A Drive to Quebec City

When Miranda let me know she was attending french immersion in Quebec City during the summer, by first question was "How are you getting there?"; a month or so later, Bobbi, Miranda and I were in a rental car headed to Quebec.

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Having decided to make the 10 hour drive in a single day, we started early in the morning, so it was early afternoon that er finally made it into the province of Quebec, where we took a break for me to recover from hours of driving. After the rest, I headed into the wilderness a little with Miranda, more for the sake of saying "we make photos in Quebec" than anything else.

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Bobbi Models in Lac St. Joseph

Bobbi has wanted to do water nudes since she started working with me in May, but the plans had never come together to facilitate a session until this one. Ironically enough, it was in Quebec that we
found a small stream to work in. I'd driven Bobbi and Miranda up to Quebec as a favour (it was cheaper for them to pay for the gas than a train or bus ticket and as a new driver, I was eager to try an extended drive), but also with the idea that during the full day I was taking between driving up and back, I would be able to work with the two models in a totally different province.

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As it turned out, the hard part was not the models, who were traveling with me but finding a place to work in Quebec. Though we met up with a Quebecois photographer, Jean-François O'Kane, he was not terribly familiar with the part of the province around Quebec City, so we ended up driving for more then ninety minutes before we finally found a location that would work for the session - ironically enough, a small stream that could just have easily been in New Brunswick as Quebec. It seemed strange to have driven for seven hours, only to work with a landscape so familiar, but by the time we came across the stream, we were running out of time and patience, and decided to take advantage of what was offered to us.

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As it turned out, just like at Neville Lake and la Dune de Bouctouche, Miranda wasn't interested in modeling with the stream; since her hair has grown so long, she has been reluctant to get it wet, given how long it takes to dry off. Bobbi (with much shorter hair) had been quite keen to model in water so she and I headed upstream away from the road to see what possibilities presented themselves to us.

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As it turned out, the river had a small set of rock rapids just out of sight from the road and it was with these that we spent most of the session working. The water was colder than I'd expected (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick water gets quite warm by midsummer), but Bobbi assured me she could model for a while and would let me know when she had had enough. Though I was working with my 8"x10" camera, I kept the images coming as swiftly as possible and managed to expose ten sheets of nine compositions before the cold water finally defeated Bobbi and she had to come out and dry off. In the end, we didn't even work with full immersion images (the water was just too cold), but the results of the session are pleasing nonetheless, with the strong lines of Bobbi's body set amidst the fluid wash of the stream.

Bobbi & Miranda at la Dune de Bouchtouche

Because this was Bobbi and Miranda's last day in New Brunswick before leaving for Quebec, I thought it would be a good one to spend on a single location. With the possibility that we might not be able to find an isolated enough location in mind, we set out for the dunes in the mid-morning. After the flowerpot rocks at Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick's best know features are its beaches; much of the eastern shore of New Brunswick is an unbroken sandy coast-line, but the best known beach in the province is la Dune de Bouctouche, which is the longest sand-dune north of the Carolinas (14 km long). I'd already visited the dunes while scouting out places to work in the province, but was unsure if it was possible to find sections of the beach isolated enough to work with models.

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It turned out to be surprisingly easy to get past the people and onto uninterrupted, unpopulated dune. The public boardwalk only goes 1/4 of the way down the dunes, and a half-hour walk beyond that left us alone in the world. In fact, for the entire afternoon that we worked on the dune (more then four hours), we only had one couple come along the shore, and when Bobbi went over to ask if they'd mind if we continued with our work, the women smiled and replied that no, they wouldn't mind, and in fact, it would be most pleasant- a most surprising and pleasant response.

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As with the session at Neville Lake, one of the freeing elements of working on la Dune de Bouctouche was the isolation; with two models, the usual modus operandi is one models hangs out (clothed) while the other is working, and visa versa; with the dunes however, as I was working with one model, the other would wander down the beach, into the ocean, or just hang out, nude the whole time. Probably the only issue with this way of working was the trail of clothing and equipment we left behind us as we moved slowly down the beach.

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On the whole, the session was one of the best of the year; less for the images that were made (which were definitely successful) but more for the tone and emotion - the day was warm and overcast, providing great light to work by, but not hot enough to become uncomfortable. With two models to work with, I could switch between them as appropriate, working with Bobbi in the tidal pools, and then Miranda upon the beach itself. Eventually, it was the weather that put a damper on the day - late in the afternoon, the wind came up suddenly and the sky darkened. Realizing that a downpour was likely imminent, we swiftly packed up, and walked the hour or so back to the parking lot and our drive home. True to prediction, the rain began as we were walking and by the time we met Joy with the car, there was pretty solid rain.

