Aeyla's First Studio Session (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

4"x5" film

Aeyla is one of the most influential models I have ever worked with; though we only worked together four times in 1997, the images that she modeled for helped catapult my vision forward. Pleased with the images, Aeyla had hoped to model for me over the fall and winter of 1997, but for various reasons, it was a year and a half later that Aeyla and I finally managed to work together in the studio.

4"x5" film

Most of the session explored focus shift, the work of the past three weeks still fresh in my mind and I felt strongly that I had not fully investigated the possibilities. Aeyla had never worked in a studio before, and had a hard time adjusting to the new environment. Like me, she far prefers the outdoors; she found modelling alone under the lights a much less comfortable experience. She persevered, however, and the success of the first two images owe as much to her willingness to work hard as they do to my pushing technical boundaries.

4"x5" film

Much of the power of these photos is lost on the Internet - the soft gradations of the blurred skin and cloth are simply untranslatable through this medium. With the image to the left, the only point in focus is Aeyla's right breast and the background on the left side. The rich shadows in the cloth mirrors those cast on Aeyla's torso, something I spent some time creating using the controls available in the studio. An image like this would have been impossible with available lighting, where I would have had little control over direction or intensity.