A Candle-lit Couple (Orono, Maine)

The evening of the day of the session with Leslie was also filled with photography. Ellen and Andrew had viewed my couples work and wanted to work with me...unfortunately Andrew worked during the day, so it had to be a night session. As it turned out, Eleen was able to get us a place to work for the evening, and the session was arranged.

6x12 cm film

Drawing on the earlier work with Megan, I decided that rather than just forgetting the idea due to lack of access to studio flash lighting, we would do a session by candlelight. I hadn't previously worked with couple nudes by candlelight before, and it turned out to be quite a successful venture.

4"x5" film

The biggest problem with the session was the candles - we had no preparation time before the session, and therefore had to stick with the candles we had on hand...votive candles. The previous sessions I had done with candles were all produced using tapers, which are both higher off the floor, and have longer, brighter flames. The votive candles were just too low, and had too small a flame to generate the kind of light I had previously worked with.

4"x5" film

On the whole, technical issues aside, the session generated some very powerful images...the hands in the last image are especially strong...the intimacy and comfort indicated by their positions tell volumes.