July 31, 2001

Bili & Joe Model Together (Dawson Brook, Nova Scotia)

I'd known that Bili and Joe were planning to come and work with me for over a month, but somehow communication wires got crossed, and Bili and Joe didn't get in touch until Tuesday - the day before I began my four work week. Faced with the prospect of not having any time to work at all, we quickly arranged to meet late that afternoon, and make at least some images while I had time to photograph them.
35mm infrared film
As we all wanted to do water nudes, I chose to work at Dawson Brook - it was close enough to Halifax to make it convenient, and, more importantly, it is perfect for afternoon light. Earlier in the day, when the sun is higher, if falls directly onto the falls, and creates a very contrasty scene that is very hard to work with - later in the day, however, the sun moves behind the trees and casts everything into a wonderfully even light, lit from above and radiant in the most wonderful way.

Ironically, the perfect light caused other problems; hot though the day was, down in the river's ravine, as soon as the sun left, so did much of the heat; very quickly making working in the water uncomfortably cool, reminding me (unfortunately) of the first time I'd work with Joe, in 1999. Just like then, however, both Joe and Bili were real troopers, and bore the cold in the name of art. Trying to make the most of the time we had, I did my best to work swiftly, while trying to keep the images fresh and dynamic.
4"x5" film
One difficulty that comes up again and again with water work is camera position; with small rivers, like most of Dawson Brook, this is less of a problem, but in the area we were working in, with the pool at the bottom of the falls, there really was only one place to stand with the camera. As a result, almost all the images were made with the same camera position. The only thing I could really change was the pose and position of the models.
4"x5" transparency film
The final images of the session, made further down-stream, really show how low the water-level in Nova Scotia has become this summer; there was barely a trickle flowing, which by happy accident meant that it was easier for Bili and Joe to hold their poses for the long exposures I required to blur the water. One of the most successful of these images, to the left, was made on colour transparency films (probably the last large format colour I will do for some-time, on account that I plan to sell my 4"x5" camera at the end of the summer, and colour 8"x10" is just unbelievable expensive). The warm, soft skin of the models against the cool rocks, littered with green and grey lichen is just everything that colour needs to be for me.

July 17, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XX (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Our last morning of work, on the day that Cassandra was to fly back to Ontario, was spent in the woods near Halifax, working with an open area of young hardwood near the highway. I'd worked in a similar setting with Victoria earlier in the year, and hoped to find similar successes with Cassandra. The day was bright and sunny as we left Halifax, so I was somewhat concerned that there would be too much sunlight filtering through the trees, leading to too much contrast on the forest floor.
8"x10" film
My fears proved unfounded, however, as when we arrived the daylight was soft and diffused, both by the light tree-coverage, and the high cloud cover moving in from the coast. The lighting was perfect, and almost immediately, we set to work.

By this session, Cassandra had become fully comfortable with the dance that models and I go through when working, one or the other suggesting a pose, and then the opposite refining it until it clicked. There is no way that I know to teach an inexperienced photographer or model the process of finding a pose, but once the skill is learned, the difference to the speed and flow of a session is palpable.
8"x10" film
This session was different from most of the previous ones with Cassandra; I opted to bring only one camera with me, the 8"x10" Toyo. After spending more then a week working between my 4"x5" and 8"x10" cameras, I have become convinced that the larger view camera is where I want and need to be, and subsequently chose to dedicate our final session to this camera. The decision proved to be a good one, as the two hours we had flowed perfectly, with the last of the day's twelve images being exposed moments before we had to pack up and be on our way.
8"x10" film
The final image of the session, and of the entire Cassandra project also proved to the portrait I chose for Cassandra, the Nova Scotia Portfolio. Made as we were literally counting down minutes to when we had to be finished with the session, and the image creation part of the project, the image has a wonderful mix of setting, lighting and expression. The surrounding of ferns and low plants presented a perfect setting for the portrait, while the narrow focus, and back lighting pushed the ferns behind Cassandra into the background, and away from the focal point, her eyes. By this point, both Cassandra and I were pretty much ready to bring the project's image-making phase to a close, and her gift of this striking image made it all the more perfect a session to end the project..

