A final Session for 1999 (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

35mm transparency film

My last session of 1999 was by far the most successful of the natural light sessions I did with Joe and Billie. Unlike the first session in the front room two days earlier, the sun was shining, and the light was perfect. This permitted me to use the slower speed Astia film, which is by far my favorite for skin-tones. It can not be overstated, the importance in selecting the right film for the right subject; and while this is true in black and white, it is doubly true for colour slide film.

35mm transparency film

It never ceases to amaze me the difference between the same room on an overcast afternoon, and a sunny one. Where before I was fighting to keep enough light on the models to work by, on this afternoon, there was more than enough light - occasionally I put my shutter-speed up to 1/250th of a second just to keep my focus as narrow as I like. The work went fast, and the models were running out of ideas for poses before I was out of film.

Where the first session in the front room with Joe and Billie left me with a couple of good images, and the feeling that I was on the right track, the second session, the second session gave me everything I was hoping for and more. The luminosity and glow which contributed so much to the Thalamus work was present throughout the session, and even some film tests I did with a Fuji 6x9 rangefinder turned out successfully.

6x9 cm transparency film

The flurry of photography initiated by Joe and Billie's arrival on Christmas day brought a wonderful close to my year. 47 rolls of 35mm and 120 film, and 12 sheets of 4x5 film were the results of more than thirteen hours of working over three days. The body of work we produced together has a consistency that is encouraging, while also opening areas of work with had previously only been ideas. The overwhelming success of the colour images over the black and white has left me somewhat baffled, but regardless, the final body of work is a great addition to my work as a whole.

A Second Couple's Shower Session (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

35mm transparency film

The second shower session for Billie and Joe seemed to more promising than the first. The day was bright and sunny, which lead to there being four times as much light in the shower, which I thought would lead to better exposed images. In reality, all it did was increase the contrast; as the room was lit by a skylight, the model's heads and shoulders were better lit, along with anything else that was light from directly above. In contrast, everything else became empty shadows.

35mm transparency film

The only real success from the session, to the right, made it worthwhile, however, being the strongest of any of the shower nudes done with Billie and Joe. The crisp, sharp transparency captures every water drop with wonderful detail, almost in spite of the obvious film grain.

35mm transparency film

I suspect that I'll have to learn to work around the inherent contrast in the shower if I continue to explore this space. The encouragement of the few images that did work far exceeds the frustration for the failures.

A Couple and a Mirror (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

6x6 cm transparency film

The second studio session with Joe and Billie was planned to focus on working with the the mirror, working in colour and infra-red. Usually, working with colour outdoors is a challenge for me, as it often seem superfluous to the image as a whole. This changes somewhat in the studio, where it is usually the figure alone I am photographing, but colour is still a media I struggle with. Approaching the mirror with colour was little different from my other studio work, in that I tried to focus on the subject alone, and not to get hung up in the fact there was colour film in the camera.

6x6 cm transparency film

On the whole, I think the colour images surpassed the black and white ones of the day before. The photos had a much stronger surreal quality when they were in monochrome, and the addition of the colour skin-tones pulls the images back from the abstract into the concrete. This is not at the expense of the bizarre qualities that were born in the process of working on the mirror, but it does help keep the photos readable.

35mm infrared film

The biggest surprise of the evening session was the 35mm infrared; I had high hopes for it, given the successes I'd encountered with Kim using 120 infra-red, but very few of the images worked. I think this is partially because of their lack of impact next to the colour, and also, I framed the 35mm work much tighter with the medium format camera, which lead to a more fractured, chaotic look to the images.

I am not sure how far I can take the mirror work; I certainly will continue to explore the possibilities, but I am not sure when it stops becoming effective, and simply gets repetitive (pardon the play on words).

After the Shower (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

35mm transparency film

After finishing with the images in the shower, Joe, Billie and I moved into the front room, where I'd produced a series of inspiring images last spring. Ever since my first session with Cheryl, where I'd discovered the wonderful effects of working with the light in this room, I'd wanted to explore the possibilities of a couple as the subject, but did not have the opportunity until now.

Similar to the sessions with Cheryl, this work drawn on the contrasts between the skin and the room around it. Working with high-speed slide film, I managed to make all the images by hand-holding the camera, thereby keeping the spontaneity and freedom of the session intact. I tried from time to time to make large format negatives of some of the poses, but the time and patience required for such images destroyed the pace of the images, and seldom lead to anything usable.

