Daniel Ruf

Transition

"Autumn's the mellow time." William Allingham

A rainy day, leaves are falling and the color is silently disappearing. While it was the prettiest autumn that I have seen since  moving to Northwest Iowa in the 80's it feels like such a short visit this year. Last year at this time I was wearing out my camera in Maine during my first visit and the color was blazing. Color in our part of Iowa is a little more subdued and a smaller variety of tones.

The blog shot was taken a couple of days while it was raining. Boredom had taken it's toll and I was planning to take my chances that some fog and haze might have some nice options for photography. I decided to handhold my camera rather than drag a tripod around and it was a little test of a new freedom. There was no setting up of the "pod" as well as no extending and retraction of the legs for each photo session. It was fun.

As I passed this scene I happen to catch the reflections in the water and then the "subtle" blue tone in the background. I quickly made a "U" turn and glad I did. With some fog in the background and spots of color in the last tree of autumn I felt that I had some options to work with.

Processing was done in Lightroom and Photoshop and then some dabbling in NIK Color Efex Pro 4. 

The docks are coming out and the area is going through its regular autumn alterations. It won't be long before the scene is covered in ice and white stuff. Actually, the weather report is calling for some snow this weekend.

Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're in the Spencer, Iowa area the last couple of weeks of my exhibit at Arts On Grand is still showing

Places to see more of Daniel's work:

Pearson Lakes Art Center - lakesart.org 

Arts On Grand - artsongrand.org

 

A Long Time To Wait

"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."  Joseph Campbell

It's been quite a awhile since the last fog event in our area of Northwest Iowa...so long that I can't remember the last time. Because of the wait I was thrilled when I woke up to hazy street lights and hoping that the fog was going to lead to some fun photography.

The blog scene has a much welcomed "Z" line running through the picture with layers of fog caught in the depressions. The interesting thing is that the lake areas really didn't have fog hanging around as I found out making my first swing the the lake areas.

This scene was shot with my Canon 5D Mark IV with a 400mm zoom on the front end. It wasn't until I saw the RAW file on the computer that I saw a bird taking flight near the middle of the image. Judge by the size I'd say it was a hawk of some kind.

The editing process started with Lightroom and Topaz AI Denoise, then Photoshop for the details, and NIK software for final touches.

The next day found us with another foggy morning, which provided another opportunity to try some different areas of our area. This wetland area is a prime area for gulls, pelicans, herons and ducks. As I took this shot a line of pelicans was making their way toward me and the camera. Luck is always welcome.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. The season is making a turn with a lot of leaves and acorns hitting the ground. It won't be long before we'll be seeing the white stuff, but the time for logging fall color is on its way.

Thanks for visiting...Keep safe and use the social distancing options and masks

Places to see more of Daniel's work:

Pearson Lakes Art Center - lakesart.org 

Arts On Grand - artsongrand.org

 

Winters Last Breath ?

"To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image

becomes a great physical and intellectual job."  Henri Cartier-Bresson

Almost a week ago we had one of the most vicious blizzards I've ever experienced followed by several days of below freezing temperatures overnight. It became another several days of covering and uncovering the the tulip beds with plastic. From here on out it looks like things are going to switch gears to Spring.

Yesterday morning was my first outdoor adventure in many days. At 5:30 in the morning "social separation" is not difficult especially in a state park that is still covered in snow. The blog image was about the only interesting item to photograph, but at least I had a number of selection options when it came to ice formations sculptured by the lake water during the aforementioned storm.

The blog image was taken with my trusty Canon 5D Mark IV. I was looking for a simple composition with morning color and reflection on the water. I got most of that plus the reflection of the sunrise color in the icy fingers. The image was first processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic CC, then finishing touches in Adobe Photoshop CC, with some final touches in NIK Viveza.

Because of the quarantine I've been spending a lot of time watching photography videos on my computer. All decked out in my earbuds I enjoyed seeing different ideas, results, processes, and links to other treasures.

I happend to find a photographer, Nigel Danson, through some online search. He's a photographer of the United Kingdom and found his video tutorials quite helpful and informative. They're short, mostly 18 minutes or so, and full on info and options and includes a lot of images of England rural ares, which made it all the more fascinating, since I have a real interest in the countryside of England Mr. Danson's photography is softer in results as is English landscape. I would recommend his videos as a great way to learn simple facts and processes as well as waking up one's brain and slipping away from "cabin fever".

