September 22, 2002

Carol & S_ at Litchfield Cove

As it turned out, this session was my last outdoor work of 2002; fall came swiftly this year, and as beautiful a day as this was, it was the last with the warmth of summer in the air; from here on, my work will be indoors.
35mm infrared film
Though the session started out with a series of solo nudes, including some very brave images made in the gently flowing ocean (which was none too warm), the main focus was working with the two models in a couple of spaces. The first time I'd worked at Lichfield Cove was also with two models, so I suppose the space is conducive to outdoor couple images.

After we finished making the ocean-images (a quick end was precipitated by the impending arrival of some intrepid hikers), we moved further down the coast, and stumbled across one a fabulous space in which to continue working. A vertical spit in the granite bedrock created a perfect angular shelf in which the two models could work, giving them both a space in which to pose and react to, and diffusing the otherwise blinding sunlight into something a little more delicate and soft. Both the models and I reacted strongly to the space, so we decided this would be an idea place to continue to work in.
6x7 cm film
Once we set up and started to work, the possibilities came as rapidly as I could advance the film and reload the camera. As I suspected, the close quarters between the rock walls and the debris in the crevasse provoked some striking poses from the models, who worked with their intertwining forms as often as they did the surrounding stone.

After three rolls (30 images) spent working with the crevasse, we moved back to exploring the coastline, with the natural rock forms and the interplay between the models and the rocks. After the strength of the crevasse images, I felt that things were flowing well, and the remainder of the session went by swiftly, with a number of engaging images being created.
6x7 cm film
While I didn't know that this would be the last outdoor session of the year at the time, it was a fitting conclusion to my landscape work for the year. While the session began with classic, single model images, most of the time was spent working with the interplay of the models and the landscape, a marriage of my more stylized, reduced indoor work and my landscape nudes. While I by far prefer to work outdoors with the Nude, the session was a bridge of sorts, moving me into the winter's work with light, body, and the landscape of the mind.

September 16, 2002

Victoria on a Wet, Rainy Afternoon

Victoria and I had planned to work on this afternoon for more than a week, but when the day dawned with intermittent showers and thick fog, I pretty much figured the session was off. When she called to confirm the session, however, Victoria insisted that she was keen to model, rain or not, and by early afternoon we were heading for the coast, praying for the rain to hold off.
6x7 cm film
We arrived to find the entire beach deserted (as I had hoped), and began the session with Victoria testing the temperature of the ocean. As I suspected, it was too cold for her to consider as a location for working (in the car, Victoria had been keenly but naively speaking of doing water nudes), so we walked further down the beach to where the higher dunes were to see what could be done there.
6x7 cm film
In many ways, the session was similar to when Victoria and I worked in the Alberta Badlands in August of 1999; the landscape looked amazing, but turned out to be difficult to work with, and the weather made it even harder. In Alberta, the sandstone was hard and abrasive, and on the beach, the wet dunes were unyielding and cold. In Alberta, it was unbearably hot and dry, and on the beach, it was cool, wet, and increasingly rainy. It was during the work in Alberta that Victoria and I truly laid the foundation of the body of work we've produced together since the first photographs I made of her in 1998.
6x7 cm film
With the Mamiya RB protected by a plastic shopping bag, Victoria and I began to explore the possibilities of the day. The fog was slowly turning to rain, but Victoria insisted we pursue the muse, and we did what we could working with a line of low sand-dunes. The work flowed well, for as long as Victoria could deal with the rain. With every passing minute, however, the drizzle gradually increased in strength until it was undeniably raining. This swiftly called an end to the session, because while I could keep the camera relatively dry, there was no way to keep an already drenched Victoria warm.
6x7 cm film
My favourite image of the session was actually made as we were calling it to a close; Victoria had wrapped one towel around her waist, and was brushing sand off her shoulders when I asked her to pause - the wet hair set against the beautiful softness of her wet skin belies the chill that had set in by that point. A beautiful image of a thoroughly cold model.

