Miranda and I do a Demo for a Workshop

The last half of my final day of photographing for the New Brunswick Portfolio was actually split between a short indoor available light session demonstrating working with view cameras, and a last series of images working in the trees and ferns of southern New Brunswick.

Digital infrared original

Well before the time-table for the New Brunswick portfolio was set, I had committed to presenting on my work at a Large Format Photography Workshop being held in Hampton. The initial plan had been to not only show my images, and talk about my technique, but also to provide a short demonstration of the working process with a model present. As it turned out, with the workshop coinciding with the final weekend of the Miranda portfolio, I was lucky enough to segue the portfolio photography with the workshop, and no only present my work to the group, but make a couple of image of Miranda with the 8”x10” view camera, lying on a couch (a nice change for her from the rocks, trees and earth of the previous six days)

Digital infrared original

After finishing up with the formal demonstration for the workshop, Miranda and I headed out into the woods that surround much of Hampton , and made our final images of the portfolio. For a variety of reasons, woodland images have been under-represented in the work Miranda and I did over this week. Primarily, it was concerns over bugs and pests (with both Lyme and West-Nile disease present in New Brunswick, what used to be just fear of bug-bites and itching has now turned quite distinctly, into a valid concern over long term health). Also, there is my constant frustration with the sameness of woodland – for the most part the forests of New Brunswick would be interchangeable with those of Prince Edward Island , Nova Scotia , Maine or even Quebec, with little to distinguish one space from another.

4"x10" film

All this said, I still felt, on the last day of the portfolio, that it was imperative to make at least an attempt at creating a set of images focusing on the woods. The light was harsh when me moved into the woods, but simply by placing it behind Miranda, and using it to provide rim lighting to her, and back lighting to the trees and ferns around her, I controlled the contrast well enough to make a number of very pleasing images. The final photograph of the portfolio however, was not quite fully Nude. It was a standing portrait of Miranda, bedecked with her bright orange hat, smiling quietly into the camera just after I'd informed her that we were done – that the last photograph of the Miranda portfolio was about to be made. A fitting end to a busy, at sometimes hectic, but definitely rewarding week of work.