July 16, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIX (Prospect, Nova Scotia)

When planning out the Cassandra project, great thought was put into what locations to use with her, and how many of the spaces I regularly work to use, in contrast to new locales. This was in light of the fact that I knew the project would involve access to a car and a dependable model for an extended period, where normally I am never sure that I can secure both transportation and a model. While it was determined it would be important to take advantage of the car, some locations were strong enough to be used, regardless of the fact I've worked there before.
4"x5" film
Prospect was one of these locations; first worked with in 1997, and since then I've returned numerous times, continuing my exploration of one of my favourite Nova Scotian spaces. On this occasion, we headed to an area of the shore I'd previously ignored, and so while the landscape was familiar, the actual settings of the images we made were fresh to my eyes.

35mm infrared film
As I've mentioned before, the flow of work towards the end of the Cassandra Project was markedly different from that of the beginning; where initially Cassandra relied heavily on my guidance and suggestions for poses, the final sessions had a much more fluid feel to them, with Cassandra often aggressively pursuing her own ideas, often with significant success. This is not to say in any way that the first sessions were unsuccessful, just that there was a notable difference in the flow of the work as our relationship evolved.
4"x5 film
Because the day was bright and sunny, I had to constantly modify the poses to counter the dark shadows inherent to such days. Since the beginning of the Cassandra Project, I've been carrying a metre wide translucent reflector which can be used to reduce the shadows in an image. Before this year, I'd never used reflectors or diffusers in my outdoor work; after talking with some other photographers, and taking a more careful look at the work of artists who use reflectors, I decided it was a tool worth investigating. As it turns out, this day was one of only a couple where I'd used the reflector outdoors (the diffusion qualities of the reflector have proven invaluable in indoor work). Usually my outdoor work is of the entire body in the landscape, which pushes the camera further from the model then is practical for such a small reflector. Also, I seldom worry much about the contrast (local shadows) as I prefer to work in open shade, or on overcast days, where dark shadows aren't much of a problem. On this day, with the portrait I did towards the end of the session, the reflector proved invaluable, kicking more then enough light into Cassandra's face to balance against the direct light on her arm and buttocks.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XVIII (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

While the entire Cassandra Portfolio was to be work based on the Nude in Landscape, I didn't want to ignore other possibilities while Cassandra was here. On the morning of her second-last day in Nova Scotia, we spent several hours working with the morning light, diffused through a sheet over the windows in our living room.
35mm transparency film
I used this approach in 1999 in making the Thalamus series, and I find myself returning to it again and again, pleased with the quiet simplicity. As the session was very different from the outdoor work we'd been pursuing for the previous ten days, it was interesting to see how Cassandra reacted to working in a comfortable setting, as opposed to cool rivers, hard rock and damp earth.

35mm transparency film
Like our first sessions outdoors, Cassandra initially relied upon me for direction, but eventually realized that what I was drawn to was not a pose as such, but a moment of relaxation or comfort which I'd ask her to hold while I composed and exposed the image. Overall, this was a swifter, more spontaneous process then the outdoor work; the only time it came to a halt was when the 8"x10" was called into play, and even that was just to capture the moment paused, and not to search out new images.
35mm transparency film
After just under two hours of work, I felt that all the possibilities were explored, and the session came to a close. Of all the work we did, this session was singular, in that it was the only one where the colour work so completely out performed the black-and-white. There was nothing in the eight sheets of 8"x10" film I had exposed which even came close to the languorous feel of the colour transparencies. This experience has been repeated over and over, with other models in the same setting, but I keep trying with the monochrome, hoping someday to be able to pull it across that invisible barrier that keeps it from succeeding in the same way the colour does so consistently.

July 15, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XVII (Dawson Brook, Nova Scotia)