As the U.S. slowly starts back to the norm that we have all have been separated from over the past month, I hope to be able to get reacquainted with my camera on a more regular basis.

Thanks for stopping by and remember to stay safe, enjoy the leisure and wash your hands often.

Places to see more of Daniel's work:

Pearson Lakes Art Center - lakesart.org 

Arts On Grand - artsongrand.org

  

 

 

Deep In A Slot

"Be true to yourself. Make each day a masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendships a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day."  John Wooden

Waiting for Spring to come in Iowa is like watching paint dry. We're in the last week of March and every winter event has hit us in some way shape or form. Snow? We got it.  Rain? We're having it. Ice? You guessed it. Wind? Never stops. The geese are flying about undecided whether they should stay, head North, or fly like jets back to the South.

That puts me right back where I was the last time I sat down to write this blog.  I'm now editing and deleting iPhone files.  It's been fun and I've been doing a lot with Distressed FX textures for the first time. I finally downloaded files to my computer, which makes it easier to work with iPhone images with more effort and detail. Thanks to Cheryl Tarrant's website and blog for that information.

The slot canyon blog image is from a couple of years ago when my wife and I were on our annual "get out of Iowa in ugly March" trip.  I had made a Zion NP trip over 30 years ago on my own and really was excited to show her what a marvelous national park it is. Without thinking we hit the Easter break period for California schools and it was a bit crowded, but there is always a place to hide from the maddening crowd as well as galleries to visit.

Cross your fingers with the hope that Spring will actually show up. Next year we'll board up that groundhog den to see if we can't have an earlier Spring.

Thanks for visiting and don't be a stranger!

"Be true to yourself. Make each day a masterpiece. Help others. Drink deeply from good books. Make friendships a fine art. Build a shelter against a rainy day."  John Wooden

Waiting for Spring to come in Iowa is like watching paint dry. We're in the last week of March and every winter event has hit us in some way shape or form. Snow? We got it.  Rain? We're having it. Ice? You guessed it. Wind? Never stops. The geese are flying about undecided whether they should stay, head North, or fly like jets back to the South.

That puts me right back where I was the last time I sat down to write this blog.  I'm now editing and deleting iPhone files.  It's been fun and I've been doing a lot with Distressed FX textures for the first time. I finally downloaded files to my computer, which makes it easier to work with iPhone images with more effort and detail. Thanks to Cheryl Tarrant's website and blog for that information.

The slot canyon blog image is from a couple of years ago when my wife and I were on our annual "get out of Iowa in ugly March" trip.  I had made a Zion NP trip over 30 years ago on my own and really was excited to show her what a marvelous national park it is. Without thinking we hit the Easter break period for California schools and it was a bit crowded, but there is always a place to hide from the maddening crowd as well as galleries to visit.

Cross your fingers with the hope that Spring will actually show up. Next year we'll board up that groundhog den to see if we can't have an earlier Spring.

Thanks for visiting and don't be a stranger!

Bits And Pieces

"You don't take a photograph, you make it."  Ansel Adams

Winding down an evening of photography in the rural areas of northwest Iowa with a beautiful sunset taking place and as always I was looking for something to put in front of the color.  I sped by this farm scene, which I usually shoot from the other direction, and caught the lighted window from the corner of my eye and decided to give it a look.

A lot of things attracted me to this scene including the glimmer on the light bulb, the window, the shapes and angles, the triangles, horizontal, textures and vertical lines, etc.  I knew the light was going to slip away if I didn't get moving with the process....tripod up, camera attached, and bang, the shot.

There is obviously a lot of contrast here and I decided to take it through the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) HDR process as I seem to have less problems with artifacts that are the norm with so many HDR plug-in's that I have or have tried.  Doing the process in this way allows me to stay in ACR and continue to fine tune the image before I load it into Photoshop to finalize the editing process with tweaks in NIK or Topaz software programs.

While standing in front of such scenes in rural Iowa I am constantly reminded of how the landscape and rural architecture is changing...old barns giving way to steel structures, corn cribs to steel bins, and on and on.  I've spent my most of my adult life working in and around these familiar places, while much later I was working in and around the shiny steel confines of livestock buildings. Each style has it's place, but I will always be attracted to the monoliths of the farmsteads where my family worked. 

