July 20, 2003

Victoria at Chebucto Head


8"x10" camera
Victoria and I now live less then a block from each other, yet we seem to see each other less then when we lived across the city. This is a shame, as she is an exceptional model; we both enjoy working together but life gets busy and there never seems to be enough time. That being said, from time to time the two of us do manage to fit in a session, albeit a short one.

On this particular day, there was some hesitation to head out at all; the morning was foggy and Victoria wasn't sure if the light would be good enough to work with. I replied that fog was perfect as it would give us beautiful even light and, at worst, it would burn off by noon and leave us with a bright, sunny afternoon (not the best weather condition to photograph by, but certainly pleasant to model in).
Digital original
We started working on the rocks several hundred feet from the shore, attracted to a narrow crevasse (the same one where I'd made an image on Ingrid and Miranda earlier in the summer). We made a number of portraits, and then began to explore more stylized images of Victoria on the rocks; the best of models share one characteristic - the natural ability to find a pose or suggest alternatives spontaneously.Victoria and I spent fifteen to twenty minutes exploring several different settings with her finding the pose and me refining it before making an exposure. Then Victoria would present an alternate pose, based on the first but with some subtle (or obvious) variation that shifted the emphasis or focus of the image. This worked well with the digital camera, leading to us making a dozen or more images in a short period of time.
Digital original, 17 image stitch
As the end of the session came, we headed down to the shore as I wanted to work with the fog and the shoreline. Because we were tight on time, I opted to just take the digital and work a little faster. As luck would have it, the final pose of the day was very striking and called out for the larger 8"x10" negative. Time being what it was, however, I opted to make a stitched image, using 17 frames on the EOS 10D to create a higher resolution file of Victoria reclining on the rock. The final result met all my expectations and while, in some ways, I wished I could have made it with both cameras, it was far better to have been able to make it as a high resolution stitched image than not have made it at all.

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