Aeyla in the Woods (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

What began as a sunny, hot day was deceptive - Aeyla picked me up at 10 am and we drove to the coast - to find fog. We even waited and ate lunch, but no luck - the fog stayed. Not willing to waste the day, and braving the threat of bugs, we went into the woods - inland there wasn't a hint of the shrouds which enveloped the coast. I have not spent a great deal of time working with the Nude in woods, so the opportunity to expand this area of my work was more than enough to compensate for the lost opportunity at the coast.

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Aeyla had never modeled in woods before, and both of us found it a difficult and challenging setting. The close quarters presented far fewer obvious vistas for imaging in, and there were the bugs to contend with (I cannot overstate the issue of bugs - Aeyla was terribly indulgent - but even with bug stuff, we both got bit!). The only small wonder was that the woods we worked in were fairly open, with lots of paths and trails. It would have been a much different story if they had been like 99% of Nova Scotian forests - dark and full of overgrowth.

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The main problem with photographing in woods is that they are dark - where I would usually expect to use shutter-speeds of 1/30 of a second, I often have to resort to 1/2 or even a full second in the forest. This changes the images somewhat, and forced me to be a little more deliberate about the images - some photos simply couldn't be made the way I envisioned them because of lack of light.

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I really enjoy working in woods when the images work, but, more often than not, I am frustrated without the light levels, and the sheer lack of variation - trees only grow in one direction generally, and Nova Scotian forests are not renowned for their variation. I will keep working with the Nude in woods, but feel far more compelled to place the body on rocks - even in the midst of trees.

Rocks and a Nude (Prospect, Nova Scotia)

The way in which photographs are made has never before been a subject for contemplation in my work. I went out, I made images, I went home. This is no longer true.

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Prospect lies a 40 minute drive outside Halifax, a quiet fishing town with only a line of glacial bedrock protecting it from the Atlantic Ocean. Outside the town, the shore is an unbroken flood of granite, scattered with boulders and rock fields left by the last ice age.

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In some ways, on this day all the progress of the past month came into clarity - I gave up making images, and literally simply let them come to me. Sasha and Wendy, who accompanied me, disappeared over the horizon as I was drawn to image after image, finding the creative process effortless and fluid as it never has before. The elements which the dialogue with Joy has introduced to my work wove with my own aesthetics, bringing subjects to my camera which I would have ignored before, and breathing life into them. The images came so fast on this day that I literally was reacting with my camera, responding to what was presented to me..

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At the very end of the evening, as the sun was disappearing behind the hills, a perfect site for nudes presented itself to me; and as it did, Sasha waltzed over the hill, come to search for his wayward photographer. He quickly agreed the site needed a body and went to work. Opting to use colour film, we made a dozen images before the light failed so much that it became impractical to photograph. All of us sat on the hilltop and watched the sun set, reveling in the dying of a very satisfying day.

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The work I produced on this day was some of the most spontaneous and strong in my life, and I can only hope the gifts being revealed to me this summer can continue.

A Day of Photography (Polly's Cove, Nova Scotia)

The coastbetween West Dover and Peggy's Cove, just south of Halifax, is one of my favourite landscapes. Miles of glacier scraped land is scattered with boulders, flowing down to the Atlantic Ocean. The wild restraint of this landscape has always drawn me, and though I have worked with the figure in this setting before, it is far from drained of all its possibilities, and is a place I wish to return to again and again.

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Sasha and I didn't make too many images, but the two that were the most successful were certainly worth the afternoon's work. I made some colour images as well, of Sasha against a distant outcropping of rock - the images are decent, but the figure in them is so small; I think I went too far - a small nude overwhelmed by nature is wonderful thing, a bare blip of a figure in a landscape is a little silly. I have yet to make enlargements from the colour material, so I may be pleasantly surprised, but as it stands now, I think I will refrain from making images of nudes so far away.

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The image of Sasha on a large round boulder is another piece which I think marks a change in my work - the obvious parallel that I am making I think I would have chosen to ignore previously, writing it off as too simplistic. For whatever reason, taking risks seems to be the name of the game this summer.

