Lynn Marie by Natural Light

In some ways, I felt like a refugee during this Halifax visit - the trip was planned for myself, Joy and Zoë to spend three night under three different roofs, spreading ourselves around so as to avoid overstaying our welcome. Our final night was spent at Lynn-Marie's; the easiest way to insure we worked together twice during the visit was to stay overnight and have a short morning photo session before we returned to Moncton.

Digital original, 2 frame stitch

I had hoped for the morning session to be with available light but the day dawned snowy and gray, so we had to opt for plan B at the start of the session. I had brought a borrowed studio light (thanks Kevin) to use at Miranda's house, so I simply set it up in the front from at Lynn-Marie's and we began working. Because the room had a white ceiling, I simply pointed the flash at the ceiling and worked with the even, diffused light that provided.

We started the session working with Lynn-Marie lying on a long red couch she had against one wall - the couch was perfect for her to recline on, and with careful multi-image stitching I could keep the image resolution high and still show the full length of the couch. There was actually not a lot of variation possible in regards to the pose on the couch but, given that the session was by necessity a short one, it provided us with a good opening space. Between the full-body poses and closer-composed details and bodyscapes, I felt quite pleased with the images we accomplished in the first half-hour of the session.

Digital original, 3 frame stitch

As soon as I saw the room we'd be working in, I knew we would finish the session with images made in the bay window. The three windows provided some nice wraparound lighting, and Lynn-Marie had a comfortable rocking chair which I positioned between the windows, giving it the best of what light there was. The first images used the window light as rim-lighting, highlighting the flow and lines of the breast and belly. The difficulties here were compound - the windows had plastic insulation on them, providing a distracting element to the background, and I couldn't get far enough from the model to get the composition I wanted that would throw the windows enough out of focus to downplay the plastic lining.

Digital original

In the end, I changed the composition altogether for the final image of the session, shifting the chair so that Lynn-Marie was parallel to one of the side windows (essentially placing the other side window at her back), which in turn meant I could work further away from her and use a longer lens for less depth of field. The final image of the session was a three-image stitch of a mellow stretch with the right-hand window's rim-lighting setting off the back of the chair and Lynn-Marie's hand, and the dominant window to the left providing a soft, even illumination of her face and body. An all-too-brief session came to a beautiful conclusion.