Roberta's Pregnancy #2

As soon as I knew that Roberta was coming, I began to look for additional locations to work with her. I was willing to settle for just the spaces offered by my new house, but given the distance she was traveling, I thought the ideal would be to have a different setting for each session. In Halifax, I have convenient access to a fully equipped lighting studio, but in Moncton, I have no such luxuries.

 8"x10" film

Ironically, the best place I came up with was the apartment of a co-worker. I visited the location several weeks before Roberta's arrival, and it was fabulous. It had the afternoon light, and even better, beautiful arched doorways that were perfect to work with. They were quite aesthetically pleasing, but even better, they repeated the curved elements of the pregnant Nude.

We started the session working with the archway; the light from the window gave beautiful description to Roberta's body, while the archway above her provided a perfect compositional element. With the 8x10 camera, I could keep the archway in the image by using a front-rise movement, while still maintaining the camera looking directly at Roberta. This prevented any distortion of the lines of the wall and archway. Standing poses are not the easiest to do, even with an experienced model, but with the doorway to work with, Roberta had no problems coming up with poses that worked exceptionally well.

Digital original, 3 frame stitch

After we finished working with the doorway, Roberta's husband moved into the frame, and we made a series of images with him embracing Roberta, with the focal point of the images being Roberta's belly. couple nudes have long been one of my favorite subjects, but the pregnancy adds an additional element of intimacy and beauty to the images. Most of my couple nudes are produced in the studio, so the chance to work with available light was an added bonus (though truth be told, if I had the chance, I would have produced studio nudes of Roberta as well).

 8"x10" film

The end of the session came as the sun began to set (working in December forced an early end to the sessions, as it was pitch black by 5pm). The lower the sun became, the more striking the light on the walls of the apartment and while working with another pose, I caught a glimpse of Roberta's shadow on the wall, and immediately changed what we were doing to focus on the window-light and shadow on the wall.