This session was inspired by earlier work I'd done with J , at Dawson Brook, where we'd discovered the wonderful reflective quality of one particular area of the slow-flowing stream. I'd been very pleased with the images of R_, but as they were initial explorations, they were made on 35mm slide film, which presented some issues in regard to printing them. This time, with Cassandra, I was working with medium format (6x9) colour negative film, and could be assured that both the image quality as a whole, and the ability to print the images, would be improved. Because I'd worked in the space before, little time was spent actually finding the image, and more on the pose, which paid off in a well-seen photo that pays homage to its origins, but manages to be distinct enough to avoid being a simple copy.
6x9 cm film
After we made the initial image, we moved off, working our way slowly down the river, and making images as we went. After making a series of images photographing across the stream, I moved closer to Cassandra and made a portrait, filling the 8"x10" with her strong arms and shoulders as a frame within the frame. The slight dappling from the sunlight through the trees added some brilliant highlights to the image, and the outcome proved very successful, a blend of a portrait of a powerful young woman, and a striking Nude with a great sense of presence.
8"x10" film
The very end of the session was spent working with (as opposed to in) the waterfall at the end of the upper stream. As with ever other time I've been to Dawson Brook, the water level was low, with very little water flowing downstream; what could have been a chaotic, frothing waterfall was instead a small, almost negligible amount of water trickling down the rock steps to the pool below. As Cassandra was still chilled from the earlier water work, and the rocks were slippery, we opted to work with her above the waterfall, in contrast to its motion-blurred flow.
8"x10" film
Because the falls were in direct sunlight, and Cassandra was almost all in the shade, contrast issues were inherent to the light conditions. I opted to heavily over-expose the film (from 400 ISO to 50 ISO), and compensate for this in the subsequent development to tame the contrast. This worked remarkably well; the resulting images have a wonderful sense of luminosity in the blurred waters, while keeping a rich amount of detail in the shadowed forest floor behind Cassandra's form.

July 14, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XVI (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

Nova Scotia's shoreline is incredibly long and varied, but over the decade I've worked with the Nude, I probably have worked with less then ten locations. In light of this, and taking advantage of the car we had for the duration of the Cassandra project, we chose Sandy for this day's work, driving for over two hours to get to the space.
35mm infrared film
While the main attraction at Sandy was the beach, we never actually made it that far; one of the curves in the road opened up a shoreline vista that was rich in possibilities, and called to me. We parked the car, and set off on foot, heading for a distant point, where exposed rocks and space trees set the sea.

All the work Cassandra and I have done to date very much paid off in this day's images; the poses came quicker then during any previous session, and there was a focus and energy which drove the session for the hours that we worked. Part of this came from the rich landscape, which suggested images and poses almost faster then we could take advantages of them. As with the Second Lake session, the isolation of Sandy was wonderful to work with, as we could work our way down the beach without having to worry about other people or interruptions.
4"x5" film
The flow of the session contained a double-edged sword. As I hadn't processed any of the images we had made to date yet, many of the photos were still crystallized in my mind's eye, and I had to struggle to keep the new images fresh. While it is nice to be able to work for days at a time uninterrupted, it does lack the possibility of building on earlier images with the same model. As the rocks in this area were quite different from those closer to Halifax, I relied on them as a springboard to fresh images.
4"x5" film
Towards the end of the day, the sun finally began to break through the dull, overcast sky, and provided a bit of soft modeling to what had previously been a flat, even light. Moving swiftly to take advantage of this, I set aside the view camera and began making some nude portraits of Cassandra, framing the images tightly to her torso and face. The strongest of these, shown above, has a wonderful quality of light and form to her body. The image makes a great counterpoint to the abstract body-images we'd made earlier in the day.

July 12, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XV (Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia)

Of all the spaces I've worked with to date (going back to 1990), this was by far the most difficult to reach. Saying that it was a 45 minute walk into the lake makes it sound reasonable, but as the path was along a winding path though Nova Scotia woods and brush, and I'd opted to take both the 8"x10" and the 12x20 cameras (and both tripods) it was pretty close to sheer hell. Even with Brent, our host and guide for the day, carrying the wooden tripod and the 12x20 film holders, I was carrying close to 90 pounds of equipment, so upon our arrival at the lake, our first course of action was a desperately needed lunch and rest!
6x9 cm film
After a shoreline picnic, we began working in the lake, first with Cassandra posing on a small rock about ten metres from the shore. I began with a 12x20 image, and then moved in with the smaller, hand-held cameras to explore other possibilities. In the end, it was the small format images which best exploited the potentialities. When the sun broke through the fog and clouds, it began to provide wonderful shimmering highlights around Cassandra's reflection.
35mm infrared film
The rest of the session alternated between the four camera formats. The hand-held cameras were usually used to sketch out idea, and if the strength of the resulting poses and compositions called for them, the larger cameras would be brought into play. Most of the images I did with the 8"x10" were portraits, taking advantage of the long open vistas across the lake as a seamless, indistinct background.
8"x10" film
The pleasure of working in such an isolated location was indescribable; in more accessible spaces, a measurable amount of energy is put into keeping an eye out for the chance passer-by, but in an out-of-the-way space such as this, the entire session is made without this consideration. The influence this has on the session is subtle, but evident; where on other sessions between camera positions, Cassandra would don her sweater, or huddle in the shade, at Second Lake, when she wasn't modeling, she was avoiding frogs, or casually lying on rocks for warmth.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIV (Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia)

