Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIX (Prospect, Nova Scotia)

When planning out the Cassandra project, great thought was put into what locations to use with her, and how many of the spaces I regularly work to use, in contrast to new locales. This was in light of the fact that I knew the project would involve access to a car and a dependable model for an extended period, where normally I am never sure that I can secure both transportation and a model. While it was determined it would be important to take advantage of the car, some locations were strong enough to be used, regardless of the fact I've worked there before.

4"x5" film

Prospect was one of these locations; first worked with in 1997, and since then I've returned numerous times, continuing my exploration of one of my favourite Nova Scotian spaces. On this occasion, we headed to an area of the shore I'd previously ignored, and so while the landscape was familiar, the actual settings of the images we made were fresh to my eyes.

35mm infrared film

As I've mentioned before, the flow of work towards the end of the Cassandra Project was markedly different from that of the beginning; where initially Cassandra relied heavily on my guidance and suggestions for poses, the final sessions had a much more fluid feel to them, with Cassandra often aggressively pursuing her own ideas, often with significant success. This is not to say in any way that the first sessions were unsuccessful, just that there was a notable difference in the flow of the work as our relationship evolved.

4"x5 film

Because the day was bright and sunny, I had to constantly modify the poses to counter the dark shadows inherent to such days. Since the beginning of the Cassandra Project, I've been carrying a metre wide translucent reflector which can be used to reduce the shadows in an image. Before this year, I'd never used reflectors or diffusers in my outdoor work; after talking with some other photographers, and taking a more careful look at the work of artists who use reflectors, I decided it was a tool worth investigating. As it turns out, this day was one of only a couple where I'd used the reflector outdoors (the diffusion qualities of the reflector have proven invaluable in indoor work). Usually my outdoor work is of the entire body in the landscape, which pushes the camera further from the model then is practical for such a small reflector. Also, I seldom worry much about the contrast (local shadows) as I prefer to work in open shade, or on overcast days, where dark shadows aren't much of a problem. On this day, with the portrait I did towards the end of the session, the reflector proved invaluable, kicking more then enough light into Cassandra's face to balance against the direct light on her arm and buttocks.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XVIII (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

While the entire Cassandra Portfolio was to be work based on the Nude in Landscape, I didn't want to ignore other possibilities while Cassandra was here. On the morning of her second-last day in Nova Scotia, we spent several hours working with the morning light, diffused through a sheet over the windows in our living room.

35mm transparency film

I used this approach in 1999 in making the Thalamus series, and I find myself returning to it again and again, pleased with the quiet simplicity. As the session was very different from the outdoor work we'd been pursuing for the previous ten days, it was interesting to see how Cassandra reacted to working in a comfortable setting, as opposed to cool rivers, hard rock and damp earth.

35mm transparency film

Like our first sessions outdoors, Cassandra initially relied upon me for direction, but eventually realized that what I was drawn to was not a pose as such, but a moment of relaxation or comfort which I'd ask her to hold while I composed and exposed the image. Overall, this was a swifter, more spontaneous process then the outdoor work; the only time it came to a halt was when the 8"x10" was called into play, and even that was just to capture the moment paused, and not to search out new images.

35mm transparency film

After just under two hours of work, I felt that all the possibilities were explored, and the session came to a close. Of all the work we did, this session was singular, in that it was the only one where the colour work so completely out performed the black-and-white. There was nothing in the eight sheets of 8"x10" film I had exposed which even came close to the languorous feel of the colour transparencies. This experience has been repeated over and over, with other models in the same setting, but I keep trying with the monochrome, hoping someday to be able to pull it across that invisible barrier that keeps it from succeeding in the same way the colour does so consistently.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XVII (Dawson Brook, Nova Scotia)

This session was inspired by earlier work I'd done with J , at Dawson Brook, where we'd discovered the wonderful reflective quality of one particular area of the slow-flowing stream. I'd been very pleased with the images of R_, but as they were initial explorations, they were made on 35mm slide film, which presented some issues in regard to printing them. This time, with Cassandra, I was working with medium format (6x9) colour negative film, and could be assured that both the image quality as a whole, and the ability to print the images, would be improved. Because I'd worked in the space before, little time was spent actually finding the image, and more on the pose, which paid off in a well-seen photo that pays homage to its origins, but manages to be distinct enough to avoid being a simple copy.

