Miranda at Peggy's Cove

Digital original

We wrapped up working at Spion Copp after just over an hour, taking Miranda back to the car, and driving down the coast to Peggy's Cove for lunch. All through lunch I kept gazing out the window, watching the drizzle and fog roll past, and wondering if it was my eyes, or if it was getting brighter. As it turned out, by the time we finished lunch, the rain had abated, and only thick fog shrouded the coast - but to make it even better, the morning wind had died down, making the foggy afternoon more then feasible for a figure session at the coast.

Similar to the first time I photographed a model at Peggy's Cove in 1990, the decision to work was informed by the fact that we were a party of three, increasing the number of people would could keep an eye out for unexpected visitors. It was also mitigated by the poor weather, which meant the popular tourist destination was sparsely populated. We set off to work, walking for a while down the rocky coast, until all trace of civilization was lost in the fog behind us.

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Because of the wet day, almost all the poses we worked with were of Miranda standing, either leaning onto rocks, or set along against the backdrop of the surging ocean, which was still quite active from the morning's winds. It just wasn't practical to work with poses that involved lying on the rocks because of how quickly they leeched the warmth out of Miranda.

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The session, and indeed the day, was great, for all the rain that fell upon us. The morning space, at Spion Copp hints at possibilities with Miranda (I hadn't realize she'd never worked in that space) and the afternoon session at Peggy's Cove was the icing on the cake, with the striking compositions being made with the foggy atmosphere and wonderfully textured granite rock as a counterpoint to the figure.

Miranda Posing in a Ruin

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After the session with Constance, I was enthusiastically looking forward to a new season of working outdoors. Even before the weather had turned warm enough to work outdoors, I'd made plans with a visiting photographer, Jean-Francois from Montreal, to show him part of the province on the last Sunday in April. He'd asked if it might be possible for a model to accompany us, and after discussing the possibilities with Miranda, the plans were finalized. There was only one wild-card factor remaining, however - the weather; Sunday dawned with steady rain and intermittent fog, a typical Nova Scotian Spring day. We decided to keep to the plans however, hoping it would prove warm enough to do at least some indoor images.

About the only sheltered space I could think of to work in was at Spion Copp, a small out-fort that once overlooked Halifax Harbour. By the time we reached the space, the rain had slacked off to a light drizzle, but it was still to wet to work outdoors. I wasn't even sure if it was warm enough to work, but Miranda was willing to try and we began. Though we had only the light coming through the windows, I kept my working ISO to 100 (the lowest setting on the EOS 10D) to ensure the best image quality. This necessitated using a tripod, but as this is my preferred way of working, it wasn't an issue.

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Though the light was low, it had a wonderful directional quality because of the broad, high windows and we spent the whole session working with that. Miranda's hair has grown pretty long over the winter, and it was great to have this additional element to add to the images, either trailing over her torso or tumbling down behind her shoulders.

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Because of the chill in the air, this was a perfect session to work with the new digital SLR. I could work fast enough for Miranda not to get too chilled during the poses, yet get the image quality and performance I have always sought.

The Year's First Outdoor Figure Session

6x7 cm film

When Constance first contacted me about my work, and the possibility of modeling, she was specifically interested in outdoor images. Because of the time of year though, our first session was indoors; when the weather finally warmed up enough to work outdoors, it worked out perfectly for Constance and me.

The location we chose was carefully selected to be away from the ocean because, while the sunlight was warm enough, there was still a cool breeze from the east, which ruled out working along the coastline. We worked several hundred meters from the highway, in a secluded space with both rocks, water and trees - everything I needed for a successful session.

6x7 cm film

The first half of the session was spent working on a large pile of granite rocks, with the sun flowing across the rock-faces. After a couple of rolls were exposed there, we moved to the other side of the rocks, where we found a small pond, complete with glacial erratics emerging from it. It was here that the most engaging images of the session were made, working first with the reflections of the rocks and figure in the water, and finally with the contrast between the Nude upon the rocks, and the reflections of the still naked trees in the water around Constance. By this time next months these images would be impossible to make due to the emerging leaves.

The greatest challenge for the session was working around Constance's tattoos. I made a conscious decision in the studio to not worry about showing them in the portraits but for my outdoor work, where the body is seen as more of a universal, I prefer to avoid such individualistic elements. For the most part, I could simply work from angles where the ink work was concealed from view, but sometimes I had to either use Constance's hair to cover the tattoos or simply hope that they would appear to small or subtle to show from a distance.

6x7 cm film

Because this was only her second session working with me, Constance was a little hesitant when it came to the posing; very quickly into the session, however, she seemed to realize the collaborative flow that I try to develop, with my initial directions being refined by her revisions, as dictated by her comfort and the location. It is impossible for me to do all the directing for poses outdoors (or indoors for that matter), so the quicker a models develop a rapport with me that leads to pose revision and suggestion, the better.

