A Final Figure Session in Fort Knox (Prospect, Maine)

Similar to the earlier session with Cass and Ellen, my final full day in Maine was full of rain and drizzle. Cass and I had hoped to return to Schoodic and work on the rock with the ocean around us, but given the weather, we had to either scrap the session, or find a sheltered place to work We settled on Fort Knox.

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In 1990 and 1993, I had worked with nudes in the forts, but since then I had stuck strictly to more natural settings. This was more an accident of timing than a deliberate avoidance of ruins as a setting for nudes. Part of the reason I enjoy working with the nude outdoors is that it removes context from the images - images of nudes in "personal" surroundings - a bedroom, living room etc, re-enforce the sense of the individual, as opposed to promoting the universal. While I have made images in personal settings, and feel they are very successful in their own way, they function in a far different way from my outdoor nudes. Using a fort as the setting for nudes is about halfway between the personal nude and the outdoor nude - the fort serves more as an architectural framework than a personal signifier, yet it is not in the wilderness, as my other images are.

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Because this was my last day in Maine, and among my last days of serious photography this year, I brought will me all my film and cameras - my 120 back had kicked-it in the day before, so I had to rely upon re-loading in the field to take more images than I had film holders. By the end of the day I had reloaded three times, for a total of 87 final images (some were misloaded, double exposed, or otherwise flawed). Due to the ambient weather conditions, there were real problems with contrast - the mist and fog in the air brought down the local contrast in many of the images to almost mid-gray, which has made many of the images difficult to print.is a problem aside, I think that many of the images I made on this day have potential - I will have to work with them in the darkroom before I can pass final judgment.

composite of five 4"x5" film images

Many of the images I made of Cass were variations on a theme - this was more because I knew it was my last day and I had film to spare, than because I would prefer to work this way. n several cases, producing several negatives in a single setting lead to surprises - successes where I did not expect them. But on the whole, it reinforced my reason for using a view camera - considered, planned images are far more successful, all things considered, than those taken from the hip, relying upon spontaneity and luck (I mean no insult here to 35mm shooters - many of you can do things I would never dream of attempting with a view camera). The lesson of the day is three-fold - 1) before I next go on a two week photo trip, pay off a minor deity to alter the weather in my favour 2) forts can indeed work as settings for the nude, as a universal as opposed to personal and 3) view cameras are still where it's at for me.

A Final Session at Fort Knox (Prospect, Maine)

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My third visit to Fort Knox was by far the most successful - first of all, I arrived with plenty of time to work, second of all, the light was reasonably co-operative, and third, I knew my way around sufficiently that I had ideas that I wanted to work with when I began the day.

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I could spend a month working with Fort Knox - especially now that I have seen the result I got on my initial visits. The light and repetitive nature of the architecture calls to me in a way few things do, and I found the days I photographed there among the most pleasurable sessions I've had in years. I had the time to work, the subject to work with, and the skills and tools to achieve my pre-visualized images. The only limiting factor was the changing light, and the inevitable end of the day. I would have worked with colour extensively on this day, but my 6x12 back gave me technical difficulties early in the session, and rather than fight with it all day, I swallowed hard and put it away, instead relying on black and white to convey my vision of the day.

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The one element which has always been elusive for me in the past has been a way to capture the sense of space within the forts I work with. Cameras inherently distort and change one's perceptions though their nature, and it is difficult to use these factors to one's advantage. With the view camera though, and extremely wide lenses (like the 65mm super-angulon) it is possible to give some sense of the incredible visual spaces that exist in the forts. Fort Knox was the first fort where I extensively used my 65mm, and the sense of space which resulted is wonderful - the exposures, some as long as 25 minutes, provided enough depth of field for the image to be sharp throughout, but the sense of receding depth is wonderful. There are no forts in Halifax which have the long, well-lit shooting galleries that surround Fort Knox, but seeing how the 65mm lens performed in such conditions makes me eager to apply it to the sites that surround Halifax.

Two Models in the Rain (Schoodic Point, Maine)

The biggest difficulty with working with the nude outdoors is that the weather seldom co-operates - either it's too sunny, or too cool, or threatening rain - or even raining. On this particular morning, Ellen, who had modeled for me a week before, and Cass, who I'd met shortly there-after, had got together to work with me - but it was threatening rain.

