A First Figure Session (Spion Copp, Nova Scotia)

35mm film

K_ approached me about modeling after seeing the work I'd done with a mutual friend; after meeting to talk the process over, we agreed on a date, and a week later, began our first session. I started the session with a simple portrait: K_ had stated to undress, and paused to ask a question; I liked her comfortable stance against the wall.

35mm film

I like the simple grace of this image; K_'s figure lit by the soft window ligh, and the non-descript surroundings of the Second World War fortification.

8"x10" film

The last images of the session were a series of large format photographs of K_ lying on the floor within the concrete building; it was only after processing them that I saw the faint writing on the wall "My Love for Ever"; for me, that shifted the image to be far darker and more sinister than I'd intended.

1991 Year in Review

35mm film

1991 started on a sombre note, with the Gulf War beginning the day before my birthday. For the next two weeks I went to nightly vigils with my partner and, occasionally, my daughter. I used to think I was fortunate to live in a country that was never at war during my lifetime. To my shame, and to my country's, this is no longer true. Unfortunately, many people misinterpreted our motivations for holding the vigils; all we wanted was for the military forces to come home where they belonged, and not to have to die in a war we didn't have to fight.

4"x5" film

For all intents and purposes, 1991 was the first year I really began to work towards where I am today in a concrete way. It was the first year in which I concentrated most of my photography in the summer, the first where my nude images met my expectations, and the first during which a 4"x5" camera would be my main tool. The start to the year was an incredible compliment; C_, a waitress at the bar where I regularly photographed bands, asked me to produce some nudes of her. She was thinking Playboyesque images, and even mentioned that she had a waterbed. I showed her some of my work and we worked out a deal where I'd make the images she wanted in return for her modelling for the images I was interested in making. In the end the photo she selected for her boyfriend was one of the one we'd made for me. C_ simply hadn't known there was an alternative to the ever prevalent images of the Nude as a sexual object.

4"x5" film

The images I'd produce of C_ were made indoors, but as soon as it was warm enough, I was working outside, predominantly on self-portraits, as I had no models to work with. Enough of these were successful to keep me at it, but the frustration of not being able to compose and arrange the images from behind the camera was ever present. The most enjoyable part of making these self-portraits was the reaction of people; almost unanimously, people assume the images are of a female. The androgynous nature of the images pleased me at the time, though it would become something I would struggle with in the future.

4"x5" film

1991 was also the year that my interest in the Ruin crystallized, in some ways spurred on by a visit I made to Sydney, in northern Nova Scotia. The heart of what is known as Industrial Nova Scotia, Sydney is home to both a large steel mill, and numerous WW II harbour defences, being a staging area for Trans-Atlantic convoys. I spent an afternoon photographing the collapsed Coke Oven (before being politely asked to leave by the security people) and a full day photographing the remains of the forts. Though very different from the remains of Fortress Halifax, the Sydney ruins proved that my fascination was deeper than my simple affection for the places I had clambered over as a child, being based upon the sheer wonder of the spaces as a visual plane. I haven't managed to return to Sydney since 1991, but it would be a wonderful project to undertake some year, completing the work I started on the harbour defences.

4"x5" film

One of the most seductive things to me photographically is good studio photography. There is nothing like a sharp, well created studio portrait or nude to draw me in. The incredible detail and subtly that can be portrayed through a studio image is almost unequaled in the natural word. E_, who I'd work with occasionally in the future, worked with me one evening in my apartment, lit by a low-level borrowed flash-kit. We had to soften the light though sheets, but in the end the images were quite successful. It would take me another three years to separate my love of the studio's ability to record information from my frustration with its lack of context.

4"x5" film

C_, who'd worked with me earlier in the year, wanted to try some outdoor nudes as well, so on the last day in August, we took a boat to one of the harbour islands, and spent the afternoon making images. This session was one of the pivotal points in my work, and helped make 1991 a seminal year. Towards the end of the day, C_ was sitting on the side of a lighthouse when the sun came out. She leaned forward to cover her eyes from the glare, and in that instant I made the first nude which totally surpassed my expectations and fulfilled everything I wanted to portray in my work. These images are few and far between, and though many come close, and are certainly eminently successful in their own way, over the past decade there have been less than two handfuls of such images.

Two 4"x5" film images

In the fall of 1991, returning to Nova Scotia College of Art and Design brought the familiar separation between my work, and course work. All term, while working on my projects, I printed images from the summer, and made new ones in the studio. The image to the left was the piece I sold to the Nova Scotia Art bank, and served as a major boost to my confidence. It's also one of the few images I have titled, naming it "Equine" for it's obvious horsy referent neck. J_, who modelled for the image, was very supportive of my work, but never modelled nude for personal reasons. The fact that an image of her was the first "nude" I sold amused her to no end.

