Out Their Front Door – Blake Rudis

I’m excited to introduce another great installment in the ‘Out Their Front Door Series’. The series dedicated to fellow explorers of the creative frontier. Blake Rudis runs site and incredible learning resource Everyday HDR (http://www.everydayhdr.com). Talk about generous with his knowledge. Seriously, you can’t go wrong by becoming a regular visitor. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did. There is a lesson to be learned here and I’d like to thank Blake for sharing it with all of us.

You can find everything Blake here:

• Check out his store for some great Photoshop actions and textures (store)
• www.everydayhdr.com
• Google+

Thank you Justin for this opportunity and putting together such an awesome series of photographers and their stories! I am honored to be included in such a group of excellent photographers. Out my front door huh? Well since I recently moved from the West coast to the Mid-West, I feel it appropriate to highlight the endeavor and how it has affected how I photograph what is out my front door.

Traveling from a location with an abundant amount of landmarks and glamorous landscapes to the middle of America can be a tricky thing for a Photographer. That is exactly what I did a little over a year ago. My wife and I packed up our life and moved from the Bay Area of California to a little town just outside of Kansas City Missouri. I don’t know if you understand the perspective quite yet. We lived in Santa Clara, CA a city of just under one million people surrounded by several other cities of around 1 million people. We now reside in quaint little town called Tracy in Missouri, a town of 219 people. You read me correctly, 219 people.

Despite the culture shock, one of my biggest concerns with such an epic change was, what the hell am I going to photograph now? One year ago Salina and I, Salina is my cameras name, were frequently visiting San Francisco, the Northern Coast, and National Parks like Yosemite. Now we are surrounded by corn and countryside. Shortly after our arrival I came to an epiphany, this will be a challenge for me and my photography. It really was too easy to take a great picture in California, I mean come on we were surrounded by epic beauty and intense landmarks.

To really enjoy my Photography in the Mid-West I was going to have to open my mind a bit more and change my ways. Composition was now going to be more critical than ever. To make the mundane more interesting I would have to ensure my composition was on point. Shooting times were now more critical than ever, sunset, sunrise, golden hour, and blue hour coupled with acute composition would be my only hope for survival! I began doing new things too, working more with my speed light and macro gear to photograph the giant bugs the Mid-West houses. I became very fond of this and developed an awesome technique that has taken my love for macro to a whole new level.

I started to branch out and discover new places. Kansas City has a lot of beauty and history to offer any photographer. It is home to the Kauffman Center which is one of the most difficult buildings to photograph to really give the viewer a sense of its massive size. I am proud to say it is right outside my front door and cannot wait to see where my next adventure in Kansas City takes me.