1994 Year in Review

8"x10" film

One aspect of my photographic work that is under-represented on this site is my portrait photos. I haven't posted many for the simple reason that portraits seldom work beyond the immediate circle of friends of the subject...a photo of a stranger is simply that - an image of someone you do not know. I do love portraiture however, and continue to add to this body of work.

4"x5" film

Unlike my portraits, my Nude work has almost the opposite element; the anonymity of the model encourages the viewer to consider the universality of the body, and in some cases, even the mutability of gender. My early studio nudes avoided faces simply because my models were not comfortable with their identity being known. As my work grew though, I realized that if a Nude contained a face, it was a photo of a person, whereas, if it contained an anonymous model, it became an image about the body, not individuality. I often create nude portraits of my figure models, but seldom show these works, as they function in a very different way from the main body of my work with the figure.

4"x5" film

It is almost the reverse process with my images of the fortifications around Halifax. Generally speaking, my fort images are about specific sites, about the flow of history and time over the creations of man. Occasionally though, I do make a anonymous image, which speaks more about the aesthetics of time than the specifics of a location. This reversal of technique puzzled me for a long while, until 1994, when I started thinking about the ruins as individuals, with their own characters and flavours. In that context, the lack of "universal" images of the forts made sense. With my figure work, it is important for me to maintain a discussion about the general, while with the forts, I am discussing specifics of location and history.

8"x10" film

The summer of 1994 was very strong in regards to my figure work, having a unique opportunity built into it. A_, a friend from Scotland, was visiting for three weeks, and was basically to function as a live-in model for that entire period. While the weather didn't co-operate all the time during her visit, I did have the opportunity to work very intensely over a short period of time with a single model, something I hadn't previously had the opportunity to do.

35mm film

The work I produced with A_ was exceptional for several reasons. One, it was produced over a fairly short time period, which lead to a very strong rapport between her and I, giving more comfort to the second and subsequent session than is usually present. Two, A_ was more interested in modelling for me than for herself; her reason for modelling was because she wanted to help me with my art, as opposed to wanted nudes of herself. This subtly changed the interaction between us, and more experiments and risk were tried than usual. A_'s patience allowed me to use the 8x10 camera (though she did fall asleep once), and produce a surprising amount of images in a two week period.

8"x10" film

I think, in some ways, the most surprising results of the work I did with A_ was the fact that though she was keen to model, and was very interested in seeing the contact prints from the sessions, she didn't ask for a single print. She was very pleased with the work, and that I had images I really liked, but simply didn't want copies for herself. It was a very different experience from all my previous models, who were interested in both helping me with my work, and in receiving prints for their own.

4"x5" film

When I started back at the Art College in the fall, one of my first photo session was in the studio with S_, a model I'd worked with earlier in the summer. She, like A_, was modelling more to propel my work than out of personal interest. We'd never worked together in the studio, and the session was a real success. By this point I was pretty much intuitive in the studio, using light rather than struggling with it, and as a result of the conscious breakthrough of the previous year with the idea of Mortalities, I even had a clue as to why I was making the images. The fact that studio work still remained hollow and less meaningful to me was insurmountable, but the quality of the images was closer to what I sought than anything else to date.

8"x10" film

In the fall of 1994, as part of my final photo course at the Art College, I took a documentary photo course. I saw it as an opportunity to finalize the format and content of the work I'd been producing on the Fortress Halifax. The timing of the course coincided perfectly with some conservation/restoration work that Parks Canada was doing on Fort Charlotte, located on George's Island in Halifax Harbour.

8"x10" film

In some ways, the Fort Charlotte Project was an ideal situation, as I had the time and energy to dedicate to documenting the site, and an environment which permitted me the freedom to experiment with form and content without any preconceived ideas of what is "right". I was in pure heaven for the weeks that I photographed on the island, both because it was an incredible subject, and because it represented a period of uninterrupted work, something that occurs only on rare occasions.

4"x5" film

The major accomplishment of the Fort Charlotte Project wasn't so much the strength of the images, though those more than met my expectations but rather the final layout, and the multi-layering which I hit upon as a presentation technique. By using copies made from the original Royal Engineer's plans in juxtaposition with my contemporary photographs, I made a link between the pre-historical intent of the site and its post-historical outcome (pre-historical because the plans show the intent before the realization, and post-historical because the photos are after the site has ceased to have its original meaning). In the final piece there was no reference to the actual purpose of the fort, though it was implicit within the architecture. I addressed the site as a purely aesthetic space, and permitted the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the site's place in history.

