Alexandra & Liam in Moncton I

Alexandra and Liam arrived from Halifax the night after I worked with Jane on the start of a cross-continent adventure. After our first session last fall, we'd planned on working together again, but given that we live more than 300km apart, it took a while for this to come to pass.

Digital infrared original, 16 frame stitch

I set up the living room exactly as I had for the work with Jane, again deciding to focus more on composition and pose than lighting. The grand irony of the situation was where I felt frustrated and let down by the studio images of Jane, I felt engaged and inspired by the same approach with Alexandra and Liam. The addition of the second model made all the difference in terms of how the session evolved for me.

Digital infrared original, 13 frame stitch

Having seen the image I made with Jane the night before, I initially used many of the same approaches (shallow depth of field, close compositions) with Alexandra and Liam. Very quickly, however, I reverted to my more traditional approach to working with a couple indoors, focusing instead on the larger composition of interwoven bodies. I did keep the shallow depth of field, as I have become quite enamoured with the softness it lends to bodies as they go out of focus, but the tighter compositions I found so pleasing with the images of Jane just looked confusing with so many anonymous body parts.

Digital infrared original

As has become my modus operendi, as the session progressed, I found myself making numerous multi-frame stitches, wanting to create the most detailed, high resolution results. A distinct advantage of working the way I do is that I try hard to make sure the models are comfortable before I start working with a pose, so if it took 16-20 frames before the images is completed, the models are usually fine with that approach.

Digital infrared original

The contrast between working indoors with a couple and a single model is impossible to overstate; all through the session with Alexandra and Liam, poses would unfold in front of me, simply from the interaction of the two models. The comfort and affection that the two models have for each other is palpable and at the core of all the photographs we made during this session.

Jane in Moncton

Jane and I began working together last summer, having the opportunity to work outdoors several times. For this session, however, we were to work indoors, mainly due to the freezing conditions outdoors (being the middle of winter and all).

Digital infrared original

Jane was visiting Moncton for a conference but did have an evening available to work with me so I set up my lighting and we began working. As opposed to using all three lights, and continually having to adjust one thing or the other, I decided to use the most basic of lighting approaches and set one flash head above the couch on which Jane was posing. On this flash I used my large (30"x60") softbox, to give the light a soft, even quality.

Digital infrared original

Unlike our previous sessions outdoors, where Jane and I worked with the body in the landscape, this session was focused on details. With the softbox positioned high above her, the light gave beautiful description of form, yet gave soft, delicate transitions from light to dark (with direct light, these transitions would have been harsh and contrasty). This focused the images on form and shape; this, combined with shallow depth of field (a result of using my 50mm f/1.8 lens at large apertures), allowed me to make a whole series of images that walked the line between being details (because of the close-up composition) and abstract (because of the shallow focus).

Digital infrared original

It was a great pleasure to work again with Jane whom I hadn't seen for many months but, as enjoyable as it was, I couldn't help but feel how lacklustre the images were compared to the work we'd produced outdoors. I have never really overcome my frustration with working indoors with studio lighting, and while it is definitely preferable to not photographing at all, it often falls so far short of my work outdoors that it becomes more about practice and experimentation than actually pursuing the making of images.

Indoors with Jesse

When I picked up Jesse for the drive to Fredericton, I'd caught a small glimpse inside her house and commented that I'd love to work with the space. Jesse's reply was "no problem, just let me know when" - a week later, I was on her doorstep again, this time with cameras in hand. The day was bright and sunny, with fresh-fallen snow, so it was more then bright enough to work, even with the smaller windows that fill her house.

Digital original, 4 frame stitch

We started the session with the image that was stuck in my mind from the week before - between Jesse's living room and den is a set of glass-windowed double doors. I'd caught a glimpse of the light coming through the glass, and knew that with the right pose, the compliment between the luminous glass and the nearshadow of the figure set against them. As it turned out, the real struggle with the image was not the contrast, which I'd expected to be hard to control, but Jesse's height. When I'd seen the doors, I'd thought of the figure set against them grasping the top of the molding ...another 20 cm above the highest Jesse could reach. After a quick modification of the posing., and some experimentation, we managed to make an image that better mirrored my intention.