Models in an Abandoned House

As it turned out, try as we might after the lake, we drew blanks for other spaces to work for the afternoon; a drive up the coast yielded little other than construction delays and distant views of the muddy Bay of Fundy. Even after hunting down some promising looking rocks at Advocate, it turned out as perfect as they were to work with, they were in the middle of a popular tourist beach, complete with ...well...tourists.

After a short conference (after all, there were six people involved) we decided to cut our losses and begin the drive back, stopping on the way at a couple of abandoned houses we'd passed, to see if they had any potential. As it turned out, we never made it past the first one. Boarded up from the roadside, the back of the house was open, and we quickly agreed that the space had great possibilities.

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I spent almost my entire time in the house working on the second floor - for one reason, the second story windows were still intact (as opposed to kicked in, or boarded up); for another, the rooms had
beautiful lines to them, with the roof sloping down on one side and the old floorboards radiating out from below the windows.

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The first room I worked in (of two spaces plus the hall) had a wonderful element - a smashed light-bulb dangling from the ceiling. It was just lovely, lit by the light from the window. Bobbi spent five minutes energetically kicking debris to the other side of the room to get the floor relatively clean. The final composition, with the stark room and Bobbi leaning against the wall, wouldn't have been the same with paper and detritus piling up around her feet. The final image, with the white, empty
room has a much more appropriate feeling...a quiet, almost disturbing sense of calm.

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Both Bobbi and Miranda found a wealth of possibilities in the house and over a couple of hours, helped create a number of very strong images. The final photograph of the session, however, was carefully constructed by myself with a low angle, looking through two doorways at the two models. The hope was to try to create an image which demanded an absent narrative which would demand the viewer make up a story to explain the scene before them. I am not sure where this image originated, or if the approach (a deliberately constructed image pointing more towards a narrative, than simple celebration of beauty) will reoccur, but on the most basic level, I think the image is successful, which is all that really counts in the end. In some ways, it reminds me of an image I made exactly two
years earlier.

Bobbi & Ingrid at Neville Lake

A tradition of sorts began on July 1 (Canada Day) in 1998 when I first worked with Ingrid. Since then, more than half my Canada Days have been spent photographing the Nude, usually connected to either Ingrid, or Miles (who initially introduced me to Ingrid). Though we had met up for a day's photography two days earlier, both Ingrid and Miles were quite interested in the idea of meeting up again to celebrate Canada in our unique way, so we set upon northwestern Nova Scotia as the meeting point and made our traditional holiday plans.

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Not knowing the area, I kept my eyes open as we drove and, close to Parrsboro, where Bobbi, Miranda and I were planning to meet Ingrid and Miles, I spotted a possibility and after hooking up, we returned to Neville Lake, a provincial picnic park. The shoreline curved away out of sight form the picnic area, so after walking down the road a couple of hundred meters, and walking through the rather thick woods, we found ourselves in an area on the shoreline where we could work in the shallow water out of sight of other people.

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The lake turned out to be a perfect place to work on water nudes - the lake was so shallow that even a hundred meters from the shore, it was barely a metre deep. This meant it was perfect for modeling in, as most of the poses I liked were stretched out and the bottom was close enough that the models could lie half-out of the water without being right next to the shore. One of our first discoveries of the session was that the water seemed alive with pollywogs - both Bobbi and Ingrid had great fun catching the largest of these in their hands and watching them wriggle out of the water.

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The session overall had a great sense of play to it; Ingrid and Bobbi enjoyed the warm water, and the constant darting about of the dark polliwogs kept their eyes alight with glee - at times I had to fight to keep their attention on modeling. But the reality was that the space was so isolated that the models could afford to take the time to play; there was next to no chance of interruption and, while most of the spaces I work in are isolated, there is seldom such a sense of isolation and security that the lakeside provided. While the whole day was in front of us for working, we didn't know what other spaces would present themselves, so while we had the resources (plenty of memory for the digital camera), we worked and played away, making the most of the early afternoon.

A Candle Light Session

I have only worked with multiple models and candles a couple of times, and with mixed success - the small circle of illumination is difficult to work with when two models have to be lit, and while the intimacy it implies is welcome, if the subjects of the photographs are hidden in shadow, they have a much reduced impact.

