R_ at Chebucto Head I

After the morning's session at the burnt forest, R_ and I decided to head somewhere totally different and ended up driving to the mouth of Halifax Harbour to photograph in the rocks and shoreline of Chebucto Head.

Digital infrared original, 24 frame stitch

When we arrived, the parking lot by the lighthouse was totally empty, so I decided to take advantage of this rare occasion to work with R_ in the abandoned military station located at the site. After setting up, we made a series of compositions focusing upon R_ posing within a small window within an interior wall, before continuing to walk down to the rocky shoreline.

One of the reasons to work at Chebucto Head was fact that the afternoon was threatening to be sunny and bright, and I knew the rocky shoreline would provide some shade from the sun. This turned out to be the perfect plan, as by the time we clambered down over the rocks, there was hardly a cloud visible in the sky.

Digital infrared original, 41 frame stitch

After spending the morning working with the chaotic forms of the tree trunk and roots, the simple lines of the granite bedrock seemed almost featureless, but within minutes of arriving, R_ and I found half-a-dozen spaces that called out for a figure to be blended with them

Once we started working with the rockscapes at Chebucto Head, time passed us by, and it wasn't until three or more hours later that we emerged, realizing how little distance we had come geographically, and how many images we had made creatively. The afternoon sky had changed, and now light wisps of clouds were flitting overhead, enough to make us decide to climb to the higher ground and explore the possibilities of working with the clouds as part of our final series of the day.

Digital infrared original

Without a doubt, the most amazing part of working with R_ again, after a five year hiatus, was how comfortable we both were picking up where we had left off. The images we made over the two sessions on this day were refined and focused, not the exploratory results of a first session where both the model and photographer are trying to make a measure of each other. Yet there was something new, something that came out of five years of growth and learning, on both our parts, that helped take the foundation, laid half a decade earlier, and build upon it in a way that neither of us could have guessed would happen, only weeks earlier.