4"x5" film

My major photo project for the fall of 1991 was made in a class entitled "Framing One's Self - putting the personal in your artwork". I took it thinking it might be a class where I could integrate my personal work back into school. No such luck. Rather than working my nudes into my project, I focused on other far more personal issues, addressing the memory of past relationships and how they are constructed via photography, words and text. It was in some ways the only conceptual piece I have ever made.

The final project consisted of two larger-than-life foetal nude self-portraits arranged on a black circle in a yin-yang fashion. Each nude was covered with 4"x6" pieces of either image or text. It was supposed to represent the two aspects of memory - with some of the text or photos blank or black, representing lost or concealed memories. Though I had hoped to use the class to reintegrate my personal work into my school work and failed, I did produce a reasonably successful final, which, given my frustration with the college at the time, was a success.

A Seminal Session (McNab's Island, Nova Scotia)

35mm infrared film

At the time this image was made, infrared photography was still incredibly mysterious for me, and successes seemed more like luck than skill (each roll of 36 exposures would actually produce 8 or so images, due to exposure bracketing).

4"x5" film

I have always had a deep affection for simple portraits; C_ couldn't look directly at the camera as the light behind me was so bright.

6x6 cm film

For this particular session, I carried three different film formats (35mm, 6x6 cm and 4"x5"), and throughout the day, I tried my best to make the most of the equipment. In this case, the pose C_ found working in the breakwater rocks around the lighthouse called for a square format!

4"x5" film

This image is the most important Nude in my body of work. Produced during my first summer working with my own 4"x5” camera, it built my confidence and demonstrated that what I strove to reveal could be seen. Towards the end of the session, C_ was sitting on the side of a lighthouse when the sun came out. She leaned forward to cover her eyes from the glare and, in that instant, I made the first nude which totally surpassed my expectations and fulfilled everything I wanted to portray in my work. Images like this come rarely and without warning, and as such, are rare and magical for me.

1990 Year in Review

A lot of the early work I did with the Nude was experimental - I knew I wanted to image the body, but was unsure how to express that desire in the clearest way. The ability of the camera to crop and isolate an element from the whole fascinated me from the start, so applying this to the nude seemed obvious. The first two images above were made using a macro lens, and exposed at 1 second, which lead to a great deal of softness to the images. Three rolls of 35mm produced a number of strong images, but the two above I still view as very good, where the others have faded with time.

35mm film

A chronic problem with photographing the nude is finding people to work with - failing that I often used myself as a model. This was, for obvious reasons, easier in the studio, where lighting can be arranged, and the framing carefully composed before the image is made. Still, there remained the issue of composition, subtle refinement and general control which made the experience of doing self-portraits frustrating.

5"x7" film

I did a lot of photography in the lighting studio while I was at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, partially because of my interest in learning all aspects of photography, and partially because it too cold to model outdoors for seven months of the year in Nova Scotia. In 1990, it seemed like the obvious solution to the weather problem, and I started to use it more in my figure work. That said, the lighting studio was not a panacea - and the more I worked with it, the more inhibited and frustrated I felt. Eventually, I would come to feel restricted by its lack of context and stilted environment, but at the time it seemed to be the obvious way to continue working with the Nude throughout the year.

6x6 cm film

The summer of 1990 was my first summer off in two years, due to attending Nova Scotia College of Art and Design throughout the previous summer. That, combined with a new half-time job, put me in the position of having time to photograph, without the imposition of course requirements and deadlines. Obviously I couldn't work with the Nude all the time; there simply aren't enough people to work with, and focusing that intensely upon a single subject would certainly be detrimental to the creative process, so I let my camera wander. It naturally fell upon the military ruins that abound in Halifax - since I was a kid I'd loved these spaces; recording and exploring them photographically came naturally as an extension of this love. This relationship with the forts would end up being the static parallel to my Nude work - both bodies of work informing and expanding the other.

35mm film

Early in the summer, I did some images of E_, trying to explore other possibilities of the Nude. As opposed to using a traditional studio set up with a black background and no context, I photographed her on a bed, with ambient room lighting. The final images were somewhat lacking, disappointing both of us. A number caught my eye as potential, but on the whole, the entire session had to be written off as a learning experience. Fortunately E_ knew me well enough to not be phased by the experience, and eventually would model for me more in the future.