35mm transparency film

The results of my first attempt at combining couples images with the luminous, natural light approach was encouraging. My favorite image, above, has a perfect contrast between the cool sheets and the warm skin, and an excellent pose depicting everything I wished to convey. The quality of the afternoon's light contributes to the photo, and the pose is something that would have been impossible in the original idea (on account of there being too many limbs in the image for a solo model).

35mm transparency film

The only real frustration with the session was the low light level, and the lack of "glow" to the images. By far the best light to work with in the front room is direct sunlight, in the late afternoon, but the weather precluded this. The only images which came close to mimicking the luminosity of a sunny day were a series of sitting portraits we did at the end, set against the white sheet I use to diffuse the outdoor light.

A Couple's Shower Session (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

35mm transparency film

In the winter of 1998, I had made some images in my shower with Megan, with mixed success. The results were strong enough to convince me it was something to explore in the future, but some modifications had to be made to get the results I was after.

After the unexpected Christmas evening session, Joe and Billie were keen to do more modelling, so we'd arranged to spend Boxing Day afternoon working, beginning with shower nudes. The day was overcast, with less light than I had hoped for, but the film I was using, Fuji 1600, is specially designed for pushing, so I rated it at EI 3200, and went to work. Because of the low light, I used a fast 85mm f/1.8 lens, and the entire session was produced with the lens wide-upon, with shutter-speeds between 1/30th and 1/125th of a second.

35mm transparency film

The qualities of the pushed slide film contribute much to the feel of the session, producing stark images with dark, empty shadows and yet at the same time, well detailed highlights. Though it doesn't show on the net, the final images are very grainy, yet surprisingly sharp; the parts of the images that are in focus are detailed and crisp - the water droplets jump out of the images when projected.

35mm transparency film

The results of the session were very encouraging; a number of the images manage to convey what to me is a very powerful story, without words - they are images that cry out for an explanation, and when left alone, seem to create their own pasts. Overall, the images are both far more than I'd hoped for, and very different from what I'd initially envisioned for the work. Where the work with Megan was dreamy and light, these images, because of the lighting, seem more evocative of memory and drama. The high grain of the images is very pleasing, and interesting counterpoint to my usually grainless images, and the muted colour, a result of the push processing of the film, provides a very strong consistency between the images.

A Christmas Day Couple's Session (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

6x6 cm film

The sessions that closed 1999 for me were six months in the planning, but were not really finalized until I received a phone call late in the afternoon on Christmas day (from Joe, who'd last worked with me in August), asking if I was free to work that evening. The answer was obvious for me, so after an early movie, I met Joe and his partner, Billie, at the studio for a session that would stretch into the early hours of Boxing Day.

6x6 cm film

Though I'd never met Billie before, she was familiar with my work from the internet, and was willing, with only a little initial nervousness, to try some images working with Joe. We began with some simple standing poses, and the evening grew from there.

6x6 cm film

Probably the biggest influence on my work from the last month or so was my increased use of medium format cameras, initially a borrowed Bronica system, and with Billie and Joe, a Hasselblad. Using the medium format camera radically changes how I work in the studio, permitting me to make images faster, and more spontaneously than with a view camera, and giving me far more freedom in framing and composition.

Friends Model Together (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

The evening before this session, I received a call from Anne, who knew of my work from a mutual friend. "Could you make some nude portraits of me tomorrow evening? I want some photos before the holidays!" she asked. In the middle of the December retail season, I was worked to the bone, but given how rare models have been of late,  I said sure, and we arranged to work in the studio the next evening after work.

6x6 cm film

Anne showed up with a friend, Kate, who was also interested in modeling, and we spent some time in a coffee shop before the session, looking over some of my work and discussing the process. Both were even more eager to model after seeing the work in person, so we adjourned to the studio, and began to make images. 

6x6 cm film

Often, the hardest part for a new model is the first moment of revelation; the act of taking clothes off is far harder than saying you will,  and it took a bit for Anne to get up the nerve. In the end, Kate joined her, the two of them realizing it is far easier to model together than alone. For the remainder of the session, I worked with the interplay between Anne and Kate; not partners, as most of my couples images are, but just two friends, modeling together. As opposed to an interplay of bodies, I worked more on juxtaposition, setting one against the other, and letting what evolved from that positioning happen naturally.

6x6 cm film

The results were very pleasing; in addition to a couple of strong images of each model, we managed to produce a very strong set of images of the two women, which focused more of womanhood than any sexuality. My favourite image, to the right, combines a wonderful serenity, in the face of Kate, with a shadowed torso of Anne. The tension between the two is wonderful, creating a difficult image to describe, but one which is instantly effective upon viewing.

