More Rocks and Light (Duncan's Cove, Nova Scotia)

On the strength of the images I made two weeks earlier, I was eager to get out and work again with the rocks at Duncan's Cove. Last year I didn't produce any images pursing the ideas I developed in 1997, in conjunction with Joy's work (elaborated on in the Laetitia folio), but the concepts have been swirling around in my mind, and it was interesting how easy it was to return to that way of seeing.

4"x5" film

Where before I'd been working with the setting sun reflecting in water pools, this time at Duncan's Cove, I was working with the afternoon sun. Initially I expected the work to be weak, with little of the life or richness which I found a fortnight before. Surprisingly, the two best images of the session are far superior to those earlier images, having a brilliance and life to them which could only have occurred with afternoon light. The luminescence to both of these images is born in the light, high cloud that covered the sun. As opposed to the specular highlight of much of the earlier Light Images, these two have a soft, glowing quality which is much more subtle, yet defiantly effective in their own way.

4"x5" film

In the end, there were some real problems with working in the middle of the afternoon. For one thing, there were many people about, which proved somewhat distracting, and required me to occasionally explain the camera to curious passers-by. For another, there were the shifting clouds. Almost all the other images I've made using reflections have been made using direct sunlight, but as I was working with the clouds, more often than not, the clouds would have shifted before I was ready to make the image, leading to a debate over waiting for the light to change back, or give up and move on to the next image. When I opted to wait, I'd spend the time looking for other images, exploring the immediate surroundings and keeping an eye on the light.