The second location we used was the staircase, which had also caught my eye, both because of the quality of the light and the intricate carving on the newel post. Similar to the difficulties I'd experienced in Lynn-Marie's house, the only real problems I had with this space was difficulty in getting far enough from the subject to use the lens I wanted. In the end, I had to work with my back right to the wall before I could get the perspective I sought.

Digital original, 5 frame stitch

Once we'd completed working with the two spaces I'd had in mind when I'd first seen her house, I asked Jesse if there was anywhere else that might have potential - she led the way and, after a short tour of the house, we settled on working in her bedroom for the final images of the session. The light in the room was not the best but the setting, an iron-post bed with soft white covers, was perfect.

We started working with some simple portraits, eventually working so Jesse lay at the foot of the bed, half-covered by the white comforter. I couldn't get quite high enough to keep the metal work at the bottom of the frame out of the image, so I decided that the final image would be more stylized (similar to an image I made of Veronica in the summer of 2003), and I would erase all the problematic areas when I assembled the images into the final composition. The end result is one of  my favorite portraits of Jesse, on par with the image I made of her during the first session we worked together.

8"x10" film

In the end, the day's fading light brought an end to the session but the closing images in the small, dim bedroom upstairs were such a highpoint of the session that it felt like it ended when it was finished, as opposed to when the light died.

A Demonstration Session with Jesse

One unexpected development in my photographic work in recent years is my involvement in teaching and photographic education. I have always presented on my work in conjunction with my exhibitions and shows, but increasingly I have been asked to present on my work independently, speaking to students or photographers, and discussing my techniques and approaches to working, both in terms of technology (large format and digital) and subject matter (the Nude).

Digital original

In 2004, I was invited to present on my work to the New Brunswick Craft College photo program in Fredericton.This year, the same invitation was repeated. One component of the presentation is a live demonstration of my working approach in the studio - for the first visit to the College, Miranda was kind enough to come up from Nova Scotia but for this year, I felt it would be preferable to work with a New Brunswick model. As things turned out, Jesse was available, and willing, so after one cancellation for snow, we set off a week later (the day after another major snow storm) for Fredericton.

Digital original

As with my first visit to the College, the presentation was well received (the students all had an assignment on the Nude due two weeks after my visit, so there was extra motivation to pay attention from their perspective). The studio session was, as always, too short but, as with the previous demonstration, in addition to presenting various techniques for lighting and framing an image, I actually managed to make a number of images that I am very pleased with.

Digital original

As with my first visit in 2004, I was struck by how different it is to work in front of an audience, and try to verbalize the decisions that lead to the making of an image while creating it - Jesse was wonderfully patient and her comfort with the situation and process only made the experience stronger for myself and the students of the Craft College.

Lynn Marie by Natural Light

In some ways, I felt like a refugee during this Halifax visit - the trip was planned for myself, Joy and Zoë to spend three night under three different roofs, spreading ourselves around so as to avoid overstaying our welcome. Our final night was spent at Lynn-Marie's; the easiest way to insure we worked together twice during the visit was to stay overnight and have a short morning photo session before we returned to Moncton.

Digital original, 2 frame stitch

I had hoped for the morning session to be with available light but the day dawned snowy and gray, so we had to opt for plan B at the start of the session. I had brought a borrowed studio light (thanks Kevin) to use at Miranda's house, so I simply set it up in the front from at Lynn-Marie's and we began working. Because the room had a white ceiling, I simply pointed the flash at the ceiling and worked with the even, diffused light that provided.