6x9 cm film

After we made the initial image, we moved off, working our way slowly down the river, and making images as we went. After making a series of images photographing across the stream, I moved closer to Cassandra and made a portrait, filling the 8"x10" with her strong arms and shoulders as a frame within the frame. The slight dappling from the sunlight through the trees added some brilliant highlights to the image, and the outcome proved very successful, a blend of a portrait of a powerful young woman, and a striking Nude with a great sense of presence.

8"x10" film

The very end of the session was spent working with (as opposed to in) the waterfall at the end of the upper stream. As with ever other time I've been to Dawson Brook, the water level was low, with very little water flowing downstream; what could have been a chaotic, frothing waterfall was instead a small, almost negligible amount of water trickling down the rock steps to the pool below. As Cassandra was still chilled from the earlier water work, and the rocks were slippery, we opted to work with her above the waterfall, in contrast to its motion-blurred flow.

8"x10" film

Because the falls were in direct sunlight, and Cassandra was almost all in the shade, contrast issues were inherent to the light conditions. I opted to heavily over-expose the film (from 400 ISO to 50 ISO), and compensate for this in the subsequent development to tame the contrast. This worked remarkably well; the resulting images have a wonderful sense of luminosity in the blurred waters, while keeping a rich amount of detail in the shadowed forest floor behind Cassandra's form.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XVI (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

Nova Scotia's shoreline is incredibly long and varied, but over the decade I've worked with the Nude, I probably have worked with less then ten locations. In light of this, and taking advantage of the car we had for the duration of the Cassandra project, we chose Sandy for this day's work, driving for over two hours to get to the space.

35mm infrared film

While the main attraction at Sandy was the beach, we never actually made it that far; one of the curves in the road opened up a shoreline vista that was rich in possibilities, and called to me. We parked the car, and set off on foot, heading for a distant point, where exposed rocks and space trees set the sea.

All the work Cassandra and I have done to date very much paid off in this day's images; the poses came quicker then during any previous session, and there was a focus and energy which drove the session for the hours that we worked. Part of this came from the rich landscape, which suggested images and poses almost faster then we could take advantages of them. As with the Second Lake session, the isolation of Sandy was wonderful to work with, as we could work our way down the beach without having to worry about other people or interruptions.

4"x5" film

The flow of the session contained a double-edged sword. As I hadn't processed any of the images we had made to date yet, many of the photos were still crystallized in my mind's eye, and I had to struggle to keep the new images fresh. While it is nice to be able to work for days at a time uninterrupted, it does lack the possibility of building on earlier images with the same model. As the rocks in this area were quite different from those closer to Halifax, I relied on them as a springboard to fresh images.

4"x5" film

Towards the end of the day, the sun finally began to break through the dull, overcast sky, and provided a bit of soft modeling to what had previously been a flat, even light. Moving swiftly to take advantage of this, I set aside the view camera and began making some nude portraits of Cassandra, framing the images tightly to her torso and face. The strongest of these, shown above, has a wonderful quality of light and form to her body. The image makes a great counterpoint to the abstract body-images we'd made earlier in the day.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XV (Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia)

Of all the spaces I've worked with to date (going back to 1990), this was by far the most difficult to reach. Saying that it was a 45 minute walk into the lake makes it sound reasonable, but as the path was along a winding path though Nova Scotia woods and brush, and I'd opted to take both the 8"x10" and the 12x20 cameras (and both tripods) it was pretty close to sheer hell. Even with Brent, our host and guide for the day, carrying the wooden tripod and the 12x20 film holders, I was carrying close to 90 pounds of equipment, so upon our arrival at the lake, our first course of action was a desperately needed lunch and rest!

6x9 cm film

After a shoreline picnic, we began working in the lake, first with Cassandra posing on a small rock about ten metres from the shore. I began with a 12x20 image, and then moved in with the smaller, hand-held cameras to explore other possibilities. In the end, it was the small format images which best exploited the potentialities. When the sun broke through the fog and clouds, it began to provide wonderful shimmering highlights around Cassandra's reflection.

35mm infrared film

The rest of the session alternated between the four camera formats. The hand-held cameras were usually used to sketch out idea, and if the strength of the resulting poses and compositions called for them, the larger cameras would be brought into play. Most of the images I did with the 8"x10" were portraits, taking advantage of the long open vistas across the lake as a seamless, indistinct background.

