Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio XI (Mountain View, Alberta)

Since Victoria's arrival in Alberta, the days had grown progressively cooler, and this day's dawn brought drizzle and mist from across the plains. I had hoped to use the day to begin working with the mountains, but with the cloud cover to the west even denser, I resigned myself to waiting to work with western peaks as a background another day.

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As the morning progressed, the rain moved off, and Victoria and I decided to risk a trip down into the coulee, as we couldn't tell if it was warm enough, never mind dry enough, for her to model. After a walk down the steep slope, we discovered that down by the river, the wind present up on the plains was barely more than a whisper, and while the air was not pleasantly warm, it certainly was not going to present a problem during short periods of nudity. We began working, photographing as we progressed up-river towards an abandoned shack on the floodplain.

When we reached the shack, we found an added visual bonus; inside the shed someone had hung a deer skull to dry right beside an old window. Coming so soon after our first images of Victoria on the black cloth with the skull, we both agreed we had to work with it. Initially, I had thought to make an image of Victoria standing next to the skull, but the floor inside the shed was rotten, forcing us to instead work outside. The final image of Victoria with the skull has a drama to it which I suspect would have been missing from my initial idea; the worn wood and black window against which the Nude and skull are set provide a rich, yet appropriate backdrop for the two.

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The final image from the shack is strongly related to the bridge Nudes I have produced in August 1998 and April 1999. While the floor was rotten, the ceiling timber in the building were intact, and I asked Victoria if she'd climb up and work in the beams. Normally somewhat hesitant about heights, Victoria set aside her fears and went up the ladder, knowing full well her images would share a website with those of the intrepid Ingrid.

35mm infrared film

After walking back up to the edge of the coulee, we turned to see the clouds clearing over the mountains, and the sunlight breaking through them. Not wanting to pass up this serendipitous chance, we stopped and made a number of photos of Victoria standing on the coulee ridge, with the receding valley behind her. The drama of the light, and the soft elegance of the pose is uncommon in my work, but it is one of the few images I made in Alberta which gives a sense of the coulee as a whole, most of my other images focus on small, refined elements of the space.

Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio X (Sout-Western Alberta)

After a hearty lunch and some relaxation, the entire retreat group bundled into cars and headed out in search of spaces in which to work. On our drive to pick up Victoria two days earlier, Annie and I had passed by several old barns and abandoned farms, and it was to one of these that Victoria and I went, hoping to build on the morning's work in the house.

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The first thing we did when we arrived at the McAlister homestead was explore the immediate vicinity. The small farmhouse, which I'd been hoping to work within, was firmly shut up, and neither I nor Victoria had any interest in becoming criminals and breaking into the house simply for some photographs. The outbuildings, however, were all open, and after making some quick images of Victoria standing in the tall grasses behind the house, we moved into the smallest outbuilding, a small shack with a decided lean to it.

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Similar to the homestead where we'd worked earlier, the feed shack had wonderful light coming through the cracks between the wall and roof boards. Also, with the later afternoon light, a broad sheet of light was coming through the window on the far side of the room, providing a good amount of reflection up from the floor. We worked in the space for a number of images, varying the pose and composition.

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It was about an hour before we finally left the farm, during which time the other retreat members explored and played with the settings. At the close of the second day of working with Victoria in Alberta, I was feeling very satisfied; both sessions had gone well, and I was confident that the decision to fly a model out was paying off already. As opposed to starting out with a  new group of models, and building a relationship and body of work from scratch, Victoria and I simply picked up on our work in Nova Scotia, building the Alberta Portfolio on top of a year's experience making images together.

Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio IX (Mountain View, Alberta)

This day dawned cool and overcast, the sky a single blanket of clouds as far as the eye could see. As the morning progressed, the clouds burned off, but to the west, the mountain-tops remained covered in clouds. Given the weather, Victoria and I opted to stay close to Annie's, and went into the small town of Mountain View to work with an abandoned house. In preparation for the retreat, Annie had received permission to work within a number of spaces close to her home.