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Ever optimistic, we set off in the car - directly into the rain. Grasping at straws, we went all the way to the the coast, only to find it shrouded in rain and fog. I wanted to call it quits, but both Ellen and Cass were determined not to let the rain prevent the day from moving ahead, so after buying some cheap plastic rain-gear, and weather-proofing the camera-gear as much as possible (wrapping film-holders in a plastic bag) we set off to work. It must have been quite a sight, two nude models clambering around on cold, wet rocks as I struggled to keep the rain off the camera,frame the images and direct the models.

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The coastline where we photographed was incredible - the jagged rocks and stone beaches were a paradise to image in. Working as quickly as I could, I managed to make a good 20 images before the models finally gave up being stubborn and admitted they were cold. The work though, was well worth their effort. There's little direct evidence of the rain in the images, but the glistening rocks and wet hair contribute to an over-all impression of the day. The fact it was raining a fair bit when the images were made was negated by the long shutter-speeds, though the contrast on the negatives is a little low, probably due to the amount of moisture in the air.

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The final set of images made on this day were actually made in the last moments we had before setting off back to Orono. After we finished working in the rain, we all bundled into the car and drove a little further, to the Schoodic Park parking lot, where we came across an incredible space. A huge rock face had broken lose from the remainder of the bedrock, and slid downwards, creating a natural cavern - the light shone through it, creating a wonderful rim-light effect on the far opening. Though they were still a little chilled from the earlier modelling, both Ellen and Cass agreed that such a space should not be overlooked. There really was only one camera angle that worked, so after fifteen pose variations, we bundled the gear up and headed back to the car, and a hot spaghetti dinner in Orono.

An evening at Fort Popham (Prospect, Maine)

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Fort Popham was constructed to defend the Kennebec River and the town of Bath, Maine, from naval assault. It was never completed however, and to this day piles of unlaid stones litter the inner courtyard of the fort. The remarkable thing is, even though it is unfinished, it has stood for over 150 years virtually intact. The basic design was drawn from Fort Knox, though there are specific elements which differ.

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It took me a while before I could get past the visual beauty of Fort Popham, and begin to photograph it. The light which filtered through the open arches and into the gun casemates was soft and delicate, lighting the barrel vaulting in a very sculptural way. Almost 50% of the negatives I made at Popham were of the casemates, the repeating arches and the light that moved through them. The ultra-wide angle lens was critical at Popham - it allowed me to covey a sense of the massiveness of the casemates, while ensuring enough information was in the photos to give a sense of the openness of the space.

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The other element that drew me in at Popham was its spiral staircases. There are two of these at Fort Knox to the North, but those were obstructed by construction, and had modern, shiny hand-rails in them. Photographing these stairways was a challenge though - the enclosed tight space made me rely upon the 65mm lens, and for the final two images, I took the camera off the tripod and placed it face-up on the stairs. The image here was made in this manner. The exposures for these photos were over four minutes, and the fact that two people passed right over the camera and through the image is totally unapparent in the final image. The power of photography to record the elusive, and ignore the apparent is incredible to me.

Two Models (Orr's Island, Maine)

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Orr's Island is a long narrow strip pushing out into the Atlantic, and from the road there's nothing but houses, houses and more houses, in a quasi-rural setting. But by the shoreline, it was a different story - it was incredible - long waves of sedimentary rock falling in broken steps to the sea. The rocks were so incredible that every image I made was in direct response to them alone - the two models placed in relation to the flow of the stone, or it's fractures. Though I often work with rocks, it is unusual for me to rely upon it for an entire session.

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Some of the more evocative images from the session at Orr's island were the water nudes; less because they were successful (though this one was), and more because of how they would foreshadow later work in the rivers and tidal pools of Nova Scotia.

35mm infrared film

A Morning Session (Orr's Island, Maine)

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Sarah and Adele were only able to spend a morning modelling for me, and wanted to pose both as a couple, and as two distinct models. We began with the couple images, simply because it was morning, the light in their room was beautiful, and we had to start somewhere. For most of the session, the models seemed almost oblivious of me, they simply lay on the bed, cuddling and talking.