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After finishing on the West Dover Barrens, Sasha, Wendy and I drove to Peggy' Cove, home of the most over-photographed lighthouse in Canada. I have always loved the rocks there though, and while Sasha and Wendy sat eating ice cream and waiting for the sun to set, I explored and came across more images for Joy. The light was magnificent, with the sun low in the sky, perfect for reflections in pools of water, and lighting flat sheets of granite.

A Beach Session (Rainbowhaven Beach, Nova Scotia)

I'd never been to Rainbow Haven Beach before, even though it's the largest true beach close to Halifax. The day was perfect for photos - heavy overcast, and though there was a strong breeze offshore, the wind went straight overhead, leaving us all in relative calm.

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Something that became apparent to me only after the session was how the influence of Joy's work on mine was creeping out of the abstract rock images, and into my nudes. Last summer was the first time I'd incorporated water in my nudes - this summer's equivalent seems to be reflections, mirrors and metaphors. Joy's gift to my work is the challenge she gives, and the thought processes she provokes.

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Later on in the afternoon, I began to see images that called for a figure. Many of the rock formations that flowed into the sand spoke clearly to me both as images alone, and as a stage for the nude. I hadn't worked with Sasha before, but we immediately had a good report, and he is an excellent model, exploring sites and spaces as I set up, and then suggesting possible poses, which we then worked to refine. 

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I began the afternoon working on more rock-sand-water images, drawing upon the dialogue between Joy and me. It is surprising how much another point of view can change your perspective on things. The images coming from Joy's poetry and letters are radical for me, images I would never have made without her insight. Where I usually spend time working with an image, improving it and shaping it through my camera, the Joy images speak to me so clearly when I see them , finishing the image in the camera is almost effortless. 

Aeyla's First Session (Chebucto Head, Nova Scotia)

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The origin of this session was one of the most unexpected ever; I was at an open house at Collideascope Digital (the the company that hosts my website), when someone looking at my work (in a relatively crowded room) asked "Who in Nova Scotia is crazy enough to pose Nude". Not a second later, without hesitation, a voice beside me said "I'd do that.." - and a week later, Aeyla  and I had driven to the coast, and began to work together.

The above image, made in the first fifteen minutes of the session (and in the first 15 minutes of Aeyla's experience with modeling nude) was included in Portfolio XV.

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Much of the session was spent working on the rocks and shoreline at Chebucto Head; the hard direct sunlight made it challenging to work with some poses, but those that did work (generally with the body orientated towards the sky) were really pleasing.

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The final set of images for the session were made within an old search-light emplacement; it created a frame in which to place Aeyla , looking with an implied longing at the ocean around her.

Fort Ogilvie (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

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In some ways I am frustrated with my fort images - there is so much to work with, and so many different aspects to approach the ruins from that it is almost inconceivable that I will ever complete working with them. This is I suppose a positive element, but realizing that a project can never be truly wrapped up changes one's approach to it. 

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The image above is titled "Homage to H.R.Geiger", and though there are no biological elements to the image the moment I saw it through the camera, I knew what the title would be. The source of the image is a WWI gun, still in its emplacement. Prior to this year I pointedly avoided including the few remaining guns in my images, the obvious reminder of the purpose of the forts clashed with my understanding of the sites as they are now.

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The remainder of the afternoon was spent working my way about 300 feet from where I started - a very contemplative, introspective day of photographing. In some ways this was one of the best sessions I've ever done in a fort, having both the time and frame of mind necessary to reveal what I sought. The clarity of the H.R.Geiger image was in my mind the rest of the day, and I couldn't have been more pleased with its translation onto film.

The Bridge Approaches (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Though it doesn't really show in my on-line work, one of my passions is industrial photography. Halifax isn't exactly the most industrial city in the world, and therein lies the reason why there are few industrial scenes on line. All that said, for two or three years now, I have been mulling over the idea of photographing the overpasses and approaches to the MacDonald bridge, in the north end of the city. There's something I find incredibly compelling about sweeping concrete overpasses and uneven swatches of pavement arcing around corners. It is a very visual place for me.

