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.