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Occasionally I asked them to stay still when I was about to take an image, or asked them to rearrange themselves, but for the most part, it was very quiet, with the two of them in their own world, and me hovering on the outside, looking in. There is an undeniable aspect of voyeurism to this, but no more than there is in any other photograph - it is simply more apparent because of the intimacy displayed in the images.

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Images of couples were the first photographs that made me think about mortality in the context of my work - photographing a couple this way freezes the relationship in time - regardless of what it turns into, the beauty of that point in time has been translated onto film, in some ways paler than the reality, and in other, larger than its origins. That moment is frozen, unchanging except for the experiential filters that each viewer brings to the images. I enjoy working with couples more than any other subject, partially because I am so very aware of the gift of freezing time. Sarah and Adele's comfort with me, and their willingness to let me into their private world is something that made these images successful, in every way as much as my photographic skills.

Returning to Fort Knox (Prospect, Maine)

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My second trip to Fort Knox was a lot longer than the first one, and though it too ended due to the failing light of the evening, I accomplished more in the time I had.

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The first time I visited Fort Knox, I had not ventured beyond the main building - drawn in by its heavy casemate and repeating arches. This visit however, I set off to the outer batteries, intending to document the peripherals of the fort before returning to the core. What I discovered was that the fort was about four times larger than I had envisioned.

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Mount Hope Garden Cemetary (Bangor, Maine)

The Mount Hope Garden Cemetery is beside the road that runs between Bangor and Orono, where I was staying. In the first three days I was in Maine, I must have been driven past it a dozen times, and each time, I marveled at its space and depth. In Halifax, all the graveyards are small, fully occupied, and generally flat. The pale stones, spread out on the dark grass, against the rising hills that run through the Cemetery were pure visuals to me, and I wanted to photograph it.

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I approached photographing the Cemetery in a similar manner to that which I use when I approach a fort - I see the image as strictly a series of flat planes, and set up my images accordingly.

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The fact that there was nothing in this graveyard that was parallel or perpendicular to anything else freed me up from some of the stricter rules of classic large format architectural photograph (no converging parallels or warped perspectives). Thus the second and third images, which are atypical for me - neither is a frontal flat image, and both use the qualities of the lens (in the first, a short telephoto, and in the second, an extreme wide-angle) to stress the elements that drew me to the subjects. 

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The fact that basic image corrections are so easily achieved with the view-camera often make me forget that occasionally these "flaws" can be used to advantage, producing emphasizing as opposed to distortion

A Woodland Session (Orono, Maine)

My first session with a model in Maine began mid-afternoon; Ellen had suggested a location in a nearby forest, so we walked into the woods for a few minutes to a clearing where we began to work. The forest was subtly different from those I am used to in Nova Scotia - it was more open, with older trees and more lush undergrowth

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Many of the tree nudes I made this year originate in my discussions with Joy and in the imagery in her poetry. Where the rock and water nudes for me exist as visual images alone, I cannot escape the reality that when I created the tree nudes this year, I was consciously thinking of dryads, nymphs and tree spirits. I don't think that this alters the meaning of the work, but I am aware it changes how I view the images. I am not sure how this will play out in the final presentation of the work, but knowing the images are born from more than a desire for visual expression will change how they are finished.

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The colour nude came out of a pose Ellen asked for - she wanted an image with her on the stream. There was no water moving through it, but the dark trail the wet rocks cut through the green forest floor was a perfect tableau for a nude. The first image, curled up, was good, but then I asked her to lean back over the rock she was sitting on. That image has such a strong angular direction to it that I truly think it would have succeeded even in black and white, but the contrast between the model's pale skin and the lush undergrowth simply rocks, to quote Ellen.

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The lure of water mixed with the Nude is so strong to me now, I am appalled that it took me six years to discover the combination. Where Ellen and I had been floundering in the woods, searching for images, at the river they presented themselves to me faster than I could respond. Because of the fading light, the session was short, but the work was strong. The low light, combined with the bright evening sky gave wonderful reflections in the calm water where we were working.