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For this session, I was very directly building on the successes I'd had working previously with Miranda and Monique in April. That session had yielded a number of very strong images (in spite of losing more then half of the images to a tragic mistake), and made me rethink the difficulties I had had previously with two models and the candle. I think the root of the problem I had had was I was approaching it like a standard couple session, trying to light the scene with the candle, as opposed to building the image from the candle out. With the first approach, I would have the models find a comfortable pose, and then place the candle within it. The tactic I used for this session was the reverse - I placed the candle on the backdrop, and then had the models carefully move into the composition, adjusting their pose and position as dictated by the light.

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The impact this change in approach made on the resulting images was surprising. For over an hour the two model and I worked with the single candle, and successful image after successful image emerged. I started working with both models back-on to the candle, and making images of their buttocks lit by the light, but swiftly shifted to other less structured images. By placing one model in the foreground, in front of the candle, and the other model behind the candle, I had a base of the image (the first model) and a focus to the composition (the second model). I think the fundamental error I made in the past was I saw the candle as just the light course, and not the primary focus of the image.

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As the last session in a busy day, the candle-light photos were a great success. The primary advantage of the session was that both models could relax and be relatively comfortable during the session (though the question was posed as to why it couldn't take place on the far more comfortable futon), and the results were very pleasing. Bobbi has specifically asked about working with the candle, so after I'd exhausted the possibilities of both models together with the candle, Miranda moved to the comfy futon, and Bobbi and I made a small series of images of her with the candle alone.

Two Models at Cape Enrage

Shortly after moving to New Brunswick, I began searching for space in which I could work with the Nude; one of the most frequently suggested by locals was Cape Enrage, less than an hour south of Moncton. A quick reconnaissance trip confirmed the space was one idea for my approach, and I began to look for the right day to begin working with the space.

The greatest problem with any space on the Bay of Fundy is the tides; with a 9 metre tidal range, even if the weather and models are cooperative, if the tide is high, or close to high, then there is no space to photograph on. Fortunately, both the weather, and the tide was perfect for the space and we had a full afternoon available to work along the shore.As we arrived, the tide was falling. 

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My first images of the session were of the shoreline in its entirety; with the towering cliffs overshadowing the small nude in the foreground. These images relied upon the flexibility of the view camera, which permitted me to capture the 20m high cliffs without pointing the camera upwards and distorting the lines of the cliff (with a smaller format camera, the only way to have captured the cliffs would have been the point the camera up, which instantly would make the cliff lean back and recede). It is a hard thing to show the sheer massiveness of the cliff, but combined with the delicate nude in the foreground, and grand sweeping sky above the beach, the image gives exactly the feeling I was seeking to convey.

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From the first images onward, the entire session was focused with working with the models in the rocks, either on the shore line itself, or on the cliff-face itself, where the rock was more fractured and broken then the water smoothed stones on the beach. The joy of working with rocks was in that they provided such a rich spawning ground for images - the lines and fissures in the stone were easy to work with and both Miranda and Bobbi found plenty of spaces to pose in.

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As the session moved along, the light, which had started out diffused by high clouds, got even better as first high, then low fog moved in, softening the light even more. The only side effect of this was that the temperature began to drop. As a result, I began to more consciously switch off between the two models, giving each a chance to warm up between the poses. As the afternoon began to wind down and grow darker, I exposed my last sheet of 8"x10" film (I am limited to 20 sheets of film per session unless I spend the time to reload in the field), and shifted to working exclusively with the digital camera. By this point, the air had turned chilly with the fog and there was little energy left for the remaining images. Bobbi toughed out a couple of dozen exposures with the digital camera but was quite pleased to agree the session had come to a close.

Bobbi & Miranda at Hillsborough

Bobbi and Miranda's visit to Moncton presented me with the opportunity to really focus on working in my new surroundings. Because of my comfort and familiarity with Nova Scotia, my tendency to fill all my possible time in that province with photography has been effective, leading to some very strong new images but it is New Brunswick where most of my time is being spent, so it only makes sense that, over time, most of my images will be made here.

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All that being said, my list of spaces I know of in New Brunswick in which I can work with models is quite limited; I'd already worked at the Gypsum towers in Hillsborough with Ingrid, but thought the space had untapped potentials. Rather than revisit the interior, however, I opted to work with the outside of the towers, concentrating on the lines and form of the silos, and placing the models against them.

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It is often interesting, once a model has some experience behind them, to see what they come up with as poses if left to their own devices. With the silo, there were a couple of obvious spaces that the models gravitated towards and, with a little tweaking from behind the camera, each one yielded a number of good compositions. Working with models is certainly a collaboration but the more experienced the model, the stronger the collaborative element. This session really was a dance between the models' suggestions, my refining of the poses,my suggestions and the models' explorations of the possibilities.