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The day was promising to be a hot one, so I set out at 8:30 am, late enough to avoid morning rush-hour, and early enough to beat the worst of the heat. The strange thing is that as clear as the approaches were as a subject in general, I had a very hard time finding images that expressed exactly what I perceived in them - it was one of the most challenging sessions I've had in a while - I could see the potential, but found it very hard to translate onto film.

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In the end, there were a few strong images, and an awful lot of almost. I'll be returning again (and again and again?) to work with the space - having started, I know that the images are there just waiting to be revealed. The funny thing was that I was so worried about cars, and they weren't a problem at all - I had more problem avoiding having people in the images.

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Much of these images come directly from experiencing the work of a fellow photographer on the net, Phil Buehler. Phil's images reminded me of what I loved about urban spaces, but haven't looked at in a quite some time. My work has no direct similarities to his, but the overpass project is a direct result of viewing his photographs.

A Pivotal Day (Chebucto Head, Nova Scotia)

Canada Day. Mid afternoon. Hot, sunny, and to be honest, a little boring. A friend called and asked if I was up for going somewhere to photograph, so I said "Sure, what about Chebucto Head - it's a hot day and there at least we'll be by the sea and be able to catch some breezes."

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So we went out for a little while - I could have done with twice the time, but as it was I who had to get back to the city, I really can't complain. The thing is, the session was really good - I got the strongest image yet of the summer (above), and was hot on the trail of several others - time and technical screw-ups precluded any other successes though. It was a strange day, as I took photos of things I would have previously ignored.

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That I was seeing things differently is a direct result of correspondence with Joy Yourcenar, a poet from Maine. She had written me in response to my photographs, proposing a collaboration between us. Over our correspondence, poems and ideas have flown back and forth challenging and provoking me, and making me itch to get out and photograph in a way I'd never itched before.

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Canada Day was the first time the influence of Joy appeared in my work, and I was really quite surprised at how much my visual frame had changed. Joy's poems, and her comments on my work had altered how I looked at things - trite but true none the less. The image of the granite rock with the water pool would never have been taken made without Joy's involvement in my creative vision.

Fort George (The Citadel) (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

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The heart of Fortress Halifax is the Citadel, which looms over the city on an ancient drumlin. It is the most heavily restored of all the sites around Halifax, and as such, hasn't held as much interest for me visually. Given the degree of my documentation of the other forts, however, I decided it made sense to begin visually recording the Citadel, so I could incorporate it into my larger group of images of Fortress Halifax.

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One of the advantages of the Citadel, from a documentary perspective, is that it still contains much of the original installed hardware - guns, windows, fixtures. These artifacts are stripped from the ruined sites, leaving it to the imagination of the viewer. At the Citadel, everything is restored to the late 1860's, at the height of Fortress Halifax's strength.

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This session was a mixed blessing. I truly made some successful images - well seen as Weston might say, but there is still some element of the photos being forced - little passion bleeds through them. I will return to the Citadel again, and build upon the foundation made this day. 

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York Redoubt (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

The challenge of photography is that you have to bring something to the camera to photograph. Unlike painting, where a blank canvas can hold anything the artist desires, a camera must be pointed at something to generate an image. The problem, sometimes, is what.

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On this day, I went to York Redoubt, one of the outlying forts surrounding Halifax. I was restless and uninspired - wanting to photograph more than wanting to make images - wanting to handle my camera and go through the motions, but not at all sure of what I would point it at.

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The amazing thing about York Redoubt is its position on a huge hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The upper fort still contains the original RML cannons, while the lower battery, of a much later vintage, has been stripped of its more modern weaponry. In seven years of photographing the ruins of Fortress Halifax, I had never before made images of the guns. This day, out of pure frustration for something to image, I turned my camera on them.

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The results are less than ideal - the use of the super-wide 65mm super-angulon lens lead to too much distortion for my "traditional" tastes, and the second most successful image, to the right, gives little sense of the ranged line of the RML guns receding. I have always struggled with landscapes, and this day was no different. Apart from the first image, of a receding wave on the shore line, little I produced this day was more than an exercise in exposure, composition and technique. I feel like I was going through the motions. There is no simple solution to what is happening with my work...I feel like something has to change but I am at a loss as to what, or how. I will not give up though, regardless. Photography is too much of a challenge for me. I will prevail, eventually.