Reproductions of original plans, 4"x5" and 8"x10" film

The final project consisted of seven interwoven panels. Produced before my initiation into the world of Digital imaging, the final prints represented a pinnacle in my darkroom work to date, printed with multiple negatives on single sheets of paper, each print requiring between 6 and 9 separate printings, each with a different mask. Today, if I was to put together this project, I'd assemble it in Photoshop and have far more control over the registration and layout. As it is though, the final project was a major step forward, both in design, and simply as a technical achievement.

1993 Year in Review

8"x10" film

If 1991 was seminal in my growth towards my work today, then 1993 was a year of major growth in terms of discovering why I do what I do. It was also the year that I started using the word "Mortalities" to describe my images. In some ways, discovering the idea of Mortalities was just as important as realizing the images which portray it and I will explain more of what this concept means to me in the context of 1993's discoveries.

4"x5" film

The year begun on an incredible high. M_, who had modeled for me over the winter indoors and in the studio, did some mid-May modelling at Chebucto Head. From that session came the image at the top which spoke so clearly that for weeks I could think of nothing else. It still is among my strongest images, and as a circle is pretty unique among my images. It's one of the few images which I have which is unique both in composition and pose. Much of my work tends to be variations on themes, but this images is almost singular in tone, and, as such, is among the best of my work.

8"x10" film

Where 1993 began with a strong nude, it also provided a long, steady flow of successful images of the fortifications around Halifax. Though I had started consciously working with the Ruin in 1990, it wasn't until this year that I began to put my abstract ideas into a concrete form.

8"x10" film

In some ways, being asked to explain why I do what I do is the most frustrating part of art making. The images flow well enough, but when it comes to explaining why, I tend to fall flat. In 1991, however, I began to analyze exactly what attracted me to the Nude and the Ruin, and to see parallels and similarities between them. It was this process which eventually lead to the use of the word "Mortalities" in conjunction with both bodies of work. The pull of the Nude and Ruin for me lies in their connection to ideas of permanence and immortality. The Ruin, with its monolithic strength and forceful imposition screams of man's constant struggle with the world around him, and his refusal to accept the fleeting nature of his existence.

8"x10" film

Similarly, photography of the Nude could be seen as an attempt towards gaining immortality through the recording of a body on film. When I began working with the Nude five years before, I was drawn to it in a way I couldn't express - there was a very quiet element to the work that refused to be named, but which was integral to my interest. It took five years for me to grow sensitive enough to listen to the whisper - the whisper of immortality. The reality that these photographs will outlive their subjects gives them an immortality that is unattainable by their subjects in the real world. From the moment the images are frozen on film, they remain unchanged, though the world around them moves on. The images serve as a reminder of the fleeting nature of life, and of the irresistible march of time. Mortalities, in the same manner as it applies to the ruin, has a parallel meaning with the nude.

4"x5" film

Becoming conscious of this element in my work didn't so much change my work as change the way I looked at it. Where before I could express my interest in the aesthetic nature of the body, I could now explain why photography played such a crucial part in that process; a drawing or painting was an obvious expression of the vision of the artist, but it was also created in a media that did not lend itself to verisimilitude, to the imitation of the real. Even photo-realistic painting is just that, a painting. People view photography as being of the real, and and extension of this to the creation of a photograph, ever unchanging, makes it become the creation of an immortal moment.

8"x10" film

With the discovery of the elements of immortality in my work, there was an instant connection between my nude and ruin images on a concrete level. Where before I was working blind, following instinct and drive, I suddenly began to be able to view my work, previously divided into separate bodies, as part of a whole. Photographs of fading concrete, being overwhelmed by time and nature, and images of the body, frozen forever in an instant of beauty, served as quiet, haunting reminders of the frailty of ourselves. Beyond the aesthetic, visual appeal of the work, there was now a deeper level of understanding for me, which permitted me more distance from each individual image, and a way to join the work in a holistic sense.

8"x10" film

The moving beyond knowing what I wanted to express into knowing why I was expressing it was incredibly important to my work. A conscious purpose is simpler to follow and express than a sub-conscious one, and from 1993 onward, the main focus of debate and issue in my work shifted from the what and why, to how. Where before I debated abstracts and concepts, now I could settle down and look at technique.

8"x10" film

Denise Models in a Ruin (Spion Copp, Nova Scotia)

4"x5" film

For this session, in hopes of avoiding having to work in direct mid-day sun, Denise and I headed to some old World War II bunkers. The first set of images were made next to one of the open windows, using the reflection off the wall and floor to light Denise's back, and provide some modeling to what normally would have been a silhouette.

8"x10" film

As the afternoon moved on, we headed outside, moving through the woods from shady spot to shady sport; in the end we found a line or moss covered rocks the sloped down to the harbour, and presented a perfect location for a back-on image.