This river space was shown to me by my friend, Brent, in hoped that it would work well as a modeling space; it proved perfect, with sun-warmed water flowing through the forest over rocks and boulders. The deciduous trees and thick coverings of moss and lichen made the entire area almost vibrate with greens.
6x9 cm film
Before I moved down off the road, and worked on the river's level, I made an image from the bridge over the water. The high vantage point was unusual, and I knew it would be a wonderful composition for the 12x20 camera (I also realized that it was impractical to use the 12x20 down by the riverside, due to the small and confined space).
6x9 cm film
Positioning the camera on the bridge was easy enough, but framing and focusing proved a challenge, as the ground-glass of the camera was about two meters off the ground. Eventually though, I got the camera set up, and we began to work on the pose. Initially, I had planned on a back-on pose, but because of some rather strong, pre-Portfolio sunburn lines on Cassandra's back (more proof of the necessity of sunscreen!), we had to opt for a frontal pose, lying back on one of the larger rocks. The flow of the water around the rocks turned almost misty due to the eight second exposure necessary for the image, but this, in combination with the incredible detail the large negative gives to the rocks and figure, makes the entire image a joy to view.
12"x20" film
The rest of the session was spent working with the roll-film cameras from the forest-floor. Because of the thick covering of trees overhead, the exposures were longer then I'd expected, which gave a very ethereal quality to the water, causing an almost ghostly quality to the motion blur. In addition to this, there was an unusually high amount of infrared radiation, and almost all of my infrared negatives ended up being grossly over-exposed. I can only assume this to be because the trees above were reflecting so much of this invisible light (they were glowing white, reflecting the light). I will keep this in mind the next time I work in such a space, and hope that the experience will lead to better results the next time.

July 11, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIII (Long Island, Nova Scotia)

Of all the places I was to work with Cassandra, this was the furthest a field, at the end of a long drive that went more then half the length of the province. It was also the most anticipated, and least known space, being a waterfall I had good directions to, and yet had never visited.
35mm infrared film
Fortunately for all, the directions were incredibly accurate, and without a single wrong turn, we found ourselves at the falls; way at the top of the falls. At the top of a very steep, very slippery, very very treacherous set of falls. Never one to be daunted by the dangerous (or possibly egregiously stupid), we began the session by doing some exploratory images of Cassandra at the top of the falls. We then proceeded, with great care, to move the 20 or so meters down the near sheer rock-face, to a small flat area in the falls, which held great potential for images. This was, of course, with my 4"x5" view camera, and a nude Cassandra.
4"x5" film
As it turned out, while the hazardous climb down was successful, the waterfall was almost impossible to photograph; there was almost no safe place to set up the tripod, and even less space to stand. In the end, while we did make some images half-way down the falls, the strongest images of the day were made back at the top, before we packed up and left for the day.
4"x5" film
The final photographs were less "Nudes" and more portraits; Cassandra was still wet from the waterfall, and I made a short series of her with tangled, dishevelled hair; the thin lines of water blurring in the background contrasting nicely with the Cassandra's pale skin, while the dark mass on the right forms a great mirror to the shadowed face looking in the same direction. The general convention for a portrait is that the subject should have eye contact with the viewer, but in this case, the image is stronger for the lack thereof.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIII (Mersey River, Nova Scotia)

This session was by far the shortest of all the session with Cassandra - probably 20 minutes from start to finish, with four sheets of 8"x10" film exposed. We'd seen the Mersey River through the trees, and thought it had definite possibilities. The only problem was the proximity of the road, which, though screened by the trees, was uncomfortably close.
8"x10" film
The day was still foggy, though it was late morning by the time we were set up and ready to work. The light fog gave a terrific sense of depth to the trees on the far side of the river, while the placid water, unmoved by a breath of wind, flowed gently downstream. I knew that the images had to be made looking upstream, into the fog; there were several rocks that emerged from the water which had potential, and it was with these we chose to work. Initially I tried my portrait lens, but it restricted the view too much and gave little sense of the space. So I settled on my moderate wide lens (equal to a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera) and framed up the composition. This choice was right and we set about working cautiously, in light of the proximity of the road.