Thank you for visiting and please get out to enjoy the fall season...winter is not far behind!

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http://500px.com

Summer Wind Gallery, Arnolds Park, Iowa http://www.summerwindgallery.com

This And That

 

"The best artist knows what to leave out." Charles de Lint

It's been a busy couple of months and much of it taken up with a lot of lakes area photography going up on the walls of the Summerwind Gallery in Arnolds Park, Iowa.  The top image is from the amusement park area of Arnolds Park and is always flowing with a city of people and boats galore.  On this particular evening I was there to practice on some fireworks photography as they have been doing a Saturday night fireworks display for the crowd at the park this summer after the 4th.  While waiting for the slow ticking clock hands to reach 10:00 I got a chance to do some low light shooting of the parks colors.  This a 8 shot pano image with the beginning edits done in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) and then final work done in Photoshop CC.

Due to the incredible improvements in ACR I find it unnecessary to do HDR type adjustments as most of the adjustment in ACR will give me a firm platform to work from in the final editing processes, whether in Photoshop, NIK, Topaz or Alien Skin "Snap Art".  Add such things as textures and JixiPix programs and things can get pretty interesting.  In this image, however, things were kept pretty simple with the main attraction being the carnival like lights, people and boats.  By paying attention to details behind the camera, such as sharp focus, vibrations, tripod use, shutter speeds and aperture the editing process is made much easier.

 

 

Getting out into the rural areas of Iowa is also one of my objectives as I do manage to get work published in Our Iowa magazine, a magazine dedicated to the Iowa landscape and lifestyles of its citizens.  My interest in the rural parts of Iowa is also a result of 30+ years in farming. In this image, again a panorama, the final results are from working in ACR and not opting for a HDR solution. I should point out that I'm not an enemy of HDR editing as I've had some really nice results in some of my HDR work, but some of my shooting requires some high ISO use and using HDR seems to magnify the problems with these settings as well as chromatic aberrations, which in my case, probably comes from a bag full of zoom lenses which, I've been told,  can magnify that lens issue.

Even though I've been fortunate to join several workshops in the past, done some heavy instructional reading, and watched my share of video tutorials, I've found that there are two things that have been most helpful in my learning process. 1) Making mistakes and learning from them (an activity that I doubt I'll ever be rid of) and 2) Signing up for Tony Sweet's  (tonysweet.com)  individual video critique sessions which have made a big difference in my learning process as well as weeding out bad habits.  He's an excellent instructor and both the video sessions and/or his workshops are well worth the money for a person that is serious about gaining ground with their creativity.  Also, having a good photo friend to keep you on your toes doesn't hurt either...Thanks, Mike!

In the end it's just like a regular job or going to school...a persons improvement is measured by their time spent in learning.  If you're in the Spirit Lake/Arnolds Park area of Iowa drop in to the Summerwind Gallery to meet with the owner, Roberta Williams, and also get a look at the fabulous artwork on exhibit.  As I like to say..."there's not a dog on the wall".

Thanks for joining me here again and please feel free to comment.  I hope you all have a great week.

For more views of my work visit;

Google +

http://500px.com

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

Summer Wind Gallery, Arnolds Park, Iowa http://www.summerwindgallery.com

 

Thaw

         "Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family." Joseph Brodsky

    Wishing all my followers a belated wonderful Christmas and prosperous new year.  Nothing is quite so fun as experiencing the joys of Christmas and then turning the leaf to a new year.  Where does the time fly?

    The blog image is from the north end of Spirit Lake, near Mini Wakan State Park in Iowa, and takes in the consequences of an unusual winter thaw...a little hiccup in the season that included these "blocks" of broken ice floating casually on the waters surface.  A little unusual for this early winter season, but not unwelcome when we know that there is still winter "seasoning" to come.

The sunrise, drifting cloud formations and reflections on the water and ice are a little much for me to pass up as I set up the tripod and my Canon 5D Mark II for this vertical shot.  It was a choice between a vertical format showing the many pieces of fractured ice or showing the expansive cloud formation and sunrise.  I chose the clouds as it would not have seemed right to cut off the the huge diagonal line of the cloud and blue sky, especially considering I could include the "repeating" diagonal with the ice in the lower right of the image.