We started the session working with Lynn-Marie lying on a long red couch she had against one wall - the couch was perfect for her to recline on, and with careful multi-image stitching I could keep the image resolution high and still show the full length of the couch. There was actually not a lot of variation possible in regards to the pose on the couch but, given that the session was by necessity a short one, it provided us with a good opening space. Between the full-body poses and closer-composed details and bodyscapes, I felt quite pleased with the images we accomplished in the first half-hour of the session.

Digital original, 3 frame stitch

As soon as I saw the room we'd be working in, I knew we would finish the session with images made in the bay window. The three windows provided some nice wraparound lighting, and Lynn-Marie had a comfortable rocking chair which I positioned between the windows, giving it the best of what light there was. The first images used the window light as rim-lighting, highlighting the flow and lines of the breast and belly. The difficulties here were compound - the windows had plastic insulation on them, providing a distracting element to the background, and I couldn't get far enough from the model to get the composition I wanted that would throw the windows enough out of focus to downplay the plastic lining.

Digital original

In the end, I changed the composition altogether for the final image of the session, shifting the chair so that Lynn-Marie was parallel to one of the side windows (essentially placing the other side window at her back), which in turn meant I could work further away from her and use a longer lens for less depth of field. The final image of the session was a three-image stitch of a mellow stretch with the right-hand window's rim-lighting setting off the back of the chair and Lynn-Marie's hand, and the dominant window to the left providing a soft, even illumination of her face and body. An all-too-brief session came to a beautiful conclusion.

Miles and Gilda's Second Session

My second day of photography in Halifax was even more focused than the first - three sessions in one day. The first session was more of a continuation of the previous one than a new session. Gilda and Miles met me at the studio and, within ten minutes, we had started working. This session, however, took place in a fully equipped space with more lighting than I could dream of using with two models.

Digital original

Because the previous evening's session was almost entirely focusing on the models reclining on a bed, for this one I designed the studio for standing poses. The studio I was using was very long and quite wide so I lay down a black sheet for a backdro, and used three lights to illuminate the models. The shift to working with standing poses led to the vast majority of the images being focused on embracing, hugging, or one model holding the other. With a full studio available, the images become more polished with rim and side lighting complimenting the main light (the previous evening used only one light, so there was less complexity to the images).

By this session, Gilda's third working with me, she had become quite familiar with the process and her ease and comfort showed in the images. Because I was working with studio flash, there was no need to work with poses that could be held for long periods. Many of my couples images focus on quiet moments between the models, in part because of the focus on intimacy and in part because much of this work is created with available light and requires a pose that can be held for longer exposures. During this session, however, the models several times assumed fleeting poses, taking advantage of the incredibly short exposures of the flash to freeze them with absolute clarity.

8"x10" film

Towards the end of the session, I put away all the studio lighting and backdrops, and finished the time we had to work with using the available light coming through the large windows at the end of the studio. There was a wonderful old brick wall by the windows which was a perfect backdrop for the photos. The light coming through the windows was both bright and even, the best of both worlds (often natural light is bright but incredibly harsh, which is the worst kind of light to work with in most cases). We made the final images of the session with Gilda leaning back into Miles, who was leaning in turn against the wall.

Digital infrared original

Over this session, I created more then 3GB of RAW digital files which more than exceeded the storage space I had on memory cards. There was an unexpected advantage to working in the studio - there were computers on site which permitted me the ability to download my images as I filled memory cards. This avoided the problems I had at the end of the three-model session the previous morning and permitted me to work as I have grown accustomed to.

A Perfect Day Part II

After a morning spent working with three models by available light, I simplified the process slightly for a short evening session, working with two models with a single studio flash. Gilda and Miles had both expressed an interest in modeling together for me, so after a New Year's Day dinner with my family, I met up with the two models and turned the guest room at Miranda's into a makeshift studio.

Digital original, 5 frame stitch

I have mixed feelings about studio lighting for figure images, but for photographs of couples, they are in fact my preferred tool - using studio lighting permits me to focus on the pose and composition of the models and not have to worry about the lighting (usually my frustration with studio lighting is the incredible focus it places on the importance of pose but, with two models, the poses seem to happen spontaneously).

