He's a conceptual serial photographer and he uses flat lighting to photograph his models to show a sense of surveillance. His subjects tend to be emotionless and have an almost passport photography look to them. For a long time he shot German interiors, which were portraits of rooms and details of design in the architecture. Ruff says that he wants his work to mimic police observation work in his lifeless photographs, to create a very deadpan style and aura to his photographs. He uses digital manipulations to remove unneeded things from the frame and now has beginning to reference internet pornography and obscure the images and digitally process them. His series is called "Nudes" and has text written by French author Michel Houellebecq.