Elena at Pennant River

Digital original, 25 frame stitch

My second session working with Elena was quite different from the first; the day was bright and sunny, we were working alongside a river in from the coast (though with water and rocks) and we had a little more of a time restriction. This is not to say any of these elements were serious issues (though the direct sunlight was frustrating), more to point out how different a session it was, especially to yield such striking successes.Elena had the time available to work with me, and we both wanted to work with moving water, so the other elements simply had to be worked around.

Digital infrared original

The session alternated between water nudes, and images made on the riverbanks, as Elena took a break from the water (the water wasn't terribly cool, but after thirty minutes or so, Elena needed a break to warm up). One advantage of this is that the session yielded a broader range of styles than a usual session at a river would, as we explored portraits and land-based nudes when working on the riverbanks.

Digital infrared original

As mentioned above, the day was bright and sunny, and this had a major impact the water nudes. As the sun was coming from almost directly overhead, finding poses that worked with the light wasn't all that hard, but getting long enough exposures to blur the water as I'd like proved to be near impossible. Normally I work with 6-stop (64x longer exposure) filters when making my water nudes, and on overcast days, these are perfect, but with the bright sunlight, even my 10-stop filters (1024x longer exposure) filters wouldn't cut the light enough to get a nice fluid look to the water. I could have stacked the filters (placed one over the other), but just like using very small apertures, this would have lowered the image quality, something I was loathe to do. As a result, while I was very pleased with several of the water nudes Elena and I created, I can't help but think of how much stronger they would have been with a longer exposure.

Digital infrared original, 30 frame stitch