Cassandra, Nova Scotia XVI (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

Nova Scotia's shoreline is incredibly long and varied, but over the decade I've worked with the Nude, I probably have worked with less then ten locations. In light of this, and taking advantage of the car we had for the duration of the Cassandra project, we chose Sandy for this day's work, driving for over two hours to get to the space.

35mm infrared film

While the main attraction at Sandy was the beach, we never actually made it that far; one of the curves in the road opened up a shoreline vista that was rich in possibilities, and called to me. We parked the car, and set off on foot, heading for a distant point, where exposed rocks and space trees set the sea.

All the work Cassandra and I have done to date very much paid off in this day's images; the poses came quicker then during any previous session, and there was a focus and energy which drove the session for the hours that we worked. Part of this came from the rich landscape, which suggested images and poses almost faster then we could take advantages of them. As with the Second Lake session, the isolation of Sandy was wonderful to work with, as we could work our way down the beach without having to worry about other people or interruptions.

4"x5" film

The flow of the session contained a double-edged sword. As I hadn't processed any of the images we had made to date yet, many of the photos were still crystallized in my mind's eye, and I had to struggle to keep the new images fresh. While it is nice to be able to work for days at a time uninterrupted, it does lack the possibility of building on earlier images with the same model. As the rocks in this area were quite different from those closer to Halifax, I relied on them as a springboard to fresh images.

4"x5" film

Towards the end of the day, the sun finally began to break through the dull, overcast sky, and provided a bit of soft modeling to what had previously been a flat, even light. Moving swiftly to take advantage of this, I set aside the view camera and began making some nude portraits of Cassandra, framing the images tightly to her torso and face. The strongest of these, shown above, has a wonderful quality of light and form to her body. The image makes a great counterpoint to the abstract body-images we'd made earlier in the day.