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I'd intended the silo session to be short, more of a pit-stop on our way to the Fundy Coast than a full day session, but it ended even before I'd run out of ideas - the weather shifted and a light rain began to fall, forcing us to run for the car. Once we got the large format equipment into the car, however, the rain abated. As we paused, the wind came up and whipped through Miranda's hair. I asked if, before we headed off for the next space, we could do some portraits with the wind moving the hair. So we paused long enough for a few quick portraits to be made before the real rain began to fall.

Three Models on the Seafloor

Without a doubt, Burntcoat Head is one of the best spaces to photograph in that I have ever found in the Maritimes. Every since my first session working there in 2003, it has been in the back of my mind but the chance to return to it has been somewhat limited, both by the schedule of the tide and its distance from Halifax (90+ minutes) and Moncton (almost three hours).

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That being said, when plans were being made for Miranda and Bobbi to come up to Moncton to model for a few days, the suggestion was made to meet with them and Ingrid, as well as photographer/occasional model Miles, at Burntcoat Head to get in a day of photography in before we headed back to New Brunswick. I agreed to the plan, and early in the afternoon, a small army descended upon Burntcoat Head (seven people in total!).

Having already worked at both Burntcoat Head and Hopewell Cape in New Brunswick, I was better prepared than every before for the particular exposure issues presented by these spectacular spaces. In colour, the rocks present little problem, as their deep red shows up well but with black and white film, getting the correct exposure for both the model's skin and the dark rocks around them has previously been difficult. Black and white film is naturally insensitive to red; with the rocks being so red, they have a tendency to record about four times darker then they seemed to the eye. The simple solution to this is to provide more exposure for the rocks, while reducing the development of the film to combat the increase in exposure. I tried this approach with Ingrid at Hopewell Cape in the spring, and it was better than any of my previous attempts but with this session, I finally hit upon the correct combination of exposure and development.

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Because there were three models and two photographers present (kind of an embarrassment of riches), the session took on a slightly more structured feel than most. I began by working with Ingrid and then switched to photographing Bobbi and finally working with Miranda. There was a slightly artificial feel to this approach, and I couldn't help feeling that while I was working with one model, I was ignoring the others. From time to time, an image would present itself that called for a second or third model, and I could take advantage of the extra talent present, but on the whole, I felt that I was constantly missing possibilities because I couldn't be in two places at once.

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This was by far the best timed session at Burntcoat Head, with us arriving as the tide was falling, and working until we had to leave, as opposed to when the rising tide forced us off the beach. Even after four hours of working on the shoreline, there were so many images that went unmade that I long to return to the space to continue exploring its possibilities.

Two Models Pose Together

The final session of my Halifax visit was indoors; when I'd worked with Bobbi on Friday, she'd asked if I'd be interested in working in an apartment she knew of - she'd heard me bemoaning my lack of indoor spaces to shoot in and thought this might be an option. I replied that any space was good to know about and that I'd certainly be interested in the space if the weather turned uncooperative or wet during the weekend.

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As it turned out, Monday was threatening rain, so rather then cancelling the session with Bobbi and Kylie, I opted to take Bobbi up on her offer of a workspace. Thanks to her thoughtfulness, we began the last session before driving back to Moncton. Though it was threatening to rain, the light wasn't too bad: with patience and good tripods, there was never an image I wanted to make that had to be abandoned for lack of light. We began with a series of image on a chair, and then a couch; these worked but, in some ways, seemed to similar to the images I'd made with Kylie and Miranda in March so I quickly changed things around and moved to other spaces.

On the back side of the house were double-deck doors, letting in some beautiful soft light. With the models standing beside the doors, but far enough from them to prevent the frame from being in the image, some incredible side-lighting presented itself. I had initially thought of this space for standing portraits but after I finished those, I asked both of the models to work the space - the results were very striking - similar to the best two-model images I have made in the studio.

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After working by the deck-doors, I shifted my attention to the most unique feature of the apartment - the white fireplace lintel. It took some work and some careful balancing but eventually both models worked on the narrow shelf, with the final image of Kylie being the strongest in composition and the use of the space.

As the session began to draw to a close (one difference between working close to home and far away is that now sessions often come to a close because of my schedule, as opposed to the models), we shifted rooms totally, and moved onto the bed in a smaller side room. Here the light was even lower than in the main apartment but the more comfortable, intimate setting was a refreshing change after lengthy standing poses and the hard wood of the lintel.

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Overall the session was quite successful - it it hadn't been for Bobbi's offer of a space to work, it would have been hit and miss with the weather. We made a wide variety of images, working with a number of very different settings in a quite small space.