a little more defined.  After getting these issues solved there were a couple of power lines that went horizontally through the image that were major distractions.  I didn't have the wire cutter's with me and the power company doesn't seem to appreciate my needs, so I cloned the two sets of lines out.

It's a pretty straight forward image and subject selection, but it did make for some stimulating conversation between the computer and myself.

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

 

Fog Chaser

 

“My best work is almost unconscious and occurs ahead of my ability to understand it.” – Sam Abell

There's no doubt about it...if there is fog in the air I'm usually racing through the countryside, touching base with favorite locations, and hoping that I'll find something that works before the sun burns the veil away.  Such was the activity for this weeks blog image, which really involved pointing my pickup down a gravel rural road and following it until I hit the brakes.  A group of horses in a field back lit by the rising sun...hit the brakes.  A prairie landscape dripping with spider webs and dew...hit the brakes.  The sun is rising higher and the wind is just starting to become evident...drive faster (but safely).  Layers of hillsides off to the east with fog banks in between...hit the brakes.  Suddenly, at a blacktop crossing, a full stop was applied (in accordance with a legal stop sign) and I'm sitting in front of a grouping of trees that I've always wanted to "capture", but never was excited about the moments I've been here.  I looked at the composition, the direction of the sun, the holes of light and almost...I say almost...decided to turn the corner.  Something shouted in my brain...TAKE THIS ONE, IDIOT!  The word "idiot" was an indication that it was NOT Divine inspiration, just my intuitive way to make a decision.

AND I'M GLAD I DID!

When I got home I loading the image into Adobe Elements 8 and went straight to the Nik Silver Efex Pro plug-in and achieved the black and white image I was hoping for, but I couldn't help doing a little dream chasing in Topaz Adjust, clicked on the "Smooth And Flat" tab and bingo.  My wife was looking over my shoulder when the final came on screen and said "it's too gloomy" to which I responded "too bad".  A few days later she saw it hanging in the gallery and she had a changing of heart and mind.

The more I do this work the more I am reminded of the days when I was farming and had only a couple of hours during the week (if that much)  to chase this passion of photography.  During that time it was more of a trial and error period of re-learning camera functions and composition elements and, before I knew it, class time was up.  Today, I'm convinced that daily exposure to photography, whether leaning on the web or standing behind a camera, the items of f/stops, shutter speeds and composition become almost subliminal to the actual capture of a digital image.  It may sound simple, but it's taken me a long time, a lot of mistakes, a lot of head scratching and a fair amount of on the job prayer, to realize this fact.

So, if the fog machine is on, I'm covering ground while jumping with excitement.  

This past week I've found some really great photography/photographer sites that I'd like to share with you:

http://grafphoto.com/wordpress/

http://bobcornelis.wordpress.com/

http://singhray.blogspot.com/

It's all about filling the mental file!!!

Thanks for joining me here at my site and take time with family and friends.

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