July 11, 2001

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIII (Mersey River, Nova Scotia)

This session was by far the shortest of all the session with Cassandra - probably 20 minutes from start to finish, with four sheets of 8"x10" film exposed. We'd seen the Mersey River through the trees, and thought it had definite possibilities. The only problem was the proximity of the road, which, though screened by the trees, was uncomfortably close.
8"x10" film
The day was still foggy, though it was late morning by the time we were set up and ready to work. The light fog gave a terrific sense of depth to the trees on the far side of the river, while the placid water, unmoved by a breath of wind, flowed gently downstream. I knew that the images had to be made looking upstream, into the fog; there were several rocks that emerged from the water which had potential, and it was with these we chose to work. Initially I tried my portrait lens, but it restricted the view too much and gave little sense of the space. So I settled on my moderate wide lens (equal to a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera) and framed up the composition. This choice was right and we set about working cautiously, in light of the proximity of the road.

In the end, the images were made without a hitch. We worked out the pose and camera position and framing with Cassandra in the model-sweater, and then quickly disrobed just before the images was made. Several cars and trucks whizzed by us on the road, oblivious the images being created at the water's edge.

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