Natasha in a Bathtub

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This session marked my first working with my new Canon EOS 10D, a digital SLR camera. I'd previously worked with Miranda in the space and was very much engaged by its possibilities. When Natasha asked about another indoor session, I immediately thought of the bathroom, and asked how she'd feel about bathtub nudes. Her response was enthusiastic and, a little more then a week later, we met and set to work.

As with the previous session at this location, it took us a while before we even worked with the water in the bathtub; the light entering the room through the small window was beautiful, and we started the session with a series of portraits using the light. Unfortunately, the window sill was a bilious shade of green, so all the standing images had to be converted to black and white to be at all visually appealing. In the original colour, the hideousness of the paint completely drew the viewer's eye from the beauty of the Nude, not fair to Natasha and not an effect I wanted to pursue.

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Once we finished with the standing portraits and abstract images by the window, we filled the bath and started working with Natasha in the tub. Because this was my second time working in the space, I had more realistic expectations for the light on the water, and as a result, spent less time struggling then I did during that first day in the space with Miranda. Most of the images I made worked with the line between the water and air where it met Natasha's skin and the how the light changed in the transition. The digital camera was perfect for this, as it permitted a great number of images to be made of the same composition, playing with only the change in the water pattern and level that came with Natasha's breathing.

8"x10" film

All through the session I had the 8"x10" camera at hand, ready to make an image when the right moment came. Shortly after we filled the bath, I had Natasha work with the line of the edge of the bath, and the moment she did, the line of her hip merged perfectly with the side of the tub, and I knew I wanted to record the image. Because of the space, I couldn't position the camera in a way that kept the bath from being distorted, so I used a lens shift to keep the perspective correct and make the image as I'd envisioned - a perfect use of a most flexible tool.

Dancer Test

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The final test for the Canon EOS 10D proved to be very different from my figure work; I'd photographed Victoria practicing in a dance studio before, and decided that a similar session would be the perfect test to push the digital camera as far as possible. With my figure and architectural work, I almost never work with motion, and, even when I do decide to explore that avenue, it is always under my direction. For this session, Victoria was in a master class preparing for a National Ballet exam so, while I was free to photograph, it wasn't appropriate (or permissible) to interrupt and request a pose be repeated - this is about as close to a sport's venue as I am ever likely to work.

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I really enjoyed working with the dancers (there were three in the room); it was quite challenging to work with the movement and choreography that they were practicing, even though I was impaired somewhat by my lack of familiarity with the art. A distinct advantage of the digital camera was the ability to continue to photograph long after I would have run out of film; when the dancers were repeating the same motion over and over, I could record each cycle and then, back at home, choose the most successful image of the group. To some degree, this might seem like a machine-gun approach - shoot now, edit later, but it wasn't that crude. Each set of movement the dances went through had their peaks, and it was that pinnacle that I sought to record. The ability to make many sets of each position greatly increased the quality of the final images.

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With all that being true, in the end my favourite images were the pauses between the dancing; Victoria fixing her hair, the dancers at the bar waiting for the next position to begin. It is this kind of moment that Degas excelled at capturing. There is just such an elegance to the space as a whole, dedicated as it is to the celebration of the beauty of movement, that it seems the only way to hint at that is to make still images of the still moments in between.

Miranda in Her New Apartment

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 As I've mentioned earlier, it has been almost a year since my first opportunity to work with a digital SLR, Canon's EOS D60. At the time I was impressed, almost to the point of questioning why I was using film for some applications. The operative word there is "almost", as I wasn't fully convinced the cost of the camera was worth the results. Now, Canon has issued a new camera, the EOS 10D, with better quality, build and price. Needless to say, I eagerly awaited the camera's arrival, and the chance to test it.

One of the greatest gifts that long term models, such as Miranda provide me with is the ability to experiment without pressure or expectations. With the new camera, what I most wanted to do with it was push the envelope; make images that would test the camera's capabilities. Image content could come later, but as I only had the demo camera for a weekend, I wanted to see if it would technically meet my expectations.

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The space Miranda and I had to work in was new to both of us - her new apartment. I'd seen the house the week before and the stair-way, with its distinctive railing, a turn at the top, and a skylight stuck in my mind as a great place for an indoor sessions. As it happened, Miranda was also keen to work in the new apartment before any of the furniture or books were moved in (making it easier for me to envision and create images).

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The session went well, given the shortness of the session; the EOS 10D was easier to adjust to then I'd expected and, as a result, the session very quickly shifted from a tech test to a genuine photo session, with a number of the compositions using the stair banister taking up much of our time. Though the EOS 10D takes all images in colour, I intended from the start to use the files in black and white; part of what the EOS 10D may do for me is replace all film cameras besides my 8"x10" view camera, so the session was very much designed to test how many different directions it could be pushed. After more then a week of working with the files, I am pretty secure in saying that most of what I need the camera to do is possible, with care and some effort. The possibility of colour and black and white images from the same file is intriguing.