35mm film

Because of my employment, and the additional income that generated, 1990 was an intense time in terms of the volume of photos made. The first time I worked with L_ (above), I made a total of 360 images on 12 rolls of 120 film and six rolls of 35mm. This was partially a reaction to the scarcity of people to work with - the logic went that if I made more images there would be more successes , and partially a result of the teachings of Bob Del Tredichi, from the summer before. Bob's mantra was "shoot shoot shoot", and it had certainly improved my images, giving me the confidence to explore on film that which I would have ignored previously.

35mm film

The sessions with L_ were an eye-opener in some ways. She had come to model for me through a mutual friend, and though we got along well enough, once she had the images she was looking for, off she went. It was my first session with a model who hadn't been a friend or partner, and it changed the experience somewhat. It was a much more removed experience for me; before, I'd been photographing my partner, or friends, and there had been an interest on their part in assisting me with my work. With L_, the only interest was in the work itself - a compliment to the images I was making, but very different from what I had experienced to date. In some ways, the images of L_ I made in 1990 foreshadowed the work I'd come to produce in the next seven years - the approach would become very different, but the style was starting to emerge, though I was unaware of it at the time.

35mm film

The summer of 1990 was to have a huge impact on my future work- it was the first summer since I had enrolled in Nova Scotia College of Art and Design where I had time and resources to photograph, without the pressure of school. I began working with the ruins of the Fortress Halifax, and had produced what would eventually become the first of my outdoor nudes. The freedom from classes was daunting at first, and I was in some ways lost without the critique and support I was so used to. Eventually though, I began to photography simply for enjoyment, and once that barrier was broken, everything else flowed wonderfully.

6x6 cm film

I had a home darkroom in 1990, and the pleasure of being able to print late into the night and then just heading off to bed when I finished was unparalleled. It didn't make a measurable difference in the quality of my work, but it certainly improved my printing skills, and the time in which it took me to go from having made an image to finally seeing it on paper.

4"x5" film

In the fall of 1990, as the weather went from cool to cold, I became very frustrated and edgy with nothing to photograph towards my own work. Eventually out of sheer desperation, I started going out at night and making flash exposures. This work never really went beyond contact sheets, but some of it was good - and it certainly was about the only good stuff which I produced between mid September 1990 and January of 1991.

6x6 cm film

A First Studio Session (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

35mm film

For most of this session, I explored a variety of body-scape images; I actually did make some stong portraits, but as I was not asking for model releases at this point, and the internet was not even a word at the time, I am not sharing the portrait images (unless I someday reconnect with the model, and gain permission!).

5"x7" film

This photo is something of a foreshadow of where my work would head in a decade; this was my first session working with a 5"x7" view camera, and while it was a short lived experiment, it laid the seeds for my eventual evolution to larger view cameras (8"x10" in 2000).

6x6 cm film

Towards the end of the session, I experimented with light coming from a dramatic angle; fortunately the model had long, thick hair which made for a great photograph.

1989 Year in Review

6x4.5 cm film

In February, 1989, I had my first opportunity to work with a nude couple. P_ and Denise were friends, and Denise was having me do some portfolio photos for her. Towards the end of the session, P_ asked Denise if she'd pose nude with him. The result was really strong - just over three rolls of 120 film (15 images a roll) depicting a intimacy and tenderness that is incredibly apparent. I had never thought of photographing couples before, and this opened my eyes to a whole world of possibilities.

4"x5" film

In the first term of 1989, I was enrolled in "The View Camera", a course dealing with large format photography. I was at somewhat of an advantage, as I had been using the studio view-camera for eighteen months when the class started, and was already familiar with many of the basic procedures for using the cameras. As I have a strong aversion to freezing to death, I spent most of my term using the studio, and eventually based my final project on studio portraits, printed to 16"x20" on fibre paper. What I learned in the View Camera was crucial to where I'd be in two years, but at the time, when the course was over, I was glad to get back to using 35mm cameras, and blasting my way through rolls of film.

35mm film

As was usually the case for me, while I was working on my class project, I was also working on my own work. A good friend, T_, asked me to assist her with some of the images for her project - one was her as Ophelia in the water after drowning. We built a small water-bath in the studio and did her images. After, I loaded up my own film and did some macro images of T_ lying in the water, her skin and the water-droplets upon it. The images are really quite successful, apart from the obvious constructed nature of them. Later, I'd return to close-ups of the Nude, but it would be seven years before I returned to water and the Nude.

35mm film

One of the cool things about being able to process and develop your own film is that seemingly mundane things can become the subject of your images, without a great expense (i.e. if the photos don't turn out, you don't have to answer to your banker). The image above is an example of this - my parents had hired divers to do some work on their boat mooring, and I took the opportunity to photography them - something totally unrelated to my other work, but interesting nonetheless.

