Photographer Ian Ruhter returns house with monumental exhibition at LTCC’s Haldan Gallery

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – Internationally acclaimed photographer Ian Ruhter will return to his roots this fall with The Lake, a serious exhibition of up to date ambrotypes and tintypes at Lake Tahoe Community College’s Haldan Gallery, on view October 9 by December 11, 2025. The public is invited to a gap reception with the artist on Thursday, October 9, from 5–8 p.m.

In some ways, Ruhter’s photographic journey started at Lake Tahoe. Diagnosed with dyslexia as a toddler, he found his creative voice as a younger grownup in a images class at LTCC. Using a pinhole digital camera created from an oatmeal container, Ruhter acknowledged a mirrored model of his personal worldview: inverted, reversed, however profoundly significant.

“At 26, I finally felt like I was able to speak,” Ruhter remembers.

That discovery set him on a path to worldwide recognition. When the images world shifted towards digital, Ruhter resisted, looking out as a substitute for authenticity in historic processes.

His rediscovery of moist collodion images, a mid-Nineteenth-century methodology utilizing glass and metallic plates, led to groundbreaking work on an unprecedented scale. Transforming a field truck into the world’s largest moist plate digital camera, Ruhter created monumental ambrotypes and tintypes, some measuring 96 by 66 inches, establishing him as a singular determine in up to date images.

Despite exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris, Ruhter lengthy envisioned displaying these works the place they originated—on the lake itself. The Lake brings this dream full circle, presenting 68 pictures, together with two of the biggest moist collodion plates ever made, alongside an exploration of his course of.

“This exhibition is more than a homecoming,” stated Ruhter. “It’s about transformation, about finding your voice, and about returning to the place where it all began. For me, the treasure has always been here at the lake.”

EXHIBITION DETAILS
Title: The Lake
Artist: Ian Ruhter
Dates: October 9–December 11, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 9, 5–8 p.m.
Location: Haldan Gallery, Lake Tahoe Community College, One College Drive, South Lake Tahoe, Calif.

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