Randi Posed at a River (Gold River, Nova Scotia)

Once it is past the first of September in Nova Scotia, it is always a crap-shoot as to whether it will be warm enough to work with a model outdoors. I suspect that this session will be my last figure session outdoors for this year, which in some ways, makes it a sad occasion. What makes up for it though, is the strength of the images I made, and the fact that it's hopefully the beginning of a working relationship with a new model.

35mm transparency film

I've known Randi for a couple of years, but she moved away a year ago, so it was a surprise to receive a call from her in September, saying she was returning to Halifax, and asking if I would take her on as an apprentice. Since I'd first met her, I'd wanted to ask her to model, and seeing as her interest in photography was partially oriented towards the Nude, I thought it appropriate to ask her if she'd model for me. I also pointed out that besides being of benefit to me, having some experience on the other side of the camera never hurts - it gives you a better degree of sensitivity to the model's role in the process. Randi responded that she hadn't thought of that, and wasn't sure - she'd let me know though.

35mm infrared film

Since then, we've pretty much done all darkroom work, so when it looked like we had a good day coming up, we made our plans. At that time, Randi indicated that she might model if the weather was warm enough, but as the forecast for the day was only fair, I was expecting it to be a rocks and water day. I was pleasantly mistaken.

While we began the day with both of us photographing, exploring the rocks and water at Gold River, we both weren't feeling particularly into it, and eventually, began doing some figure work. The early images were straightforward, with Randi perched by a rock, looking at the camera, but very quickly Randi became more comfortable in front of the camera, and we moved onto more involved images, working the pose into the landscape, as opposed to her just being in it.

35mm infrared film

The last set of images we made were created on a steep shale hill, above the river - the strong angle of the hill made for a couple of really interesting settings to work in, and while we did not get to work with all the possibilities present because of the cool weather, what we did make was really pleasing, both on the 35mm (infrared) and the 4"x5" cameras. Because of the cool weather, I worked as fast as I could, starting each set of images with the 35mm camera, to make sure I knew which angle and lens worked best, and then translating that image to the 4"x5", to make the final image or two, before we changed the space and pose. The system worked well, giving us a surprisingly number of images for the length of time Randi modeled.