35mm film

The difference between studio and available light nudes was something I had discovered in 1988, with the candle-lit images of S_. In 1989, I started taking nudes of my partner, C_, with 35mm cameras and available light. These images, rather than being about the entire body or a figure in a setting, focused more on the intricacies of skin, light and shadow. The anonymity granted by the lack of identity makes these images far more universal than if they were openly identifiable. At the time I don't think I was aware of this; in retrospect though, these images were among the first I made which captured what I wished to convey though my photography.

35mm film

Over the summer of 1989, I was enrolled in courses at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, all of which would, in some way or another, influence my work in the years to come. By far the most influential course was "The Photo Essay", taught by Robert Del Tredichi. Bob's insistence upon thorough coverage of a subject, and his acceptance of many of the ideas I had at the time about art and photography, helped change my work dramatically. My project for the class was on the Imperial Oil Refinery, located in Dartmouth, opposite Halifax. The refinery was an incredible visual site, and I very quickly forgot any concerns I had over environmental issues and became lost in the rich visual landscape constructed out of miles and miles of piping, ducting and ironworks. The 35 rolls of 35mm film which I dedicated to the project yielded 17 final prints, each of which I blue-toned for the final exhibit.

35mm film

Over the summer of 1989, C_ was blossoming, carrying the child that was to become my daughter, Emmaline. Many of the nudes I took of C_ over the summer were about her changing body, and the wonder that was growing inside her. In late July, we went by boat to one of the harbour islands, enjoying the cool winds and the fresh air. I produced a series of nudes of C_ in the old military ruins on the island. The image above, though beautiful in its original form, has never had the richness of tone which is possible to attain today - the direct sunlight and deep shadows were impossible to capture on colour print paper when I first made the image. Now though, using Photoshop, I've been able to give the image the rich detail and tonal range which is in the negative - improving the final image by ten-fold.

35mm film

In the following weeks, as the delivery date drew near, I made many images of C_, with the final ones being made on August 2, a week before Emmaline was born. These are, in some ways, the most powerful; I made them both in colour and in black and white, but undeniable the colour is the more successful. The luminescence of the skin over C_'s belly, and the rich warmth of her hair is almost surreal against the midnight behind her.

35mm film

Almost all the photographs of people I've made in my life have been of friends; the more I try to take photos of people I don't know (usually for money) the less I enjoy it. I just do better when I have a personal involvement with the people in my photos. Much of my portraiture is simply photos of people; I was seldom without my 35mm camera during the early years of my involvement with photography, and thus more often than not, if I was with someone, I was photographing. Occasionally though, I did deliberately arrange to make portraits - the image to the left is an example; L_ and N_ were good friends of mine, and I needed some images to work with in my photo class, so I spent a couple of hours with them one day producing some portraits.

35mm transparency film

One of the hardest things about working with the nude is finding people to photograph. In 1989, I thought I solved this by brilliantly deducing that models (or aspiring models) would be more than happy to trade nude modelling for work for their portfolios. Initially this seemed to work out okay, but with P_, there was a communication problem, and she didn't understand that I was interested in full nudity. We did end up making some images though, in the hold of a ship of all places. P_ was comfortable working backless, and rather than scratch the entire session, I simply did what I could with the restrictions imposed. There were a surprising number of good images, all things considered, and while I was frustrated with the outcome, as it was very different from my intent, the few images which did work are very strong.

Emmaline was born on August 9, 1989

First Figure Session with a Couple (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

6x4.5 cm film

At a loss for exactly how to proceed with two models in the same image, I just asked them to hold each other...and began photographing. Without a doubt, the simple approach is often the best.

6x4.5 cm film

After spending a lot of the session working with the interplay between the model physically, I spent some time working with more directed/intentional poses, such as this one, playing the difference in gender and skin up, with a very pleasing result.

6x4.5 cm film

This is my favorite image from the session, for all the issues with the background being lit, and all the footprints (and boot prints) on the floor.

1988 Year Overview

35mm film

1988 opened with the largest concert I have photographed to date - The Wailers (as in Bob Marley and the) live at Dalhousie University. It was an incredible experience (apart from the marijuana haze which hung over the room) and during it I made what I consider to be my best concert photos - Peter Tosh reaching for the sky. One of the joys of working at the McInnis Room at Dalhousie was the amount to lighting they had; concert lighting would become the biggest technical issue I'd have to overcome in the coming years.