A New Direction Begins (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

My second session with Kim was a mirror image of the first (this statement is, as you will see, proof that I go in for really bad puns). It began with the two of us trying to build on the previous session; I'd been surprised and pleased by the strength of some of the 35mm infra-red images, and had hopes of capturing similar images on medium format.

35mm transparency

As I have learned in the past, the worst thing for me is to intentionally try to recreate images that have succeeded in the past. The first hour or so was pretty unsuccessful, filled with failed attempts at recreating instants. Eventually, we just gave up.  Rather than try to recreate images, I decided to take the angel photo I'd created with Cheryl and move the possibilities forward.  We worked on a series of poses, with the strongest being a slightly different take on the fallen angel idea.  Rather than having it follow the traditional approach of an angel with their wings ripped , we focused on an angel fallen over her wings, having made a bed of them (presumably to lie in). In a couple of months, I suspect this image will crop up in my digital work, as part of my angel series.

6x6 cm film

The close of the session was by far the most productive.  Kim had asked if I'd ever worked with a model and a mirror, and I'd answered that apart from the self-portrait with Victoria, no. We brought it off the wall, placed it on the floor, and Kim moved to lie upon it. Instantly, everything came alive, and possibilities appeared almost as fast as I could record them on film. Half an hour later, I'd exposed four rolls of 120 and one roll of 35mm film, and was certain I'd achieved the results I'd sought after.

6x6 cm film

The images on the mirror were every bit as successful as I had expected, but could have been improved in several ways. The biggest problem originated in the mirror itself; being a traditional mirror, it had the silvering on the back, and the photos show a slight reflection off the surface of the mirror. Also, the silvering was damaged in several places, which served to mar the reflected image. As I was worked, I realized this might present a problem, but decided to not worry about. In the end, I feel that I would be better with either a clear, front-surfaced mirror, or a more battered mirror, with more flaws and scratches. 

A Test Evolves (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

6x6 cm transparency

This studio session was intended to be simply a test of film exposure-speeds, but it ended up yielding a couple of good images all the same. One of the most surprising was a portrait off one of the film test rolls; a pensive moment as I was cranking through film. Once I had finished the couple of rolls of film tests, Cheryl  had had some ideas for poses, drawn from our previous session in November. 

6x6 cm film

Quite early into the work, we happened upon a pose which was surprisingly strong. I quickly switched the background to white, changed the lens to a wide angle, and made the image above. 

The final results are an excellent example of the power of photography to control a viewer's response. With the wide angle lens and the high-key approach, the image becomes all about the models pose, and the interweaving of limbs. The original image, drawn from the model's own ideas, was all about the heavy negative space above the figure, but by moving the pose onto white, and centering the pose in a square (the full negatives on a 120 camera, like the borrowed Hasselblad I was using), it changes it radically. 

6x6 cm film

Millennium Angel (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

4"x5" film

The strongest image from this session was unplanned, as Cheryl and I had gone into the studio to work on a project of her instigation.  One of the images we produced was of Cheryl as an angel, wrapped in white, with her moving her arms up and down over a 16 second exposure, to create an ethereal quality to the image. To ensure we had the right effect, we produced several 4x5 Polaroids, and when we had the exposure and motion right, we then made the images on film.

Digital original (sourced from a 4"X5" film image)

It was at this point that I asked her if she'd mind doing the same pose, but nude. I've used angel imagery in my digital work in the past, and thought the potential in the motion-blurred image was quite high. I asked Cheryl to move her entire body during the exposure, in addition to her arms, to further the feeling of otherworldlyness. The negatives was then scanned and digitally altered, to produce the final image. I used the photograph for a Millennium greeting card, commemorating the arrival of the year 2000.

Kim's First Session (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

This session was my first opportunity to work with a model in over a month, but built very strongly on the session with Victoria six weeks earlier.

35mm infrared film

Kim's had no experience modelling nude, but was enthusiastic and once we began, quickly grew very comfortable with the process. Unlike many first-time models, she actively worked towards generating poses, and took a great interest in the process in regards to lighting and angle of view, all of which paid off in the images.

35mm infrared film

As a counterpoint to Kim's attitude to the work, almost everything else that could go wrong in the studio did; the sync cable between the cameras and the flash-system was erratic, my light meter didn't seem to be working correctly, and film was miswinding and misloading all over the place. I attribute these problems more to my not working in the studio over the previous six weeks than to any bad karma following me around. This was proven to me by the quality of the work from the session. In spite of the glitches and mistakes, there are a good number of strong infra-red images, and a very successful 4"x5" nude.