In the end, the images were made without a hitch. We worked out the pose and camera position and framing with Cassandra in the model-sweater, and then quickly disrobed just before the images was made. Several cars and trucks whizzed by us on the road, oblivious the images being created at the water's edge.

July 10, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XII (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

I never plan more then a session ahead of time, generally speaking, but when I first worked with the Lunenburg shore, and ran out of film as the light was fading, I knew I wanted to return to the space, to continue exploring it. As I had already used the 12x20 camera indoors, I was interested in applying it to working with the nude outdoors, to see what the "mother of all cameras" could do that no other camera could.
12"x20" film
The first lesson of the camera outdoors is that it was incredibly large and slow. This was the first camera where having a second set of hands wasn't a bonus, it was close to a necessity; even moving it often involved asking someone to hold it while I scrambled up or down the low rock faces with the tripod and film. Fortunately, with so many other people (no less then five, including Cassandra and I) on the session, there was no lack of help with the camera, and the four images we made were accomplished with relative ease. The most successful of these, to the left, emphasizes the mirroring of Cassandra's body by the landscape, with the incredible detail of the ultra-large negative only adding to an already successful image.
35mm infrared film
As we progressed through the 12x20 images, we also made explorations with 35mm infrared and 120 black and white, working swiftly and spontaneously. The two ways of working complimented each other well, with long, careful compositions being made with the larger camera, and then, when those were concluded, a series of "sketches" were made with the smaller cameras, either pursuing compositions or angles unavailable to the more cumbersome camera, or experimenting with images that I wasn't willing to commit onto the (much) more expensive sheet film.
35mm infrared film
At the end of the session, I was filled with an incredible sense of fulfillment; the simple act of working with the 12x20 camera outdoors was an accomplishment of sorts, but the feeling that I had made successful images heightened the feeling even more. At the time, neither Jeff (who owns the camera) nor I had actually seen images made with the camera, but the possibilities which I had set to film danced in my mind's eye. It would actually take us another ten weeks to work through the issues of processing such large film, and successfully process negatives. With the processing of each negative taking twenty minutes in the dark, and a full forty minutes in total, developing the dozen negs I made with Cassandra would ultimately take almost as long as processing all the 8"x10" sheet film we exposed over the entire two week expedition; that said, the results more then speak for themselves, and I very much look forward to continuing my exploration of this camera format over the coming years, as my comfort and understanding of it grow.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XI (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

The first day we arrived at Feltzen, we were given a tour of the property, including an old foundation, complete with a massive stone base for an fireplace. From the moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to work with this space, to see what it would lend itself to with a model. I enjoy working with models in architectural spaces, but generally, intact environments (like houses) hold little interest, when compared to the visual richness of a space which is decaying, and gradually being reclaimed by the natural environment.
6x9 cm film
Augmented by the soft light of the fog-shrouded morning, I chose to concentrate on colour images emphasizing the lush greenness of the grasses and the coloured flowers surrounding the structure. The juxtaposition of the warm glow of Cassandra's skin against the cool stone and foliage worked particularly well. Also, as the morning was not particularly warm, the smaller, faster cameras seemed more appropriate.
35mm transparency film
I did work with the 8"x10" for those images which seemed particularly strong, but the main focus was on the colour images. As I've said before, the incredible ease of working with the larger Toyo camera is just a pleasure, especially when moving to it from the smaller cameras. Having already explored the space in colour, I had clear images in my head, so the work with the 8"x10" went swiftly, moving through several poses and images before wrapping up for the morning, and returning to the house for lunch.
8"x10" film
When I envisioned Cassandra, the Nova Scotia Portfolio, I had considered the possibility of including a colour image, and after this session, I strongly felt that idea might become a reality; it was another month before I was able to proof the colour work, but as soon as I saw the images of Cassandra among the verdant green, I knew one of these would be part of the portfolio.

