The
final light of Victoria's first day modelling in Alberta was spent down
in the coulee, along the banks of the Belly River. As I'd previously
explored the coulee, I had several locations in mind, and as the sun
went lower in the sky, we moved along the coulee.
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| 4"x5" film |
Most
of this session ended up being portraits of Victoria; the landscape at
the bottom of the coulee was quite fragmented and disjointed, and rather
than struggle to find order within it, I set the environment aside, and
focused upon the model. There is a
particular power which comes from an unclothed portrait.
 |
| 4"x5" film |
One
of the biggest differences between Alberta and Nova Scotia, is the
quality of the light. There is no real way to describe this difference;
suffice it to say there is more, and longer light in Alberta. When the
sun goes down in Nova Scotia, there is between 10 and 20 minutes of
decent light, before night rapidly encroaches. In Alberta, however, the
twilight seemed to linger far longer; "Quiet Light" is apparently one of
the treasures of the West, from a photographer's perspective (I
personally thought it was the mountains and hoodoos).
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| 6x12 cm film |
Regardless,
the evening light was luscious and alive in a way that never happens in
Nova Scotia. The final two image here were both made well after the sun
went below the horizon. In both cases, one second exposures were
necessary, yet the quality of the light was wonderful, soft and diffused
in a way which I have never seen before.
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