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Ruben Dario Cruz - Interview by Erica Wright Tamron shooter and Macro Photography Specialist Ruben Dario Cruz recently sat down with our own Erica Wright about his background and equipment. Article rating: 9.00

Takegreatpictures.com (TGP): How did you become interested in macro photography?

Ruben Dario Cruz (RDC): I've been wondering that same question myself. I think I was drawn to seeing a whole other world on such a tiny level. I travel around the United States for Tamron, and I run into a lot of landscape photographers. It's a beautiful country we live in, right? Lots of wonderful vistas. You don't really need to leave the confines of a twenty square foot area to get a very similar spectacle. It's amazing how those same vistas exist on such a tiny level. The first time, about five years ago, that I turned my camera onto something small, it triggered something within me that I had to pursue.

TGP: Were you shooting landscapes before your turn to macro?

RDC: I was all over the place, to be honest with you. My formal education was in fine arts. I did portraits, weddings, landscapes. I photographed just about anything that I could. About six years ago, as every photographer does at one point in his or her life, I looked at the amount of work I had done and tried to organize it. I was making the transition to digital. I started organizing by categories, and I realized that the work I did in those other areas, in portraits and landscapes, were good, but they weren't better than what anyone else was doing. And that annoyed me a bit. There was nothing special. Then I looked at the stuff I was doing that had more formal concerns, attention to line and rhythm and space, and I thought that was the work that was more exceptional.

TGP:  Was your fine arts education in photography?

RDC: I went to a true fine arts department. I was at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury. The department had created a program where students could specialize in certain areas, and I chose photography.

TGP: Did you become interested in photography during school?

RDC: I was interested in photography since about my sophomore year in high school. Like many other people, the magic of the dark room—taking that white piece of paper and putting it into developer and seeing the image come up—grabbed me immediately. I've always been drawn to process, and the process is what really drew me to photography. It's been a long time now. I'm thirty-seven, so photography has been a part of my life for a long time. 

TGP: You're working for Tamron now.

RDC: I've been working for Tamron a little more than eight years now. My role in the company has changed. Kind of like you—you're originally a Southerner who moved to New York, right? Well, I'm a New Yorker who has moved to the South. Prior to moving to Austin, Texas, I was a technical representative for the company. I also did photographs for them, which I continue to do. When I moved down here, I took over the territory of sales in Texas. I also handle the school market, which means that I try to forge relationships with colleges and universities nation-wide that confer degrees in photography. Tamron has an educational purchase program. It's about creating product awareness and talking about the different valuable features that the company offers.

TGP: When were you teaching?

RDC: When I graduated with my undergraduate degree from the New York Institute of Technology, timing was such that the assistant in the photography laboratory was graduating, and there was a position open. There was interest on both sides, so I became an assistant in the laboratory and went on to do my graduate work there. In the second year of my graduate program, a position for a class in the summertime opened up, and they offered it to me. A basic photography course; five-week intensive. I took the challenge and found it to be quite natural. I taught for five years, and I'd like to get back into academics one day.

At the same time, I was an assistant at a photography studio that specialized in weddings, events, and portraits in East Norwich on the north shore of Long Island. I also held an evening job at a place called Berkey Professionals, one of the largest photo labs on the East Coast. I had those jobs, and not a single one paid any benefits—no retirement, no insurance. It was a great experience, though. I was able to work in academics, in the professional realm, and on the post-processing end. The three gave me a very rounded education in photography. And when I got a job with Tamron, I saw a whole other aspect of the photography industry, from a manufacturing standpoint.

TGP: What have you learned from that aspect, working for Tamron?

RDC: It gave me a broader perspective of photography in general because I was exposed to the inner workings of manufacturing—what manufacturers have to consider in terms of product development and product demand from the community at large. And it exposed me to a lot of professional photographers. Working in New York, I was exposed to so many people, but working for Tamron has exposed me to a national level of photography that I hadn't known before. It has also given me the opportunity to travel to the forty-eight contiguous states. That's been absolutely wonderful. I've really enjoyed my time with the company. It's allowed me to explore different avenues in photography, which eventually landed me on macro.

TGP: Your travels must be inspiring.

RDC: They are, and you become ensconced in this industry and meet so many people doing so many different things. It doesn't matter how many times something has been done; if it's new to you, it's new.

TGP: I've noticed that your recent photographs have been nature-focused. Is that related to your traveling?