September 02, 2002

Fern Returns to North River

After a break for lunch, we headed up the LaHave river, to find another space in which to work. Several had been suggested, but each in turn was revealed to be occupied (it was, after all, the Labour Day weekend). In the end, we opted to return to North River, where Fern and I had had our first outdoor session almost a month before.
8"x10" film
Luck was with us, and we found the space abandoned. Rather then walk far up the river to the place we'd had such success in before, I opted to work lower on the river, where the slowly moving water was meandering between the bare, softly shaped rocks. By this time the high cloud had burned off, and the light was harder and more direct. This was a double-edged sword, as it gave more definition to the dark rocks, and Fern's pale body, but at the same time, it made the exposure and development a little more tricky.
8"x10" film
Because there was little water in the river, much of the imagery I made worked with Fern posing in the rocks and foliage on the riverbed; I would have preferred to work with a more active river, but a dry August pretty much ruled that out. Towards the end of the session, we did manage to work with some water, overflowing from a broad, smooth-surfaced pool. Created late in the afternoon, the image of Fern in the water is darker then many of my water nudes; the sun was low in the sky, and as opposed to reflecting a bright blue sky, the water was dark and mysterious, with only a little highlight appearing on the other side of Fern's body - quite beautiful.
4"x10" film
In contrast to the morning session, I worked exclusively with the 8"x10" at North River; the difference was striking, but not unexpected. Making twelve images in four hours was a refreshing change from the morning's hectic pace; Fern was more then patient with the slower approach - given the warmth of the afternoon, she was just as content to hang out and wait for an image to come to fruition as she was to model continually, as she had in the morning session.

Fern Models by a River

My second day of outdoor work with Fern (the first was in August) began with her and I working down in the river valley of the LaHave river, which was low from lack of rain. I would never have thought of looking along such a wide river for places to work but, as has happened many times before, local knowledge prevailed, and a fabulous space to work was discovered where none was expected.
6x7 cm film

The riverside was extremely varied, ranging from undercut cliffs of soft rock with verdant green ferns and rich rock textures to low rock shelves stretching out into the slow moving river. The light was perfect, with high overcast condition providing a wonderfully soft illumination that made everything seem to glow. Even under the overhang of the cliff, the light seemed to almost wrap around Fern's body and lift it from the surrounding rocks and shale.
6x7 cm film
Given the beauty of the light, the session moved along at a rapid pace; there was more then enough variation in the settings to keep me engaged, and as soon as Fern and I began to struggle for pose or composition ideas, we moved on to another location. This is an interesting variation of my normal approach of working with a space until all possibilities are exhausted, for fear of missing some fabulous composition or pose. Because I was working with the smaller Mamiya RB camera, it was quite easy to respond fluidly to each new location, without taking too much time to adapt the camera set-up. As much as I enjoy the studied, considered speed demanded by the larger view camera, it was almost refreshing to work at such a rapid pace, in such a varied setting.
6x7 cm film
As things turned out, it was fortunate that we worked so fluidly, and took advantage of the variety of landscape open to us in the space. When we were pretty much as far down the riverside as we could safely go, some hikers began to approach from upstream, so we brought the session to a close. One of the greatest advantages of having extra people along on a session (in this case, Lymari and a model she worked with) is that it increases the number of eyes looking out for visitors; I am aware that some people would be less then pleased to come across my work-inprogress, and sensitivity to this reality colours all of my outdoor sessions, no matter how remote the location.

September 01, 2002

Miranda at the Coast

6x7 cm film
This afternoon was one of the most relaxed, low key photo sessions I have ever had; a total of five people headed to the coast for the afternoon, two photographers (Lymari and myself), a model (Miranda), a fiddler (Anthony) and a visiting friend of the model. The main purpose of the session was less for me to to make images, and more to coach another photographer through the process of working with a model, both by example, and through simply letting her explore her own vision.
8"x10" film
We arrived at Long Beach to find it quite windy; this didn't preclude Miranda modeling nude, as the wind was warm enough, but it did make working with the 8"x10" view camera a little impractical. I did make a couple of images at the beginning of the session of Miranda on a rock overlooking the sea, but I found it quite hard to compose the image and keep the focusing cloth from flying away.
4"x10" film
Most of the rest of the afternoon was spent working with Lymari on her photography, occasionally making images with either infra-red film (on a 35mm camera) or with the 8"x10" Toyo. It was a very different way of working, making images when they happened during Lymari's work, but the pace was relaxing, and lead to a number of striking images.