4"x5" film

Often, my work tends to evolve off of earlier work. This session was no exception.. In my previous session in the studio with Victoria I had concentrated on images with strong graphic qualities, using the body to create lines and spaces within the image. With Kim, I  continued to work with the body as a graphic element. While we had started the session with some simple standing portraits ( I often do this with new models, as simply standing nude and being photographed tends to be difficult, and if a model can carry that off, the rest of the session is much easier by comparison), it quickly evolved in to a progression of images revolving around the lines of the body against black.

A Landscape Investigation (Three Pools, Nova Scotia)

For about a year, Chris, a friend of mine, has been telling me about  a space he knew complete with waterfalls, secluded woods and rich rock formations that he felt would be perfect for my work.

4"x5" film

The day we finally went to Three Pools would have been perfect for working with a model, but none were available, so we went to check out the area; I brought along my 4x5 camera, just of the off chance something appealed to me.

4"x5" film

The space was everything Chris had said and we spent two hours exploring it. I managed to make a small series of images which are quite successful, despite their lack of a nude figure. The deep gorges through which the river wound provided a wide variety of  strongly graphic settings, permitting me to arrange the images on the ground-glass with ease. When I work with the Nude in landscape, I often focus upon the figure, and let the landscape around it sort itself out. Without a nude, however, I am often at a loss as to what to centre the image upon.

4"x5" film

My heart leapt when I first saw the flow towers above the Hell's Gate power plant. Not stunning by any comparison to even the most generic full industrial site (by this I mean steel mills, power plants and the like), they all the same contained everything that pulls me to a visual space.

Laura's Pregnancy Session (Susie Lake, Nova Scotia)

From the beginning of her pregnancy, Laura and I had intended to do a series of nudes exploring the changes in her body. As things turned out, it was only in her eighth month that we finally managed to get together and go make some photographs.

35mm infrared film

One problem in waiting so long was the weather; usually it become hard to work outdoors after the end of August. We lucked out and were fortunate to have a sunny mild fall day with only a moderate breeze threatening to chill Laura.

35mm infrared film

Given Laura's pregnancy and the weather, we only worked in a handful of spaces, trying to make the most of our time. Almost all the images I made were with my wide angle lenses, using the distortion inherent to them to accentuate Laura's belly.  I normally work hard with my wide angle to minimize distortion, but as these images were all about gravidity , the exaggeration was desirable.

35mm infrared film

By the end of the afternoon, I was very pleased with the session. As I seldom work outdoors so late in the year, the low angle of the sun came as a pleasant surprise. The great raking light providing wonderful modelling to Laura's body, further enhancing shape and form in the images. The unexpectedly high contrast of the lighting was easy enough to compensate for through over exposure and under-development, and when tamed, was unusually pleasant.

Victoria in a Studio (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

After all the work we had created together in Alberta, I was loathe to call Victoria and ask her to model for me whatever the reason.  Having been given the gift of a week of her life, it seemed greedy to ask her to model more. That said, on the night before her departure for a four month study period in Cuba, we met at midnight to do some studio work.

35mm infrared film

I'd first met Victoria in July of 1998 when I did studio images of her with Ingrid. After that, we'd worked together outdoors, indoors again with Joe, and for a full week creating Victoria, The Alberta Portfolio.  But I'd never worked with her alone in the studio. This left a serious gap in our work together and I relished the opportunity to fill this in before her departure for Cuba.

The session had a very strange energy. Victoria and I were both tired, but we'd both agreed it would be good to wrap up the work we did together with these solo studio images. I began the session by doing a self-portrait with Victoria;  We'd meant to make this image in Alberta, but it never seemed to happen.

4"x5" film

After the self-portrait, we worked on more traditional studio work, exploring the body and light, and playing with form and texture.  It was a very different way of working from what had happened in Alberta, and lead to a distinctly different feel to the results.

35mm infrared film

The biggest upset to the session was my fault. About half the images were made on Kodak HIE infra-red film, using the new Canon EOS 3. The problem arose from the fact that the EOS 3 uses an infra-red sensor to track the film advance. Unfortunately this sensor fogs infra-red sensitive film. All my 35mm images from the session have a band of fogging on the bottom edge, extending some way into the image. While some images could be saved by cropping this edge off, I'd by far rather have produced the images on the right camera. Live and learn.

Megan and I Head Outdoors (Prospect, Nova Scotia)

This day was perfect, and as Megan had no other commitments, we planned on spending the full day working, first at Prospect, then at Gold River. This session is the first time I have returned to Prospect since 1997. One of my favourite spaces to shoot, it has the double problem of needing a car to access and of being right on the frequently fog-bound Atlantic coast.

