Elissa at the Burned Forest (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Digital infrared

Fall sessions have the advantage of having more angular, directional light, even on the sunniest of days. I usually avoid working with direct sunlight, but in this case, the harsh shadows, combined with the dramatic dark lines of the burnt trees seemed oddly appropriate,.

Digital infrared original

If trees and woodlands are challenging settings in which to work with the Nude, a burned out forest is even more challenging; in this case I was fortunate that undergrowth was just starting to come back, providing some dramatic relief in infrared from the charcoal on the forest floor, an the black branches that extend from Elissa's figure in the centre of the above composition.

Digital infrared original

The greatest struggle of this session was creating order out of chaos, and keeping the focus of the images on Elissa's figure, when it was so easy for her to become lost in the riot of hash forms around her. The easiest solution, it turned out, was to use extremely large apertures with long lenses - throwing the back ground out of focus, and forcing the eye to stay on the only in-focus elements - in this case, a screen of burnt brush, and Elissa's elongated figure.