RDC: I'm still trying to figure out my interest in insects because unlike other insect photographers that I know, I react to insects like most people do. If one lands in my hair, I might jump from my seat and try to swipe it out. It depends on the insect. June beetles are no big deal. If it's a red wasp or a flying tree roach, then I'm going to react. But I'm fascinated by getting close. Since I've moved to Texas where the season of warmth is much longer, I'm exposed to a lot more insects than I ever have been. You know the old saying, 'everything grows bigger in Texas'? Well, it does, strictly from an entomology standpoint. I'm not an entomologist, but I've been trying to study some of it. The longer the breeding season, the larger these things can get. Since there's such an availability of subjects—everywhere I go down here—there's always something that fascinates me. It's an amazing world. It's like anything else; once you get interested in a particular subject, and you submerge yourself in that subject, it almost becomes an obsession.

I go out shooting with the Audubon Society's Field Guide to North American Insects and Arachnids for multiple reasons. One is it allows me to find out where some of these things are, what their nesting and breeding habits are. And the other reason is that it warns me about what I should stay away from. I love doing flower photography, but it's an area that needs a lot of work. It hasn't caught up with my tenacity in insect photography.

TGP: They have such great names, too.

RDC: That's another reason I carry that book around, to identify the thing I'm taking a picture of. I haven't been as strict on following the names of the flowers as I have with the insects.

TGP: Your website has such great tips for people who want to try macro photography. Is that an extension of teaching?

RDC: No question about it. I think I was born to be a teacher. I really do because it's very much in my nature to share information with people. I’ve been conducting macro workshops the past two years nationwide. Macro photography is such a niche market. Not like portraits and weddings. I don't have any illusions that I'm going to be retiring on my photographs of insects that I sell.

TGP: Do you have any advice for people who want to try macro photography?

RDC: It's hard to prioritize what's the most important, but I would say that if you don't exercise patience, then you're never going to get a good photograph. You can easily learn how to control the camera with a certain amount of practice, but patience is something that's a constant. If you're not a patient person, then this is not the field for you. And secondly, you need the right gear. In general, you need the right equipment to do any type of photography. In macro photography, one-to-one magnification lenses are essential. Diffusers are essential going out in the field. There are several ways to approach macro photography, and they typically involve different equipment. Whether you're shooting a 4x5, a point-and-shoot digital, 35 digital, or 35 film, most of the rules of thumb apply. It's just a matter of a difference in equipment.

TGP: And what equipment do you use?

RDC: The camera I'm currently using is a Canon 20D. I use both the Tamron 180mm f/3.5 and 90mm f/2.8 1:1 macro lenses as my primary lenses. I have used several ring flashes; the current one I'm using is a Cannon 14EX. I'm using a Manfrotto tripod with a joystick head. I have a variety of media cards: SanDisk, Lexar, Kingston, Delkin. I have this device that's very popular among macro photographs called a Wimberley Plamp, an articulating arm made of interlocking plastic ball sockets. Essentially, one end clamps to the tripod, then you can attach the other end to, say, a flower stem. It's a very inexpensive piece, but it's really a smart thing to have in the field. I also carry a Westcott diffuser, which is typically found in a six-in-one, five-in-one, or a four-in-one reflector. It's just a translucent white fabric to use when you're shooting outdoors.

All of my work is done outdoors, I find it a challenge to go out into nature and take pictures. There's so much variety when you're out there. Nature has a way of putting together things in such a way that, on an aesthetic level, it's perfect.

TGP: There's more spontaneity.

RDC: There is. There's also more of a challenge when you get insects in the wild. A butterfly lands once and then you chase it around the yard for twenty minutes. Becoming familiar with your subject is important. You find out that insects, just like humans, are creatures of habit, and you quickly discover the habits of certain insects, which makes it easier to get a shot.

TGP: It sounds like a new education for you.

RDC: It has been. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing photography. I've been in photography for over seventeen years now. It's amazing what I don't know. I keep a list at my desk of the things that I don't know, and I go through it one by one. And when I fell on macro photography, it was like starting from scratch.

TGP: You must like a challenge then.

RDC: I think that's part of the fun of photography. It reinvigorates you. When I take a picture at a true life-size level and I strike a fortunate composition with focus, I get excited.

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	Some great images. I wish I could find some of these images Posted by: Hubert Boudreau Sep 21, 2008 @ 12:41 PM EST
	some great images!! I wish I could find these images! Posted by: Hubert Boudreau Sep 21, 2008 @ 12:44 PM EST

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