Digital original

The set-up for the session was quite similar to the morning's - I put the studio flash behind the bed so the light would flow across the bed and models, providing a sense of shape and form. I'd left the white sheets on the bed from the morning's session, but wrapped the back of the bed in a black sheet to simplify the space some. Where the session differed greatly from the morning, however, was in the posing which focused on the interplay between the two models; in many ways this is easier than trying to create abstracts or stylized images.

Even though Gilda had little previous experience with modeling, there was little time spent working on poses during this session - with couples, I tend to just let the space and moment dictate the position of the models, and only when I see small adjustments that need to be made to the pose do I make suggestions. With few exceptions, all the images during this session grew out of simple suggestions such as "lie down and cuddle" or "Gilda, why don't you just lie on your side facing me, and Miles can lie down behind you " - everything else just fell into place, generated by the natural chemistry between the two models.

Digital original, 5 frame stitch

Because of the tight time-frame (we were borrowing part of Miranda's house, after all), I opted to work only with the digital cameras for this session; several times I saw images that would have worked well if translated  onto the large format camera, but the slower pace of that tool wasn't appropriate for the session and would have locked us out of working with as many poses and possibilities.

A Perfect New Year's Day

All through December, while I was planning for Katarina and Lymari's visit in the last week of 2004, I was also trying to work out the details for a possible trip to Halifax during the New Year's weekend. At the beginning of December, Miranda asked about the possibilities of working over the holidays with her and a friend who would be visiting from Montreal. At the same time, Veronica had let me know she would be in Halifax until the New Year and would like to work with me. In the end, at 4pm on December 31st, all the family and camera equipment (one could consider the cameras family members practically) piled into a car and headed towards Halifax.

Digital original

The plans for New Year's Day were a mirror of the January 1, 2003 session with Elisabeth, L_ and Krista, though this time there were two photo session planned with four models. The first was with Miranda, her friend Gilda and Ingrid modeling together in a minimalist setting, lying on a bed below a single window. The session was initially planned around working with just two models, Miranda and Gilda but Ingrid was also available and it quickly evolved into a three-model session. After the experience working with three models in 2003, I was quite keen to have a second opportunity to work with such a dynamic situation.

Miranda was kind enough to let us work at her place, so we set up in the largely empty guest room and quickly began working with the available light. The space was near ideal with bare white walls, and a single window directly above the bed where I'd placed the models. This provided a beautiful angular light over the models and more than enough room to work in the room with the cameras (many of the indoor spaces I have worked in previously have had wonderful light, but cramped quarters, limiting angles I can photograph from).

Digital infrared original

 Much of the work revolved around ideas of repetition, playing off the repeating lines, shape and forms of the three models. Using longer lenses (equal to an 85mm lens on a 35mm camera) I compressed the space between the three models and made a large number of abstract bodyscapes. This approach was the least demanding on the models; for the most part, this required them to lay still and only occasionally change their body positions. There were a number of reasons to work this way; first, it is the easiest way to photograph three models in such a limited space (any other way of posing quickly taxes the space on a bed); second, as it was Gilda's first time working with me, I didn't want to put too much emphasis on elaborate posings - the simpler and easier the session was, the better.

Thought the majority of the images were body abstracts, over the session, I did make a number of images focusing on portraiture but, as Gilda was new to modeling, I was not certain how comfortable she would be with her face in the images so I focused on more anonymous images for much of the session to make the most of the opportunity.

Digital infrared original

Sadly, technical issues pulled this session to a halt before I was really finished exploring all the possibilities that presented themselves (the portable storage device I use to store digital files when I travel refused to download any files) but, regardless, the images we made in the ninety minutes we worked were very rewarding, especially the portraits, of which all three models heartily approved.

