October 02, 1999

A Landscape Investigation (Three Pools, Nova Scotia)

For about a year, Chris, a friend of mine, has been telling me about  a space he knew complete with waterfalls, secluded woods and rich rock formations that he felt would be perfect for my work.
4"x5" film
The day we finally went to Three Pools would have been perfect for working with a model, but none were available, so we went to check out the area; I brought along my 4x5 camera, just of the off chance something appealed to me.
4"x5" film
The space was everything Chris had said and we spent two hours exploring it. I managed to make a small series of images which are quite successful, despite their lack of a nude figure. The deep gorges through which the river wound provided a wide variety of  strongly graphic settings, permitting me to arrange the images on the ground-glass with ease. When I work with the Nude in landscape, I often focus upon the figure, and let the landscape around it sort itself out. Without a nude, however, I am often at a loss as to what to centre the image upon.
4"x5" film
My heart leapt when I first saw the flow towers above the Hell's Gate power plant. Not stunning by any comparison to even the most generic full industrial site (by this I mean steel mills, power plants and the like), they all the same contained everything that pulls me to a visual space.