Nicole's First session

Digital infrared original

The primary goal of a first session is pleasing the models, and gaining their confidence with the process, but when I can combined that with creating strong portraits like this one, it is a good session indeed! Nicole was introduced to my work by Miranda, and after meeting to discuss things, we set a date to work together.

Digital infrared original

This entire session was spent with Nicole posing on a couch covered with a white sheet; the light was perfect to work with, flooding across Nicole 's figure, and providing beautiful soft highlights and shadows.

Digital infrared original

Even through I have worked with digital for four years now, I still find making images in colour challenging - it is so much more complex than working in black & white. One of the few situations in which I really feel I can work well in colour is when it is relatively monochromatic - and filling the frame with skin does just that.

Another Session with Ingrid and Skulls

Digital infrared original

This session was an oddity for Ingrid and I; so much of our work together is focused on bodies in landscape that it is unusually for the two of us to work together indoors. A month earlier, we had spent some time working with some small skulls, and this session was planned as a continuation of that approach.

Digital infrared original

Much of the first half of the session was spent focused on portraits - Ingrid's comfort with modeling really comes across in portraits, and the natural luminosity of the infrared camera worked well with the white sheets Ingrid posed upon.

Digital original, 3 frame stitch

The end of the session had us returning to the skulls, but this time, I worked with a little more distance, emphasizing the delicate scale of the skulls against Ingrid's body.

The Magic of Digital infrared

Digital original

I am occasionally asked why I prefer to work with infrared cameras so much; I have few examples as powerful as that of mussels; in IR, they are just SO different from in colour (the irony of course being that I never use infrared images in colour...but the blue is so pretty in this case!).

Digital infrared original

a Second Session with Elena Indoors

This portrait of Elena is from my first session working with an infrared converted Nikon D80, and overall I am very pleased. And Elena is one of the only models I have worked with who’s eyes go lighter in IR, not darker!

Digital infrared original

Working with the IR converted D80 was a great improvement over the previous IR camera (a D70); the RGB histogram made an immediate difference in creating accurate exposures, and the increased resolution (10 mp vs 6mp) was welcome as well.

Digital infrared original

In many ways, my winter indoor sessions are practice; as much as I like the results, they never resonate with me as strongly as images of the Nude outdoors; with Elena however, there is an extra edge to these images - her face carries beautifully in portraits, and help strengthen the images overall.

Digital infrared original

Moments of Clairty

Digital original

As I was waiting for a bus, I suddenly saw a distant water tank, with as simple blue line set against a dull white sky.

Digital original

Moments later, the curved arch of the ceiling of the bus shelter came into clarity, and I made a composition that was as much about the frame around it, as it is the image within.

Digital original

And moments before the bus arrived, a Coke delivery truck stopped in traffic, and the ghost of a hand print was etched into my mind's eye.

Ingrid Models with Small Skulls

Digital original

Though Ingrid's prize possession is a horse skull, she also has a collection of smaller skulls, and these were the focus of this indoor session, exploring the contrast of the body and the bones, so to speak.

Digital original

The light for the session was simple window light, but where we were positioned, on the floor below, was perfect for providing a soft, even illumination which really ties the two subjects together visually. I have always loved the combination of bones and the body, finding the contrast and similarities fabulous to explore visually.

Digital original

The Ice Returns

Digital original, 5 frame stitch

This morning the frost returned, so I grabbed a camera, and continued my explorations. Though I really like the images I am getting, I am becoming more and more frustrated with the approach I am using (a 50mm lens with extension tubes) - while the main part of the images are plenty sharp, the lens is not designed for such magnifications, and have serious problems on the edges…a macro lens would be much sharper. The pennies are being counted, and perhaps by the end of the month, a macro lens can be added to the mix…

Digital original

This image makes me think of an Asian script character - something speaking of both cold and fire perhaps.

A Chilly Morning in Moncton

4 frame stitch

I woke up this morning to find frost on almost all the windows…so I had to photograph it. This image is made with my lens hood pressed up against the glass with the frost on it…with the focal plane adjusted to be exactly on the glass…this image is a stitch of four frames, to increase the quality and resolution.

Digital original, 2 frame stitch

Sadly, this is the only photography I did today. A model was supposed to join me for the afternoon, but came down with a cold, so she had to postpone our session. Hopefully in a week or two, we’ll get the chance to work together!

An Exhibition in Prague Castle

I was voted as one of the top 12 photographers of 2006 by the readers of PhotoArt magazine, so four of my images were exhibited in Prague Castle by the magazine’s editors.

Above are the four images displayed within the castle, and below you can see them on the left side of the image.

H_'s Birthday Suit

This was from a first session with a new camera, and a first session with a new model. Harriette contacted me last week, asking if I’d be available to help her with some nudes to commemorate her birthday, so today, on her birthday, we spent 2.5 hours working together…with her in her birthday suit! The lens I used to make this image was a tilt-shit lens from Russia, which explains the shallow, selective focus.

Digital original, 2 frame stitch

Though she lived away from Halifax, she was planning a visit, and was hoping to spend some time celebrating herself as she moved past a milestone in her own life. Luck was with us, and after a short discussion about her goals for the session, we began working. Thought it was January, the light was bright and wrapped around her a H_ modeled in the sea of white sheets.

Digital original

By far my favorite images of the session were the portraits, both those made early in the session, which had a somewhat formal feel, and those made towards the end of the session, when H_ had really relaxed into the process, and lay stretched out in a bed of white.

Digital original, 25 frame stitch

Together, we made some lovely images, and I have just under 12gb of RAW files to edit through before I have a sense of where the best successes lie! While Harriette is leaving in under a month, I’m hoping to have the chance to work with her more over the coming weeks!