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The light within the building was wonderful, with direct shafts of light flowing between the roof boards and enough ambient light reflected off the disintegrating plaster and wood walls to more than fill in the shadows. The real problems arose with the crumbling conditions inside. There was ample evidence of horses walking through the ground floor, but the sagging condition of some parts of the second floor made me seriously question its stability. The stairs were solid enough, however, and once some debris was cleared, there was more than enough space for us to begin by making a series of images on the stairs.

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The allure of ruined buildings for me is in how rich the textures are; setting the Nude against them only accentuates the chaos of the surroundings. I had previously worked with Victoria in York Redoubt, an abandoned Halifax fort, but the images we produced on this day were quite different, working more with the lighting and atmosphere of the space than the physical layout. On the whole, the results were more than I'd expected.

35mm infrared film

When we first looked into the house, I feared that it would be too unstable to work on the stairs and second floor, yet almost all the images we produced were made using these spaces. The direct sunlight which streamed through the roof slats helped give a strong sense of space to the stairway, while the soft light which was reflected off the interior walls gave a lovely, even illumination to the remainder of the rooms.

Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio VIII (Mountain View, Alberta)

Early on this morning, while the sun was still on the western side of Annie's house, Victoria and I went outside, along with a skull from Annie's wall, and a black infra-red proof cloth borrowed from one of the other artists. Ever since my arrival in Annie's house, I'd been eyeing the arrangement of skulls on the living room walls, drawn to the wonderful simplicity of their lines and form. Victoria shared my enthusiasm for the shape and form, and was more than keen to help me explore the possibilities.

35mm infrared film

Working in the diffused light on the shady side of the house, I exposed a whole roll of 35mm infra-red film, working with the skull in various positions on Victoria's body. The black cloth isolated the two elements in the image-frame, while the soft light lent a wonderful roundness to the forms which would have disappeared with a more direct light source.

35mm infrared film

Combining the Nude with the skull was far easier than I had expected, with the flow of the horns and bone easily mirroring the lines of the body. The meaning of such images is fascinating too, pulling me back to my earlier ideas of the Nude, mortality and photography. The wonderful thing about juxtaposing the body and the skull is that they are intimately related, in a non-linear manner. The skull serves as a memory of the impermanence of the flesh, and yet the two co-exist in the image in a most fluid way.

35mm infrared film

These images I think will lead to more; later in Alberta, and perhaps back in Nova Scotia. Annie, Victoria and I had lengthy conversations about the cleaning of bones and skulls (burying them underground near ant hills is one method), and her recommendation to buy cleaned skulls from an abattoir is still in the back of my mind.

Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio VII (Mountain View, Alberta)

The final light of Victoria's first day modelling in Alberta was spent down in the coulee, along the banks of the Belly River. As I'd previously explored the coulee, I had several locations in mind, and as the sun went lower in the sky, we moved along the coulee.

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Most of this session ended up being portraits of Victoria; the landscape at the bottom of the coulee was quite fragmented and disjointed, and rather than struggle to find order within it, I set the environment aside, and focused upon the model. There is a particular power which comes from an unclothed portrait.

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One of the biggest differences between Alberta and Nova Scotia, is the quality of the light. There is no real way to describe this difference; suffice it to say there is more, and longer light in Alberta. When the sun goes down in Nova Scotia, there is between 10 and 20 minutes of decent light, before night rapidly encroaches. In Alberta, however, the twilight seemed to linger far longer; "Quiet Light" is apparently one of the treasures of the West, from a photographer's perspective (I personally thought it was the mountains and hoodoos).

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Regardless, the evening light was luscious and alive in a way that never happens in Nova Scotia. The final two image here were both made well after the sun went below the horizon. In both cases, one second exposures were necessary, yet the quality of the light was wonderful, soft and diffused in a way which I have never seen before.

Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio VI (Mountain View, Alberta)

After returning from the Cardston Hoodoos, I disappeared to the basement of Annie's house to change film, and prepare for the evening's session. Victoria stayed upstairs, and when I returned, was modelling for one of the other photographers. Working indoors with available light, he had set up a small studio in the dining area, with Victoria up on the table, against a black backdrop.