July 09, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia X (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)


35mm film
The close of the day was probably the most relaxing session for Cassandra of all the days we'd work together; while she reclined in a hot-tub, I photographed her, exploring the levels of distortion and reflection in the water, and later, while it was turned on, the total chaos of the bubbles in the water. It was next to impossible to pose Cassandra in the hot-tub, so most of the images simply consisted of the best composition and framing that I could manage in the moment.
35mm film
On the whole, over a full roll of colour images, only a couple were really successful; many failed because of the rapidly moving water, while others had Cassandra floating off the black fabric we used to hide the baby-blue colour of the tub shell. I think, with more preparation and consideration, very successful images would be possible in the hot-tub, but these images feel more like a first sketch then a finished vision of the space.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia IX (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

By the early afternoon, the fog had partially lifted, and, more importantly, the day had warmed enough for us to move to the coast and work with the blue-grey rocks on the opposite side of the peninsula from Rose Bay.
35mm infrared film
In contrast to the earlier session at Rose Bay, the work on this day went until the film ran out; the day stayed warm and pleasant, though the ever-present fog loomed on the horizon. The light, soft and delicate, provided beautiful description of Cassandra's form on the rocks, and in particular, the light was wonderful for the infrared work, where it gave a luminous glow to her skin, and the green-brown rockweed that abounds at the coast, giving it a fairytale-like luminescence unique to infra-read film.
8"x10" film
The most exciting image of the session, however, would be made with the 8"x10" camera. As we worked down the rock beach, I came across a sharp-sided ravine, which led down to the shore. I immediately asked Cassandra if she could lie in it, with her head and arms towards the camera, and her body flowing away from me. She tried to pose, and initially it didn't work - the way I'd envisioned it, Cassandra would have been on her back, which proved to be anatomically impossible. With some wriggling and careful adjustments, however, Cassandra managed to find a (somewhat) comfortable position, and things started to come together. Using my 159mm wide-angle lens (equal to about a 20mm on a 35mm camera) I carefully framed and focused the image, making the plane of focus follow the lines of Cassandra, as opposed to the rocks around her. The result is one of the strongest images of the project, and the first selected for Cassandra, the Nova Scotia Portfolio.
8"x10" film
This session was probably the most important of the entire project, both because of the strength of the work, and the improving confidence of Cassandra at working out poses. Since our first session, I've been encouraging her to put forward her own ideas for poses and images, to augment those I suggest, but it took several days for her to begin to do so confidently. The difference in the images was subtle, but definite, leading to our strongest session to date. Though I wouldn't see the film for another two weeks, I definitely felt a difference during this session.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia VIII (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

A consistent theme in the Cassandra work is fog; less in images, then in when and where the images were made. On this morning, the world around us was almost invisible, shrouded in a dense mist.
12"x20" film
Because it was foggy and cool, we opted to work indoors for the morning, permitting me the time and setting to begin working with a new camera format - a 12x20 camera owned by my friend, Jeff, and offered for use to me when time and circumstances permit. As we were going to work indoors anyways, I thought this was as good a time as any to try the new camera.
12"x20" film
 Because the film is so large, the camera needs very long lenses; for the indoor photos I was using a 360mm lens, which required a very small lens opening to ensure enough of the image would be in focus. As a result, the images I made of Cassandra on the couch were four seconds long; fortunately all I was asking of her was to lie still; if there had been anything more dynamic involved, I doubt that such a long exposure would have been possible.
8"x10" film
Because the large camera takes so much effort to use, we only made two images with it, the remainder of the morning being spent working with the 8"x10". After working with the 12x20, the Toyo seemed practically speedy to use, and it was quite enjoyable to move from a camera that was unfamiliar and somewhat daunting, back to one that has become very familiar and comfortable over my six months of use. I kept the same setting for the 8"x10" images, but as opposed to creating full body images, these were portraits and partial-body nudes. Whereas in my outdoor work I seldom crop the figure, indoors, it is usually the case that I use the camera frame to crop the figure. It was the long, angular aspect ratio of the 12x20 camera that provoked me to create the nudes of Cassandra lying on the couch..

July 08, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia VII (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

Most of the landscape I work with in Nova Scotia constitute a small number of places; without a car, I am often limited to where I can get to conveniently with friends and models. With Cassandra, however, we had a car for the full two weeks, and could access spaces much farther a field. In addition, we were based for the first week in Feltzen, an hour south of Halifax, which put us in a different geographical area all together.
6x9 cm film
Where most of the rock spaces around Halifax are granite, the coastal cliffs at Rose Bay, near Feltzen, are a colourful sedimentary rock, flowing vertically up from the shale beach. With strong striations in the rock, and rich textures, the space was perfect to work with, and held a wealth of opportunities.
6x9 cm infrared film
 We arrived mid-morning on a grey, overcast day with the sun only hinted at behind low fog and clouds. The quality of the light was near perfect, as it was bright but even; the only real problem was composing any images that included the white and featureless sky. Though we found the seaside air a little chilly, we held out hope that the day would warm as it progressed, and set to work.