35m infrared film

We began working with a series placing the body on the spines of rock that run along the coast. Using an ultra wide lens on my 35mm camera, I used infrared film to create a luminous glow on Megan's skin, set against a darkening sky.

4"x5" film

The end of the work at Prospect focused on a Megan crouched in a small pool located high above the Atlantic. I'd discovered the depression in the bedrock in 1997 and it had changed little over the past two years. The only way to frame the entire pool was to use the wide angle lens and move the camera back as far as possible. A problem arose, however, as I moved back, because the rock slopped swiftly and it became difficult to position the tripod. In the end, the only way to make the image was with the shadow of the tripod legs in the lower portion of the image. By cropping off the sides of the image, the shadow of the tripod is almost imperceptible, and what was removed is totally unimportant to the composition of the image anyway.

After the rock-pool images, we packed up the gear and walked back to the car. We drove inland, picked up some lunch, and then drove to Gold River, where we finished up the day's image making.

6x6 cm film

Gold River has come to be a central point in my 1999 work; almost all my water nudes this year were explorations of a couple of hundred yards of the river. With Megan, we stuck to the upper portion of the river, near the road access, and where the water was moving the swiftest. We didn't have much time left in our day and wanted to make the most of what time and light there was. I worked exclusively with the Bronica at the river, working with a slow film and long exposures to produce enough water-blur to make the images please my aesthetic. The biggest problem with working on rivers on sunny day is getting exposures long enough to permit some water blur to occur; rating Agfa 25 at 6 ISO made this a simple procedure and yielded a very successful image. The strength of Megan's shoulders provides a solid contrast to the fluid water behind her.

Joe Poses in a River (Ingramport, Nova Scotia)

6x6 cm transparency film

I had first worked with Joe in January, in the studio with Victoria, but due to the time of year, we didn't get the opportunity to work outdoors. Fortunately, Joe was visiting Halifax in the summer, and had time to work with me again. Joe is very familiar with my work, and when asked where he'd like to model, he immediately said, "water."  We promptly set off for the closest flowing water, the very same river where I'd begun working with water nudes in 1996.

4"x5" film

We began the session late in the day, well after the sun had gone behind the trees. Working at this time of day had three advantages: one, the light was softer and cooler, providing a strong contrast to Joe's tanned body; two, the diffused light made it easier to achieve the long exposure I like to work with when photographing the nude in water; and three, the cool air made the water seem warmer. An unexpected bonus to the light was a wonderful pink cast that came into the sky, delicately playing through the late images.

6x6 cm film

In the end, we ran out of light before ideas for poses. At the same time as the light dropped, Joe became too cold to be comfortable working in the water, bringing the session to a spontaneous close. The photos were a great success, however, with good images in black & white, and in colour. Working with two cameras helped clarify the different medias; I used colour for the most part in the Bronica and exposed black and white film exclusively on my 4x5.

Megan Returns...to the Studio (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Many people have commented that I have a knack for working with models who move away.  When I'm lucky, they return like Megan did this summer. Though we'd produced some stellar work in 1998, I hadn't worked with her since June of that year because she left Halifax for the bigger lights of Toronto. I was overjoyed to find she was in town for a wedding and wanted to make some more images.

6x6cm negative

As it turned out, we had to work in the studio, not either of our first choice of venue.  After spending the afternoon frantically generating ideas, I decided to return to something I had begun exploring in 1994. At that time I had free and liberal access to the studio at the art college I was attending but was becoming increasingly frustrated with the stale nature of studio nudes. In response to this, I began experimenting with cloth and the body with mixed results

6x6cm negative

The return to that concept was a frustrating one. Megan, being an indulgent model, was willing to work with wet cheesecloth, but we quickly learned it dried too fast, quickly changing from a wonderful form-following texture to limp cloth on a body. Having to re-wet the cloth, and keep it warm enough to ensure Megan's comfort took more effort than making the photos themselves and the results were weren't good enough to justify the effort.

6x6cm negative

The first and most frustrating problem was that the cheesecloth didn't have the look I was after. I will have to experiment to find which cloth looks right. The second problem was equipment related. While it was a good decision to work with a medium format camera (as opposed to a view camera which would have made the session go even slower), the lack of a telephoto lens on the Bronica 6x6 proved a real hindrance to imaging. The normal lens with a close-up filter focused close enough but didn't provide the tight angle of view I was aiming for and caused some severe distortion of Megan's body. If I decide to pursue the cloth/nude idea, it will definitely be with a telephoto lens, and a different  type of cloth.