Usually
August is my busiest month for photographing, being that it is the
warmest month of the year. This year, however, because of my move to
Moncton, NB, most of August has been spent packing and unpacking, and
renovating the new house (including building the new darkroom). While it
was frustrating to have to take so much time away from making art, it
would have been impractical to delay moving until later in the fall.
Digital original |
All
that being said, Lymari, a photographer/model from New England, has
made a regular event of coming up to visit every summer since 2001, and
this year was no exception. In some ways, she was short changed this
visit, as much of my attention was focused on the renovations and
unpacking, but all the same, we managed to fit in some time for
photography.
Digital original, 14 image stitch
|
In
the end, we settled on working in a section of beach directly below a
small provincial camping ground, but separated from it by a high cliff
and some fencing; this ensured that anyone approaching would have to
come from the left or right, but couldn't come upon us from above. The
setting was more the adequate, with the warm Northumberland Straight
along one horizon, and the high cliffs on the other.
Digital original |
After
all the time we spent looking for a space, the session was surprisingly
short; though I was working with the Canon EOS 10D, I worked slowly,
carefully composing each image, and making most of them as multi-frame
stitches. It was only about forty minutes into the session when we spied
some kayakers paddling up along the beach, and decided we'd better end
the session before they came close enough to see Lymari and I working
(it is better to be cautious than foolhardy). So, with fewer than
half-a-dozen compositions recorded, we gave up the beach to the kayakers
and headed home. I did manage to make several strong rock-abstracts on
the way back to the car, but this was more to off-set the frustration of
not being able to continue to work with Lymari, than it was a real
exploration of the rocks and shoreline.