Point Pleasant Battery (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

On the first sunny day after endless drizzle and rain (or so it seemed to me) I set off to Point Pleasant Park to spend the day roaming and focusing very tightly on the coast battery at the very western edge of the park.

6x7 cm film

Probably the hardest part of working at Point Pleasant is keeping the people out of the images - several images took many minutes to create, simple because of having to wait for people to move out of the frame. For the past 18 months or so, I've focused almost exclusively on the Nude, a generally spectator-free pursuit. Working in a public park with the view camera often attracts an audience (many of whom ask how old the "antique" camera is). For the final image here, a young boy watched from the window in the middle of the image with great interest as I set up the camera but showed no inclination toward moving out of the image when I was ready to go. Eventually, the withering gaze of three waiting photographers got the better of him and he fled the scene.

4"x5" film

The pleasure of working with an engaging subject, at a leisurely pace, cannot be exaggerated With the Nude, there is always the model's time-frame to consider, but with architecture, I can take all the time I wish, waiting for the right light, for people to move, or for the clouds to move into position or out of frame..

4"x5"

On the whole, the day spent working with the ruins at Point Pleasant was thoroughly enjoyable. True to form, in the four hours I spent working, I probably moved less than 200 meters from where I started - the joy of working with patient, static subjects was refreshing and novel; I have been too long away from the forts.