Models Posing in a Barn

As I mentioned in the entry about Bobbi's river nudes, it was quite difficult to find spaces to work in Quebec - not a surprise, given that none of us were familiar with the area, but still, after years of experience working in the Maritimes, where often you can simply stop by the road and find spaces to work, the highly populated and civilized area around Quebec City shocked me because of its lack of appropriate spaces for working with models (this isn't to say they don't exist, more that I couldn't find them).

Digital original

One space we passed by early in the day was an old barn, right beside the road, but facing away, into a large field; we paused to check out another space across from the barn, but peeked inside, just to see what it was like. The building was large, dry, and full of old, abandoned machinery, and had a definite air of disuse. Jean-Francois O'Kane, who was working with us for the day and is fluently bilingual, quickly obtained permission for us to photograph in the barn (to this day I am not certain if he mentioned the nudity).

8"x10" film

The space was ideal in some ways; the large doorway to the building was two full stories high, letting in lots of diffused, directional light, but the space was clean and dry as well, making it easy to work in. Because of the large doorway, we spent most of the session working with the light that flooded across the main room. My first images were of Miranda, exploring the side-lighting on her figure, and the backdrop of the barn's walls and debris. I had expected the exposures to be on the long side, but as it turned out, the light was more then bright enough, and as I wanted the background to be slightly out of focus, the final image was perfect, with Miranda staying comfortably still for the eighth of a second exposure.