Fred Voltmer always has been fascinated with the inner workings of things. It's part of the reason he went to trade school to become a machinist. But when he purchased an SLR (single-lens reflex) camera in 1993, it sparked something more than mechanical appreciation. "What drove me to stick with it is the more I took images, the more I was fascinated and the better I got at it," says the 53-year-old photographer. "It just kept spiraling." Voltmer utilizes film and digital cameras to capture everything from hot air balloons and carnival rides to boat docks and musicians. But simply capturing the image isn't quite enough. He tends to blow up his images to a large scale (the original print of "Dock" is 40 inches by 60 inches) and likes to put an "abstract twist" on objects and scenes so viewers can appreciate something common in a whole new way. "There's stuff people see every day that they don't think about as art, but if you isolate it and capture it right ...," Voltmer says. "I think there's beauty around us every day but nobody notices it." Fred Voltmer's art is on display at Gallery 7, 118 N. Seventh St.