Our optimism about the weather proved to be misplaced and by the middle of the session, we were taking long pauses for Cassandra to warm up; the red "model sweater" which Joy had bought several years before was used to great effect. Eventually, not wanting to lose shooting time, we shifted to setting up the pose and camera with Cassandra in the sweater, only removing it just before the exposure was made.
4"x54" film
Eventually, after several hours of work, the cold became too much, and we had to call the venture to a close before Cassandra felt victim to a less benevolent form of "exposure.". The experience reminded me of the snow Victoria and I woke to one morning in Alberta, in July of 1999; no matter how much planning is done in advance, one can never account for the weather. The images we made were strong, however, with a number of interesting compositions made which would not have been possible with the rockscapes more familiar to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to explore a new space, and was grateful to Cassandra for being willing to tough it out through the chilling temperatures to make the images.

July 07, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia VI (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

It was late in the afternoon before Cassandra and I ventured outside, to work with the angular light of the setting sun. We walked down to the shore behind the house in which we were staying, and began to explore the possibilities of the rocky beach.
6x7 cm film
Unlike the work of the day before, most of the images we made at Back Bay were composed around the landscape; I worked primarily with Cassandra's form as a mirror or counterfoil to the landscape in which she moved. The low angle of the sun provided perfect lighting for the session, giving rich description to both the landscape, and the body within it.
35mm infrared film
My usual way of working with landscape poses is to give the model a sense of what is drawing my eye to a scene, and then ask her to explore the space physically with that in mind, and see what happens. Where the previous day's images focused mainly upon the movement of water, this session incorporated the rocks and foliage of the shoreline, which put a stronger focus upon the posing and positioning the body. For a new model, it can be hard work to make an image come together for the camera, and Cassandra put a lot of effort into making the poses work. As much direction as I can give from behind the camera, it is really up to the model to pull things together, as they are actually in the space, and know what is physically possible. An important part of working with a new model is to strike the right balance between directing the pose and encouraging the model to work with the space, developing a trust in their own body instinct.
8"x10" film
Over the session, I again mixed the landscape nudes with portraits, partially because the landscape was a little less engaging then I'd hoped for, and partially because of the simple power of the naked gaze. Working with all three formats (colour, 35mm B&W infrared and 8"x10" B&W) went well, with each being called into play when appropriate. The pacing of the session was great, with Cassandra and I moving down the beach as the images came and went, and eventually calling it a day when the sun sank below the horizon.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia V (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

This morning dawned cool, bright and sunny; less then ideal weather for working in the great outdoors. Fortunately the day before we'd discovered a wonderful ram's skull (in the collection of my friend and host, Jeff), and both Cassandra and I were keen to explore the possibilities of combining the skull with the Nude (as I had done two years before with Victoria in Alberta).
35mm infrared film
I began the work with the skull with Cassandra sitting in a chair covered in a black cloth; I knew that her skin and the bone would work really well against the black, and also felt that it would be easier to strike poses with Cassandra lying comfortably. This worked well for a number of image made both on the 4"x5" and the 8"x10", but quickly I realized that the body and the skull both were too cramped on the small chair, so we shifted to a standing space, lit by the sun coming through the large windows and deck doors. With some careful arrangements of reflectors, cloth backdrops (held by my friend Jeff) and model., we managed to minimize the distractions, and bring the images to bear fully on Cassandra and the skull.
8"x10" film
The compositions based on the skull and Nude were surprisingly easy to find - I suspect this is due to the natural form of the skull, but also, I think its form resonates in a person's mind, and pulls at something primal. Regardless of the reason for it though, the end result is striking, with the sweeping horns of the Ram leading the eye into Cassandra's pelvis, to rest upon the stark skull set against her bare skin. With all the machinations we went through to create the image, I found myself longing, like I had in Alberta, for a lighting studio to work with the body and skull in. That wasn't an option, however, and all things considered, I am very pleased with the results.
8"x10" film
The session came to a close with me setting aside the skull, and making a number of portraits of Cassandra, again lying on the couch. The strongest image, among my favourite of the many portraits I did of her over the two week, was framed so tightly as to show almost nothing but Cassandra. Taking the full advantage of the 8"x10", the image has only one narrow plane of focus, with her eyebrows tack sharp, and most of the remainder of the image delicately defocused.