8"x10" film

More than almost any other image I have made, the above photograph speaks for itself. There is a simple beauty to the pose, and the soft directional light play up the beautiful line of the neck, shoulders and arm.

Denise first posed for me in 1989, and most recently posed in 2010. This image was included in 2003’s Portfolio XV.

1992 Year in Review

4"x5" Polaroid

As I slowly grew to understand what I sought to express though my photography, I started to create more and more images which came close to my vision. The hard thing about photography is the fact that it is a visual media, and explaining your goals and ideas is often impossible. The closer I came to realizing my goals, the more frustrated I became at my inability to describe them. In some ways this was a Catch-22 - to make the images I had to describe my concepts, and to describe the concepts, I needed images.

4"x5" film

Occasionally though, I have met people who have had enough trust and understanding to work with me blind so to speak. I knew L_ quite well by the time she modeled for me, and her working with me was more based upon our friendship than her desire to be photographed, and this freed up the images I made. I seldom work with the nude indoors, but among the work I have made, the images of L_ are certainly among the strongest.

Add caption

Though I had started working with 4"x5" extensively the year before, in 1992 I was still working with 35mm a lot as well. There are undeniable advantages to a small-format camera, the most evident is portability and ease of use. The more involved I have become with large format photography, the fewer photos I make in the winter. There in 1991 I had started using large format, in 1992 I made a further leap and purchased an 8"x10" camera. The image to the right is one of the first successful images I made with it, thought the lens I had did not quite cover the negatives (this accounts for the darkening at the edges). 8"x10" is certainly an incredibly gratifying format to work in - the negatives are incredible and unparalleled, especially when compared to 35mm negs. There is a richness of tone and a sharpness which is indescribable. There is a trade-off, however, in the 8"x10's weight and inherent restrictions - with only 6 film holders, I can only make 12 images before returning to a darkroom. Thus, while 8"x10" work is among my favourite, the camera tends to sit more than it's used, simply because of the physical demands it makes on the whole process.

8"x10" film

Over the summer of 1992, I continued to explore the pull that architectural sites had for me, photographing the industrial waterfront of Halifax, and working on the ruined fortifications of McNab and George's Island. At the time, I was simply doing what came naturally, as I was with the Nude, and finding the results fed the process. It slowly became apparent to me as I rejected newer, "clean" buildings for those worn and weathered that what I found compelling about photographing architecture was not the structure itself, but the intricate effects of nature which became etched on its surface.

4"x5" film

As my work with buildings continued, so did my work with nudes. As would be a constant frustration in the years to come, I started the summer without models, and continued to work on self-portraiture, accepting its limitations. One advantage to the deliberate nature of large format photography is that so much time is put into the composition of the image that often the nude is just the final element to an already strong image. Without the ability to view the image on the ground-glass as it is made, I had to rely upon visualization to conceive of the image in the field. More often than not, what actually was on the film was a little different. Frustrating but true.

4"x5" fiom

One of the neat things about photographing the fort ruins on the harbour islands is that they are ever changing - what I capture on film one year may be irrevocably changed by the next; this is true of both natural decay and deliberate restoration. The ribbed tubing on the left was stored within the casemates for several summers, only to suddenly disappear one year, apparently placed somewhere to assist in drainage. These changes fascinated me, and at the time were a central motivator for my documentation. r

8"x10" film

Given that I had a new toy, the 8"x10" camera, my first desire was to put it through its paces. I had made some nude portraits of L_ earlier in the year, with great success, but I really wanted to get outdoors and work with the nude and the camera. It wasn't until August that I would have the chance with C_, a friend of a friend. She and M_, who would model for me later, wanted to model together, but the schedules never synched, so C_ and I went out to work late in August. We worked around one of the outer ruins, playing with the light that fell through the trees and building windows onto the floor. Unbeknownst to both of us, etched on the wall above C_ were the faint words "True Love For Ever". This subtle graffiti changes the reading of the image to one much darker, and both C_ and I thought it was a far more successful image though the introduction of the random element than before it.

35mm film

Though I had stopped photographing bands in a serious manner a year before, I still had a love for good concert photography, so when an amazing band played, I showed up with camera in hand. One of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in my life was witnessing the rise and fall of Bubaiskull, simply the best band I have ever had the pleasure to experience. The music, live show and sheer power of the band was awe-inspiring, and they developed a hardcore following in the city for the 18 months of their presence.

4"x5" film

The close of 2002 saw M_ posing one morning in my living room, Rather than taking my usual approach, and trying to keep the background featureless, I used shallow depth of field to minimize any distractions, focusing the eye of the viewer on the body instead.

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