A Snow Nude Session

One of Katarina's first questions when she arrived was "When can we do snow nudes?". My initial response was that it would be too cold but she kept insisting she wanted to model in the snow.On the final day of their visit, several hours before she and Lymari drove back to New England, we headed out for what probably will be remembered as the shortest photo session I have ever had.

Digital original

If we'd had more time, I would not have chosen to work on the morning we did; the temperature was a chilly -17 C° and, while there wasn't any wind, the air temperature was bitter enough on its own. In a small attempt to mitigate the cold, Katarina bundled up in a heavy one-piece snow-suit before leaving the house, the logic being she should be toasty warm until the actual time to model arrived, in which case it was just one piece of clothing that needed to be shed and kept track of. Because of the depth of the snow (0.5-1 m), she could keep her socks and boots on through the session, which was a small blessing - I suspect the cold snow on her feet would have ended the session before it even began (not that you could have told Katarina that - she was so insistent on working in the snow before she went back to the US).

I carefully selected a space which Katarina could work into without her footprints showing in the image - I sought a smooth, unbroken sea of snow for the setting. Also, because the morning had direct sun, I chose an area with some brush, to both break up the image a little and provide some shadows to lend form to Katarina's body. When I was in place, and Katarina was ready, she quickly stripped off the snowsuit and walked a meter or so through the snow to where I wanted her to pose.

Digital original

Despite all our precautions, in the end, Katarina lasted a little more than five minutes before it became too cold to continue. I made just over a dozen exposures, mostly variations on framing the same pose before Katarina grew too cold to vary the pose much and the session came to a halt.It took several minutes to get her back into her snowsuit and back to the car where she started warming up (though I suspect the warming process took longer than a few minutes).

I hesitate to say that snow nudes hold potential, as that would imply I think they are an area I plan to pursue but I do think that the results from the short session with Katarina will please her and make an eyecatching addition to my body of work as a whole.

Lymari & Katarina Arrive

One of the unexpected rewards of working with a single subject (the Nude) for so long is the extended collaborations so integral to the pursuit of my vision. Most of these ongoing relationships have been with local models but some come from further afield. Lymari first drove up from New England to work with me in 2001 and since then has turned her visits into an annual event, coming up to photograph, be photographed, and catch up on each year's evolution in my work.

Digital original, 6 frame stitch

This year's visit was loosely planned for the fall but kept being pushed back later and later until Lymari suggested visiting during her December break. She brought Katarina, a friend who was also interested in modelling. On December 26th, in the middle of the afternoon, Lymari and Katarina arrived several hours ahead of schedule and a storm.

It wasn't until the next afternoon that we started photographing - I had hoped to start photographing in the morning but the snow-storm precluded that, keeping the light low and dull throughout the day. In the end, I opted to use the living room as a setting, taking a cue from the previous sessions with Jesse and setting up the space much the same.

Digital original

I started the session working with Lymari. Katarina, who had never modeled nude before though she had been appeared onstage nude, decided to observe for a while to get the flow of a session.As with much of my other indoor work, I began by focusing on portraits and portrait nudes, revelling in the strength of Lymari's gaze and the muted beauty of the snowstorm light. Truth be told, the light was pretty dim, but it was so even and enveloping that the longer exposures were more than worth it just to get that particular look in the images.

After an hour of working with Lymari, with an eye to the clock, I asked Katarina if she would be comfortable trying some modeling with Lymari (I figured if she was going to model today, it had better be soon as the light would begin to drop rapidly ). A minute or two later, she and Lymari were side-by-side on the futon with the late afternoon light falling over them.

Digital original

By this point the light was dropping rapidly and my exposures were growing longer which put added pressure on me to make the most of the time we had before the light totally left the session. Fortunately, I have a particular attraction to images with shallow depth of field so working with large apertures is never a problem. By the time we conceded defeat to the low light and packed in the session, I was making second-long exposures at f/1.4, indicating the light had dropped more then 256 times in brightness from my first images of Lymari ninety minutes earlier!