Miranda in Her New Apartment

This session had an interesting challenge – how much can be accomplished with a single model, a small space, and a limited angle of view? Miranda had recently moved into a new apartment, and much of the space was piled high with boxes – about the only free area was a futon below a large
double window – a perfect space to work in. The set up was not dissimilar to the space I used to work with in my old home in Halifax, with one major change – here my ability to move around the room, or fame a composition from a different angle was severely hampered by all the moving boxes still filling the room.

Digital infrared original, 2 frame exposure blend

On one level these limitations hampered the session, but by the same degree, they helped focus the work on what could be accomplished with the possibilities at hand. With such a small, confined space, an extreme wide angle was the natural lens to use, and combined with the soft, directional lighting coming through the windows, I was able to make a number of very pleasing compositions, initially keeping everything square and level to the camera, with a very traditional feel, and eventually exploring more dramatic off-level compositions with sweeping perspectives and dramatic lines.

Digital infrared original, 2 frame exposure blend

The end of the session focused on a series of portraits, some single frame images, like the one displayed here with a slight tilt to the composition, and others made as multi-frame stitches, increasing the final photograph's resolution to enable larger prints to be made.

Digital infrared original

Start to finish, this session was well under an hour, but within that time, I felt strongly that I made the most of the resources at hand – Miranda's long involvement in my work help produce numerous strong poses, the lighting was everything I look for in an indoor session, and the limited space to work in, while initially frustrating, served to provoke me into pushing what compositions I could make into being as strong as possible.