A Visiting Joe Modeling at the Coast

Digital infrared original, 3 frame exposure blend

I haven't worked with Joe since the summer of 2001, primarily because he lives in Florida. Though Joe and I haven’t worked together in almost 5 years, when he was in Halifax for a couple of days, he made time for a few sessions; this one was an all-day outing, with us hiking along the coast, and making images when the setting called out to one or the other of us.

When the day we set aside to work together dawned bright and sunny, I was a little frustrated; sunshine is challenging to work with at the best of times, and in the middle of the summer, it is particularly harsh.

Digital original, 4 frame stitch

We headed to the mouth of Halifax harbour, and worked along the shoreline facing the open ocean. The plains of rock that sweep down to the sea are full of forms, shapes and rock pools which provide a wealth of opportunities for compositions and poses. One of my favorite images, above, used the direct sunlight to flatten the details of the landscape, and focus the composition on the form of Joe's figure, the shape of the waterpool behind him, and the contrast in colours between the land and the sky.

Digital infrared original

The end of the sessions was spent working on top of the headland, with Joe posing on a series of glacial erratics. Again, the nature of the images was heavily dictated by the hard sunlight, in this case, drawing attention to the shape and lines of Joe's back.