Ingrid in a River

Ingrid and I haven't worked alone together since August 2003 (often when I work work with Ingrid, another photographer or other models are around). This is not to say that work made when others are about is less focused or successful, but it is very different to have the undivided attention and focus of a model as opposed to directing multiple models, or working beside a second photographer.

8"x10" film

For this session, Ingrid and I had the afternoon to ourselves, and set out to Pennant River, where I'd worked with Miranda the week before. Where that session had been short, and saw Miranda and I worked on the rocks and shoreline, this session was specifically focused on working in the water. Ingrid has a particular love for water and this comes through both in her endurance, working for hours on end in the cool rushing water, and her dedication, often holding poses for five minutes or more, as I work through the process of making the images.

Fortune shone upon us through this session, as the light, bright and sunny in Halifax, was diffused by low clouds (not quite fog, but close enough), given the entire river a soft even illumination that I have come to love so much.

Digital infrared original, 9 frame stitch

The session flowed in opposition to the river - we began working on a low shelf of rock perhaps fifteen minutes from the road, and over the four hours of the session, we worked our way upstream, finding settings and poses as we went. For the most part, I used my infrared converted digital SLR to make the images, but occasionally, I brought out the 8"x10" view camera to record an image that was particularly striking. It was quite a bit easier to maneuver around on the rocks and water with the smaller DSLR, and while there is definitely an image quality difference, that is often diluted through camera techniques, such as using multiple image stitching to increase the pixel count in the final digital image (a number of the stitches were made with 4 second exposures for each frame...but in a 12 frame stitch, does that mean the image exposure time was 48 seconds, not 4?).

Digital infrared original, 6 frame stitch

The end of the session found Ingrid and I at the first bend in the river, where it broadened out to a shallow basin. It was at this point that I had worked with Miranda the week before, amongst the trees and rocks on the riverside. Ingrid was equally intrigued by the trees, and we spent the last half-hour of the session exploring them, with Ingrid's tree-spirit side supplanting her water-nymph self.