Daniel Ruf

The “Tweener” Season

“The biggest challenge, I think for any new artist, is patience.”  Brett Eldredge

There’s one season of every year that drives me absolutely crazy and I like to call it the “tweener” season…that time between the end of winter and the beginning of spring.  The landscape seems, in my opinion, to be empty.  Deathly looking wasted browns topped in some places by dirty tired snow.  It’s a time when I often wonder if I’ll ever make another image as I hike from one place to another looking for a glint of  inspiration.

Such was the case a couple of days ago when I headed into one of my favorite state parks to shake out the mental cobwebs and get the motor running.  Since  the year has been lacking on moisture I wanted to check the creek areas in this park to see if water was once again flowing and I specifically wanted to look for some ice patterns that would serve as a subject.  Last fall I had made an extra effort to start looking down as I walk through forest areas for leaf patterns and such and was pleased with several results.  It only seemed appropriate to care that challenge forward to the “tweener” season.

The blog image is one of the results as it actually occurred near the creeks edge.  These thin formations of ice that are continually melting away during the day and then freezing again during the evening to form thin layers complete with natural design patterns.  The leaf just happened to be the “frosting on the cake”.

The capture was processed in Photoshop CS6 with various applications of NIK and Topaz software being applied to get to the end result.  It is a perfect snippet of a “tweener” day and what it has to offer if one looks hard enough and believes that beauty can be as close as ones feet.  It also was proof that spring is pushing its way in and winter is slinking out.

Sic “Em Bears. Go Baylor!

For more views of my work visit;

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

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

http://500px.com/pigs4u

http://www.flickr.com/photos/19338959@N06/

Thank you for coming to this site and I hope you all are beginning to see the effort of spring returning.

Gritty

“To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage.”  Georgia O’Keeffe

It’s not often that I use a really “gritty” style in any of my work, but after watching a Topaz webinar given by Tony Sweet, I decided to spend a little more time working with my Topaz plug-in’s on some past images.  I’ve had the Topaz software for some time, but have only used it occasionally in the past often opting for some other approach.

This scene was shot a couple of years ago when I was using a Canon 50D and just starting to venture into HDR work (probably one of the last photographers to bite the bullet).  It’s a typical opportunity for HDR with really contrasting lighting including a lot of bright “blown out” whites and blacks that would be frustrating with a one shot exposure.  In this case three shots with camera mounted on a tripod and a 70 – 200mm lens were the “tools of engagement”.

Photomatix was the HDR software of choice to process the three captures and while I own two different HDR processing software options I find that each serve a different need for different HDR captures.  In this case I didn’t do a lot of manipulating in Photomatix, but did the final phase in Topaz Adjust and just stepped up the grittiness a touch.

Practice and learning are options that always seem to have value in life and art and I feel that both will fill up all my days of retirement with excitement and progress.  I certainly will be spending more time with Topaz and really appreciate their continuing webinar opportunities and getting to learn from master photographer, Tony Sweet again.

Thanks for joining me and don’t forget, for those of you in that area, that my exhibit at the Pearson Lakes Art Center will hang until March 2.  Support the arts!

Sic “Em Bears.

For more views of my work visit;

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

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

http://500px.com/pigs4u

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