8"x10" film

The pleasure of working in such an isolated location was indescribable; in more accessible spaces, a measurable amount of energy is put into keeping an eye out for the chance passer-by, but in an out-of-the-way space such as this, the entire session is made without this consideration. The influence this has on the session is subtle, but evident; where on other sessions between camera positions, Cassandra would don her sweater, or huddle in the shade, at Second Lake, when she wasn't modeling, she was avoiding frogs, or casually lying on rocks for warmth.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIV (Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia)

This river space was shown to me by my friend, Brent, in hoped that it would work well as a modeling space; it proved perfect, with sun-warmed water flowing through the forest over rocks and boulders. The deciduous trees and thick coverings of moss and lichen made the entire area almost vibrate with greens.

6x9 cm film

Before I moved down off the road, and worked on the river's level, I made an image from the bridge over the water. The high vantage point was unusual, and I knew it would be a wonderful composition for the 12x20 camera (I also realized that it was impractical to use the 12x20 down by the riverside, due to the small and confined space).

6x9 cm film

Positioning the camera on the bridge was easy enough, but framing and focusing proved a challenge, as the ground-glass of the camera was about two meters off the ground. Eventually though, I got the camera set up, and we began to work on the pose. Initially, I had planned on a back-on pose, but because of some rather strong, pre-Portfolio sunburn lines on Cassandra's back (more proof of the necessity of sunscreen!), we had to opt for a frontal pose, lying back on one of the larger rocks. The flow of the water around the rocks turned almost misty due to the eight second exposure necessary for the image, but this, in combination with the incredible detail the large negative gives to the rocks and figure, makes the entire image a joy to view.

12"x20" film

The rest of the session was spent working with the roll-film cameras from the forest-floor. Because of the thick covering of trees overhead, the exposures were longer then I'd expected, which gave a very ethereal quality to the water, causing an almost ghostly quality to the motion blur. In addition to this, there was an unusually high amount of infrared radiation, and almost all of my infrared negatives ended up being grossly over-exposed. I can only assume this to be because the trees above were reflecting so much of this invisible light (they were glowing white, reflecting the light). I will keep this in mind the next time I work in such a space, and hope that the experience will lead to better results the next time.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIII (Long Island, Nova Scotia)

Of all the places I was to work with Cassandra, this was the furthest a field, at the end of a long drive that went more then half the length of the province. It was also the most anticipated, and least known space, being a waterfall I had good directions to, and yet had never visited.

35mm infrared film

Fortunately for all, the directions were incredibly accurate, and without a single wrong turn, we found ourselves at the falls; way at the top of the falls. At the top of a very steep, very slippery, very very treacherous set of falls. Never one to be daunted by the dangerous (or possibly egregiously stupid), we began the session by doing some exploratory images of Cassandra at the top of the falls. We then proceeded, with great care, to move the 20 or so meters down the near sheer rock-face, to a small flat area in the falls, which held great potential for images. This was, of course, with my 4"x5" view camera, and a nude Cassandra.

4"x5" film

As it turned out, while the hazardous climb down was successful, the waterfall was almost impossible to photograph; there was almost no safe place to set up the tripod, and even less space to stand. In the end, while we did make some images half-way down the falls, the strongest images of the day were made back at the top, before we packed up and left for the day.

4"x5" film

The final photographs were less "Nudes" and more portraits; Cassandra was still wet from the waterfall, and I made a short series of her with tangled, dishevelled hair; the thin lines of water blurring in the background contrasting nicely with the Cassandra's pale skin, while the dark mass on the right forms a great mirror to the shadowed face looking in the same direction. The general convention for a portrait is that the subject should have eye contact with the viewer, but in this case, the image is stronger for the lack thereof.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XIII (Mersey River, Nova Scotia)

This session was by far the shortest of all the session with Cassandra - probably 20 minutes from start to finish, with four sheets of 8"x10" film exposed. We'd seen the Mersey River through the trees, and thought it had definite possibilities. The only problem was the proximity of the road, which, though screened by the trees, was uncomfortably close.