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In the middle of this session, Victoria took a break, sitting on a chair against the window to relax - and the light was stunning. Immediately, I made an image on my 35mm camera, unsure if I would be able to recreate the moment later for my view camera.

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Luck was with me, however, and when the session with the other photographer was done, I asked Victoria to retake the poses, and made a series of portraits of her in the chair. The resulting images very successfully capture the light and elegance which stopped me cold when I first beheld Victoria posing on the chair.

Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio V (Cardston, Alberta)

My first chance to work with Victoria in Alberta came the next morning, when Annie dropped us off at the site of some small hoodoos, near Cardston, in south-eastern Alberta. Before I had talked to Annie, when I envisioned the landscape in  Alberta, I  thought solely of the Rocky Mountains, and the Badlands around Drumheller. In the conversations with Annie, however, the term hoodoo came up over and over again. "What," I asked innocently, "are hoodoos?" In reply she e-mailed me a couple of photographs, and my desire to travel to the west and work in Alberta redoubled.

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Hoodoos are pillars of eroded rock, typically sedimentary rock, that are protected at the top by a more resistant boulder (more about these amazing structures can be found here). From my first glimpse of these intriguing formations, I knew they would work wonderfully with the Nude. The swirling lines of the rock were very anthropomorphic, and even the low resolution scans which Annie shared with me showed a wealth of potential.

35mm infrared film

The hoodoos near Cardston are part of a long ridge of rock that runs for miles through south-western Alberta. In some places it crops out and is visible, while in others it is submerged under the broad plains. The hoodoos where we spent the late morning and early afternoon working were on a low hill, above the highway, and directly behind a bustling farmhouse, and looked rather small as we walked up the hill. Upon arrival, however, it quickly became apparent how wrong our impressions were; the hoodoos were a complex series of about five outcrops, each about 25 feet in height. The soft sandstone was riddled with pockets, holes and ledges, which both Victoria and I could immediately see held numerous possibilities.

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As we were approaching the site, both Victoria and I were worried we'd have to limit our images to areas of the hoodoos which faced away from the road, but having reached them, and realized the true size of the rocks, this faded as a concern. Against the side of the rocks, it was very unlikely a nude body would be visible, especially from a fast-moving vehicle half a mile away.

Victoria and I worked for four hours at the hoodoos, exposing every sheet of film I'd brought with me, and four rolls of 35mm infra-red. The morning was hot to begin with, and the day only grew more so; we ran out of water about half-way through the session, and ended up sharing a rutabaga near the end, more for its moisture content than a need to eat. When we finally were picked up by Annie, Victoria and I were both quite hot and tired, but felt the work was strong and well worth the effort. Our first session together in the West was a rousing success, though the lack of water and heat of the afternoon made it hard of Victoria, who was still adjusting to the four hour time change.

Victoria, the Alberta Portfolio IV (Mountain View, Alberta)

After we arrived back from our Waterton jaunt, I phoned Joy in Halifax to report the day's activity and let her know of the continuing problems finding models in Alberta. It was during this phone call that Joy asked if I'd consider flying model from Nova Scotia to work with. I replied that even if we could arrange it on such short notice, there weren't any models who'd be willing to give up a week of their life. "Victoria has already said she is willing to fly out, we discussed it this morning" was her reply. I was quiet for a moment, considering what flying out a model would mean to the body of work I'd set out to produce. The possibilities were too numerous to ignore, and I agreed that we should try to fly Victoria out to Alberta, and keep the Alberta Portfolio focused upon the Nude.

"Operation Victoria" was carried out with incredible speed, diligence and accuracy by Joy, who made all the arrangements thousands of miles away in Halifax. It was less than eight hours between my agreeing to flying Victoria out, and her departure for Calgary; Joy stayed up until four in the morning making arrangements with Victoria, the airline and the bus, and Victoria boarded her plane in Halifax at 7:30 AM that same day. Her flight to Calgary was followed by a three hour bus ride to Fort McLeod, where Annie and I met her to complete the final leg of her journey to Mountain View.

Twenty four hours after the initial proposal by Joy to fly Victoria out, she was sitting in Annie's kitchen, looking over prints of the Alberta landscape, and we were planning out the following week's work.

