Daniel Ruf

Waiting For Snow...

"There are no extra pieces in the universe.  Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle."

Deepak Chopra

...but thinking of Spring.

 

It's been an extremely dry this past summer and fall and now we're (I'm) waiting for our first real snowfall.  The bare trees and brown earth is in need of the winter face lift which includes the occasional hoar frost and magic softness of large white flakes.

Since the winter scene is not on hand I thought I'd post a capture of Dogwood blossoms from my visit to the Smoky's in Tennessee last Spring.  As I've stated before inside time during the winter allows me to catch up on work that I've missed in the editing process for one reason or another.  It also gives me a chance to renew my memory of the moment and this was no exception.  In my opinion the Dogwoods and Redbuds of the southern climes are the ornaments of the spring forest...when we are all waiting for the flush of greens these two trees keep our attention span alert.

The second image below has been edited with the use of Alien Skin's Snap Art 3, which is another worthy palette for photography, giving the artist the opportunity to refine a direction of a particular image.  In this case I used the watercolor tool for a softening effect and adjusted the paper texture as well.

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

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

Sic 'em Bears!

Back Home

  

"While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see."

Dorothea Lange

Continuing education, especially in the arts, is to me one of the fundamental elements of personal creative improvement that any artist should endeavor to do.  It's all well and good to daily pursue our own schedule of creative achievement, but in the long view one is often helpless at falling into conceptual errors that often stagnate our creative movement.  I have just returned from participation in my second Tony Sweet workshop with refreshed brain cells and weary body.  This years location was the Smoky Mountain National Park and it was an area of one photo stop after another.  In order to get myself primed and lubed for a new location I arrived in the Smoky's about 5 days early to get the feel of the area.  It was a good idea since I had the opportunity to work with fog in the landscape, which did not occur after the workshop started.

Tony, and his partner, Susan are not only excellent photographers, but also skillful communicators and mentors, with a good deal of wit thrown in.  While they don't hover over participants they are always within grabbing distance for suggestions and guidance or answers to any questions.  Their knowledge of equipment and software usage is huge which helps in the final output of a photographic image.

The blog image is from a place called Sparks Lane, although a different view from the more iconic view from the opposite end of this location.  As I was setting up for a low viewpoint with my camera and tripod that would include the flowing water covering the pavement, Tony suggested that I get lower, pointing to the wet pavement surface.  I gave him a grimaced look since the thought of getting wet early in the morning wasn't on my priority list, just yet.  He gave me some good natured ribbing and then left the scene.  After finishing "my" capture, I took a peek of the view from the pavement surface and decided that he was correct...as usual...that another foot or so lower was indeed the better shot.  After seeing the results in the LCD screen, I never gave the previous shot another thought.  This WAS the shot.

Like anyone else in the world, I can become stale in my approach to my work and my surroundings.  The sobering thing about ones creativity is that it reveals a stagnant approach which viewers can see a mile away.  Let's face it, a viewpoint from our eyesite of, say, 6 feet, is not always the best!  Flex those knees!

    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

Surrounded

   

Recently I had the opportunity to visit a national park that I'd always heard about, but never lived close enough to for a visit.  Luckily the opportunity to visit presented itself during retirement and I  jumped at the chance.  The place, Smoky Mountain National Park is located in eastern Tennessee and, during the Spring that I was there, is now on my "must visit" list for the future.  Aside from the fact that it's a beautiful park it has enough running streams of water to be an institution of higher learning in water photography and enough wildflowers to gentle anyone's heart while stirring their creative imagination.

I sometimes think that really good locations help make good photographers even better, but I KNOW that good locations help make good photographers even better when they get back to home turf.  New places seem to rejuvenate the creative "well" so that when one returns to their native stomping grounds their visual responses are keener, at least that has been my experience.  New places also become a source of "continuing education" which I think is necessary for any artist to do on a regular basis, especially in adjunct to a formal workshop in ones medium.

The other more subliminal result of visiting new places is a renewed appreciation of what our good country has to offer in the way of sites, sounds and people that we often forget we are a part of.  In today's "modern" world it's all to easy to become "home bound" in our perception of our world and we easily forget that there are beautiful spaces not far from our door.  And, in those spaces, are beautiful people with entirely different ways of life, loves and dialect.  Just as in Texas, in Tennessee I never tire of hearing a waitress call me "honey" while helping me make a dinner choice.  For some reason, the people in these places are just in a different daily gear and have time to ask about where you're from, about your family and say "Y'all come back real soon" when they say goodbye...and they all seem to mean it.

The blog image is from the Little River in the Smoky's (that's the accurate spelling) and will become a part of the "Ballerina" series of work that I'm accumulating.  I am drawn to trees that take on a certain "pose" in their environment that might represent what one would expect a ballerina to present.  It was taken with a simple Canon 50D with very little digital editing involved except for a tweak called "glamor glow" in Nik Viveza Complete software.

In just a short generation America's national parks have become our best kept secret.  The world of digital entertainment has distracted all of us from our lands greatest entertainment treasures.  Time spent with our families traveling, camping, fishing, etc. has diminished our real life adventures we adults enjoyed as children.  Take the time to see OUR world...and in the process support the local arts.

Thanks to all that continue to support this site by visiting.

    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