8"x10" film

The day was still foggy, though it was late morning by the time we were set up and ready to work. The light fog gave a terrific sense of depth to the trees on the far side of the river, while the placid water, unmoved by a breath of wind, flowed gently downstream. I knew that the images had to be made looking upstream, into the fog; there were several rocks that emerged from the water which had potential, and it was with these we chose to work. Initially I tried my portrait lens, but it restricted the view too much and gave little sense of the space. So I settled on my moderate wide lens (equal to a 35mm lens on a 35mm camera) and framed up the composition. This choice was right and we set about working cautiously, in light of the proximity of the road.

In the end, the images were made without a hitch. We worked out the pose and camera position and framing with Cassandra in the model-sweater, and then quickly disrobed just before the images was made. Several cars and trucks whizzed by us on the road, oblivious the images being created at the water's edge.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XII (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

I never plan more then a session ahead of time, generally speaking, but when I first worked with the Lunenburg shore, and ran out of film as the light was fading, I knew I wanted to return to the space, to continue exploring it. As I had already used the 12x20 camera indoors, I was interested in applying it to working with the nude outdoors, to see what the "mother of all cameras" could do that no other camera could.

12"x20" film

The first lesson of the camera outdoors is that it was incredibly large and slow. This was the first camera where having a second set of hands wasn't a bonus, it was close to a necessity; even moving it often involved asking someone to hold it while I scrambled up or down the low rock faces with the tripod and film. Fortunately, with so many other people (no less then five, including Cassandra and I) on the session, there was no lack of help with the camera, and the four images we made were accomplished with relative ease. The most successful of these, to the left, emphasizes the mirroring of Cassandra's body by the landscape, with the incredible detail of the ultra-large negative only adding to an already successful image.

35mm infrared film

As we progressed through the 12x20 images, we also made explorations with 35mm infrared and 120 black and white, working swiftly and spontaneously. The two ways of working complimented each other well, with long, careful compositions being made with the larger camera, and then, when those were concluded, a series of "sketches" were made with the smaller cameras, either pursuing compositions or angles unavailable to the more cumbersome camera, or experimenting with images that I wasn't willing to commit onto the (much) more expensive sheet film.

35mm infrared film

At the end of the session, I was filled with an incredible sense of fulfillment; the simple act of working with the 12x20 camera outdoors was an accomplishment of sorts, but the feeling that I had made successful images heightened the feeling even more. At the time, neither Jeff (who owns the camera) nor I had actually seen images made with the camera, but the possibilities which I had set to film danced in my mind's eye. It would actually take us another ten weeks to work through the issues of processing such large film, and successfully process negatives. With the processing of each negative taking twenty minutes in the dark, and a full forty minutes in total, developing the dozen negs I made with Cassandra would ultimately take almost as long as processing all the 8"x10" sheet film we exposed over the entire two week expedition; that said, the results more then speak for themselves, and I very much look forward to continuing my exploration of this camera format over the coming years, as my comfort and understanding of it grow.

Cassandra, Nova Scotia XI (Feltzen South, Nova Scotia)

The first day we arrived at Feltzen, we were given a tour of the property, including an old foundation, complete with a massive stone base for an fireplace. From the moment I saw it, I knew I wanted to work with this space, to see what it would lend itself to with a model. I enjoy working with models in architectural spaces, but generally, intact environments (like houses) hold little interest, when compared to the visual richness of a space which is decaying, and gradually being reclaimed by the natural environment.

6x9 cm film

Augmented by the soft light of the fog-shrouded morning, I chose to concentrate on colour images emphasizing the lush greenness of the grasses and the coloured flowers surrounding the structure. The juxtaposition of the warm glow of Cassandra's skin against the cool stone and foliage worked particularly well. Also, as the morning was not particularly warm, the smaller, faster cameras seemed more appropriate.

35mm transparency film

I did work with the 8"x10" for those images which seemed particularly strong, but the main focus was on the colour images. As I've said before, the incredible ease of working with the larger Toyo camera is just a pleasure, especially when moving to it from the smaller cameras. Having already explored the space in colour, I had clear images in my head, so the work with the 8"x10" went swiftly, moving through several poses and images before wrapping up for the morning, and returning to the house for lunch.

8"x10" film

When I envisioned Cassandra, the Nova Scotia Portfolio, I had considered the possibility of including a colour image, and after this session, I strongly felt that idea might become a reality; it was another month before I was able to proof the colour work, but as soon as I saw the images of Cassandra among the verdant green, I knew one of these would be part of the portfolio.