Flying Victoria out to Alberta addressed and overcame a surprising number of issues. First and foremost, the Alberta Portfolio could be produced as envisioned. Also, having a single model for eight days would lend an incredible consistency to the work, and create an even more cohesive body of work.

Alberta Portfolio III (Mountain View & Waterton, Alberta)

Saturday dawned with the arrival of the final participants in our group, and a great convention of artists on the lawn in the shade of the tepee. The single potential model was somewhat hesitant about the entire process (including being photographed Nude), and with the realization setting in that few, if any, models would be coming out for the retreat, I began to adjust my expectations for the trip, and, swallowing hard, prepared myself for a crash course in landscape photography.

When I first thought of working in Alberta, all my image ideas focused on the mountains. I had traveled through them as a teenager by train and, while it permitted a wonderful view of the mountains, it allowed for little but a cursory visual exploration of them. Since I was seventeen, I'd held a visual memory of the mountains spread before the train in an infinite panorama. This trip, however, I'd have the opportunity to set that memory onto film, albeit without models.

My first view of the mountains around Waterton, Alberta, happened during a run into town for supplies. Driving into Waterton itself takes one past Waterton lake, which is below Vimy Ridge, a long, craggy mountain to the south. As we drove by, I could see a long, driftwood covered beach on the eastern shore of the lake, and on our trip back to Annie's, I suggested a stop to permit me to check out the possibilities (I only had my 35mm camera with me, and still was having problems adjusting to the idea of suddenly becoming a landscape photographer).

Truth be told, as I was walking down the beach, all I looked for were spaces to fit a nude and how to work the figure in with the mountains that loomed behind. On the whole, this train of thought led nowhere, because, in addition to the lack of bodies to pose, the logs on the beach were mostly small and straight, offering few possibilities for posing a body but I kept on walking.

At the very end of the beach, where the driftwood gave way to brush and swampy ground, there were some driftwood trees, complete with stumps, which struck me as distinct possibilities.

I enthusiastically began exploring the possibilities with my 35mm camera, all the while mentally picturing a figure in the image. The results that I saw through the viewfinder were very encouraging, and as I walked back to the car, I was dealing with two conflicting emotions; elation at the landscape that surrounded me, and the flood of possibilities that I was constantly glimpsing, and the ever-growing fear that no models would show for the entire time I was in Alberta. I faced the daunting prospect that the Alberta Portfolio, envisioned as one entirely focusing on the Nude, would be cancelled (with all the advance Patron's money refunded), or become simply a series of beginner landscapes.

Alberta Portfolio II (Mountain View, Alberta)

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The first thing I did on this morning was go outside and take look at the landscape (I'd arrived well after dark the night before, and could only hear the rushing sound of the Belly River somewhere nearby). The entire horizon, to the South and West  for about 120 degrees, was mountains; between Annie's house and the prairie that ran up to the foot of the mountains lay a steep sided river valley (a coulee), with a winding, rushing river in the centre. I set up my camera and made a series of photos which make up a panoramic image of the mountains.

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After making the images of the mountains, I went inside and joined the others for breakfast, and a discussion of the day's plans. Over dinner the previous night there had been some mention about problems with the pre-arranged models but it was during breakfast that I learned the full extent of the difficulties that were presenting themselves. Some of the models who'd planned to attend had been forced to cancel, while others were still unsure they'd be available, or were otherwise incommunicado. Annie's frustration with the circumstances was shared by all of us, but no immediate solution presented itself. As it was still a day before the official beginning of the retreat week, we all crossed fingers that one or two of the models who previously attended the retreat would come through for us.

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The remainder of the day was spent exploring the coulee, photographing the alien (to me) landscape of cottonwoods and glacial riverbed. Again and again, I would stumble across a setting that called out for a nude, and in combination with my distant glimpse of the Rockies, I was becoming very enthusiastic about settling into working with the Nude in this new environment. By the end of the day, however, no definite models had been found (one woman who might consider modelling was coming out to visit the next day), and it was becoming evident that the original plan, to have a retreat with six to ten models, was rapidly being altered.