35mm film

Shortly after I photographed the Wailers, I turned 19, and began to photograph in Halifax's only alternative bar, Pub Flamingo. This was almost a let-down. Note I said almost. By this time I was quickly becoming hooked on concert photography, and even a mediocre band were seen as a challenge, and being able to see different bands three nights a week seemed like heaven, even if some of them were terrible. The lighting at the Flamingo was better than at most bars, which was fortunate as there's little more frustrating than trying to photograph a band with insufficient lighting - failure is inevitable, and very disheartening.

35mm film

I said in the 1987 page that one of the subjects I most wanted to photograph was concerts. The other was the nude. Even before I began using a camera, I was interested in the nude as a visual plane. The incredible variation possible with the body, and its undeniable ability to speak to each and every viewer in a personal manner drew me to the body as I have never been drawn to a subject since.

35mm film

My first explorations of the nude were self-portraits; I didn't feel it was fair to ask a model to do something I had not tried myself. A friend helped me with the camera operations, and in the studio during a cool winter morning, I created my first images of the body. The experience was good, giving me insight into being on the other side of the camera, but frustrating - as I wanted to be the one making the images, and as pleased I was with the results, I knew I could do better being on the other side of the camera.

35mm film

A week later, I created my first images of the Nude working with a model. I made only two negatives during the session, which was also my first time using a 4"x5" view camera. The image is not terribly inventive, nor even challenging, and I certainly would never claim it was among my best, but it was the starting point, and as is extremely important to my work as a whole. That day I began to work towards where I am today in a fully conscious and deliberate way. I knew I wanted to photograph the nude, and had begun.

4"x5" film

About a week after my session with L_, I had to carry out a technical assignment, copying a magazine advertisement in the lighting studio. I arranged for a model, M_, and she and I went into the studio to reproduce the image. After that was done, we continued, and M_ asked if I'd be interested in some lingerie images. I'd never been too interested in glamour photo as such, but gave it a go - again not too many images were made, and many of them were just straight out failures, but the one to the left wasn't half-bad. The thing I realized quickly was that photographing glamour was about teasing, where as photographing the Nude was about revealing.

4"x5" film

My second session with a nude was far different from the first. S_ and I worked together in her apartment, by candlelight. The images were all made with large apertures and times approaching 1 second. There is a softness and delicacy to the images that would be hard to reproduce in a studio with flash.

6x6 cm film

Once school was through in April, I continued photographing bands at the Pub Flamingo. By this time, I'd become the "house photographer" and had a good report with the management. Over the summer I photographed between two and four bands a week, and while I certainly never made any money from the process, I enjoyed every minute of it, and learned loads about lighting and working quickly with unpredictable subjects.

35mm film

The fall of 1988 was the beginning of my second year at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. I finally was able to enroll into the regular photo course stream, and begin working towards acquiring the skills I knew I lacked. In January I had mistakenly shown up for registration exactly when it began, not four hours beforehand when the students had begun lining up. The beginning of the regular photo stream was Intro Photo, which mainly consisted of polishing the skills acquired in Foundation Photo, and introducing students to fibre paper. Over the term, I did a lot of image making, though most of it was for my personal projects, as opposed to for class. All through my attendance at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design I found it difficult to integrate my own vision with those required by my courses, and inevitably split the two into distinct areas - work I believed in, and work I produced for class.

35mm film

This division of my photography was the beginning of an inner tension I would not resolve for over five years - producing work for school that was meaningless to me, and work for me which did function within the confines of the college. The fall of 1988 was the last time I managed to incorporate elements of myself into my projects for the college with any success. After this date, for over five years, the only work that mattered to me at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design was that which was created in a context outside of the demands of the classroom. The irony of this still is poignant today; I was attending art college to learn how to express myself visually, but I had to divide my vision between that which would be acceptable in school, and what which I wanted to explore.

35mm film

One of the high points of 1989 was a winter trip to Toronto. It was an opportunity to do street-style photography in an area new to me, without the outside pressure of school or deadlines - I could shoot all I wanted, for as long as it took. The one thing about Toronto in the winter is it is dark - and often wet (it was a mild winter in Ontario, and what little precipitation that did make appearances was in the form of rain); this wasn't a problem however, as the previous years work doing concert photography had made me comfortable with low-light photography and pushing film. Many of the most successful images of the trip to Toronto were on pushed film, taken well after sundown. The mannequin to the left was a bemused soul, looking out of a ritzy store display.

6x4.5 cm film

The most important thing to my work in 1989 was impact - I wanted images that were powerful, and often printed very dramatically, exaggerating contrast and cropping tightly for a very confrontational result. I spent much of my time wandering with a camera, finding images as they came to me. It wasn't very satisfying without a unifying motivator behind the images, but I was still enamoured with the process itself, and meaning was secondary to simple success.