The editing was done in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) as I'm finding it using this editing option doesn't seem to intensify the noise problems as so many other HDR editing programs tend to do.  I followed that with some work in NIK Color Efex Pro as I could paint in a little more detail in the textures of the foreground ice pads, without affecting the rest of the image softness.  This option along with the U-Point technology of the NIK products make it a go to plug in when working with a lot of my work.

                  

 

When I converted the color image into a black and white using the NIK Silver Efex Pro plug in I noticed a scene of more intensity and punch as well as the sun's rays along the horizon.  

Thank you all for joining me here and have a great Christmas season and 2016.

"Sic 'em Bears" Playing the University of North Carolina in the Russell Athletic Bowl, Dec. 29......"SIC 'EM BEARS".

For more views of my work visit;

http://500px.com

Arts On Grand, Spencer, Iowa http://www.artsongrand.org/

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

Summer Wind Gallery, Arnolds Park, Iowa

New Places

"The opportunity is often lost by deliberating."  Publilius Syrus

The one thing I like the most about traveling to different geographical areas is not only the opportunity to see different scenes, but the adjustments I have to make in my approach and thoughts about the differing unfamiliar scenes.  

On a recent trip to Houston a friend of my wife took me around to several different places on the coast near across from Galveston, Tx.  In these sort of situations with someone else at the "helm" I'm less inclined to spend a lot of time in the process of shooting so as not to keep others waiting, but I still hate to pass up "no brainers" as far as photo ops.

The blog scene is one of several around this wharf/dock area, but one of my favorites.  It was an HDR five shot episode with my Nikon D300, handheld.  I was lucky that there were some beautiful cloud structures to break up the sky, which gave the composition some added strengths.  The captures were processed in Photomatix with more editing in NIK programs.  Finally I used Snap Art for adding the oil painting effect...in fact I used several painting options to get the effect I was looking for.

Even though we've never lived on or near salt water areas I've seen enough travel advertising and art work from those areas to know that I really would like to spend time around these areas.  This would include very early morning or late afternoon shooting in all sorts of weather as well as a lot of searching.

I wish you all a good week to come and thank you for continuing to support this space with your attention.

Sic 'em Bears".  The 2015 Baylor football season starts its conference run next weekend.

For more views of my work visit;

http://500px.com

Arts On Grand, Spencer, Iowa http://www.artsongrand.org/

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

Summer Wind Gallery, Arnolds Park, Iowa

Back Roads

"Photography is more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art."          Ansel Adams

Spent a day on the road in unfamiliar territory in Southwest Iowa just to get a change of scenery and to see a part of Iowa that I have only sped through on my way to Texas and other points south.  It was a journey of some surprises and disappointments, but impromptu planning is often full of such issues.

One thing I did manage to understand is that the rural scene is changing and along with that change we are losing some architectural heritage such as barns, silos, farm houses and windmills. I hit the brakes hard when I passed this scene as these "wind pumps" are becoming a lost character of the rural landscape, especially ones in such good condition.

This is a capture done with an HDR edit in mind as the contrast was extreme.  Photomatix was the choice for HDR conversion and then other editing was done in Adobe Photoshop and NIK products.  In the end I was glad I stopped, but I wonder how many people will see the beauty that compelled me to pull over.

Tomorrow I will be hanging a new exhibit in the Dickinson County Nature Center in Spirit Lake, Iowa.  The nature center has developed a program named eARTh, which I found to be a really cool name for a program that invites local artists to create art about the environment, whether it be landscapes, animals, flowers, etc.  I will put up 15 framed pieces of natural scenes from several different states that I have visited in the last couple of years.  I still find that America has an incredible treasure of ecosystems that many are unaware or may never experience.

This show will not have any boats, or windmills, or people, just open space from many corners of our land.  Many of the spaces have been protected due to efforts of people of great foresight, one of which was the master photographer, Ansel Adams, who spent much of his life gathering evidence (his amazing art) and speaking with those that had political power to develop our national park system.

Have a great weekend and spend some of it outside.

Sic 'em Bears". 

For more views of my work visit;

http://500px.com/pigs4u

Arts On Grand, Spencer, Iowa http://www.artsongrand.org/

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

Side Street Gallery, Arnolds Park, Iowa  www.okobojiimages.com