An Outdoor Session with Carol

This may well be my last outdoor session of the year - while the day was lit by beautiful light, thanks to some high cloud, it was slightly cool, with the snap of a fall day in the air. Since the beginning of Carol's pregnancy, the plan had been to document the pregnancy with the indoor sessions, and than do a session or two outdoors at the end of her term. During my last visit, ten days earlier, a baby shower and other plans precluded working outdoors so, after some debate, it was decided to make a special trip to Halifax, just to insure that we had the opportunity to do some images outdoors. The logic of a specific car rental and six hours of driving for one hour of shooting might escape some but I think the importance of wrapping up the images of Carol's pregnancy with some outdoor images far outweighed the effort and expense.

8"x10" film

As it happened, the day was a little cool for the images we had initially considered - outdoor images along the coast so, as an alternative, we headed to Spion Copp, one of my favorite architectural spaces to work in (and where I'd worked with Christine at the end of her pregnancy). Though technically not an outdoor setting , the old fort was definitely different from the indoor spaces in which we work for the previous five months and gave a very different type of image.

Digital original, 30 frame stitch

Carol was more than indulgent in providing me with the hour that we worked; this late in a pregnancy, pretty much anything gets uncomfortable after a few minutes, and working barefoot on the cold concrete floor was above and beyond the call of duty. I knew we wouldn't have much time to work, so I tried my best to photograph swiftly while still using all the tools at my call. For the digital images (all multi-image stitched), I first made the exposures of the part of the image in which Carol was present and, as soon as those exposures were made, got her back in her robe and shoes, and continued with the rest of the image. This permitted her to warm up between exposures and helped keep her from becoming too stiff and uncomfortable. For the 8"x10" view camera images, I did my best to get the composition and exposure set before Carol disrobed, making the final image in thirty seconds or so, with only a quick conformation of the final composition being made on the ground glass.

Digital original

With the end of the session also came the end of the body of work Carol and I have created over the previous five months focusing on her first pregnancy. A little over a week later, she successfully brought her first child into the world and both mother and baby are doing well!