Megan Returns to the Studio (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

The last day of February was spent printing work for my first solo show (due to open in early April, in Orono, Maine) and waiting for the night's session with Megan. Back in the studio again, it wasn't fifteen minutes before Megan commented she liked working at my house far better, that the studio didn't seem as natural.

4"x5" film

It is amazing how quickly the studio wears thin - both Megan and I agreed that the next session would be with natural light, in a "real" environment. It is hard working with nothing but a figure and light - I can do it with no problem, except for the little question "Why?". Nudes in nature speak to me as naturally as a mother tongue, but in the studio more often than not I find myself at a loss for words. There is nothing I seem to want to say.

4"x5" film

What saved the session in a strictly photographic sense were the portraits of Megan. We played more with portraiture than the nude time-wise and, even when she was nude, more of the images had her face in them than cropped out. It was a relief to me to be able to turn to portraiture when I became frustrated with the nude in the studio setting, and to know that the resulting images could be part of my work, given Megan's comfort with modelling. I think the coming summer bodes well, both for my work with the Nude, and for a body of portraiture.

Valentine's Day with Megan (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

It was in November when I first noticed that the sun had shifted sufficiently in the sky so that it shone directly into my bedroom through the blinds and onto my bed and floor. It took me three months to translate that initial wonder at the pattern cast by the binds into images - I knew I wanted to work with that pattern of light, it was a model I lacked

6x7 cm transparency film

Fortunately, as is quickly becoming the norm, Megan was available to models on this particular day, and though it was about -8° and windy outside, it quickly became more than warm with the wood stove and the sun streaming through the window. Starting out working at the window itself, I quickly found what I knew I wanted; though it has been done before, and was by no means original, I sincerely enjoyed working with the highly directional light. For the first time in eighteen months, I brought out my 8"x10" view camera and even made images with that.

35mm infrared film

After working on and around the window for an hour or so, we moved to working on the bed, which was quickly becoming bathed in light. Even with the blinds up, there was incredibly rich modelling across Megan's body, and for the next ninety minutes we worked in the slow moving patch of light, occasionally filtering the light through the blinds or lace.

4"x5" film

One of the most enjoyable elements of this session was the number of camera formats I used (four - 35mm, 120, 4"x5" and 8"x10"). Many times, I found myself seeing an image in a very specific manner - previsualizing the result as opposed to seeing the origin, so to speak. Being able to simply pick up the camera that came closest to the previsualized image was wonderfully freeing. The transparency of photography for me continues to amaze me. In 1996 when I first glimpsed this possibility it shocked me. Now it flows into being so quickly that I literally do not notice until after, when I stop to reflect on how a session went.

8"x10" film

The most dynamic element of the session was a piece of lace which Megan brought. She was interested in having some images made with its pattern falling across her body. The results were really surprising to me - the pattern spread across her skin in a fluid, graceful flow, becoming progressively diffused.

Megan in the Shower (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

35mm transparency

After finishing with the candle-light session, Megan asked if there was anything else I'd be interested in doing. I'd never worked with a model in a shower before, so I asked if she'd be interested in experimenting with that - and fifteen minutes later, we were back to making images - this time, in a small bathroom.

35mm film

The shower was an interesting setting to work in after making the images by candle-light - both environments have a strong emotional connection to intimacy (though with a shower, there was also an overlay of privacy, and to be candid, at first I felt quite voyeuristic). Megan was really positive to the experiment, and when I realized I had to leave the bathroom door open (to keep the humidity down, so my camera lens didn't fog up), she laughed the sudden influx of cold air off, stating that it was more important that the photographs worked than that she was comfortable.

35mm film

In the end, the shower session only lasted minutes; I worked through three rolls of film (108 exposures), and was left with some really encouraging results. I particularly like the look of water on skin, and certainly will continue to work with shower Nudes in the future, should the opportunity present itself!

Megan by Candlelight (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

35mm film

This was another session with Megan, in a less traditional setting - a candle-lit room. I had done candle nudes in the past, but I felt new work was in order, and as I had Megan as a model, all we had to do was get down to business and make the images.

35mm film

The one thing about candle-lit images is that the exposures are long - even with Kodak T-max 3200 rated at EI 1600, my exposures were in the realm of 1 second at f/8. With the 120 negatives I made, I used Ilford HP5+ rated at 800, and the exposures were up to about 8 seconds at f/16 after factoring reciprocity failure. One advantage of the roll film over the higher speed 35mm film was that it was being shot on a view camera, and I could take advantage of camera movements to combat the shallow depth of field I had to put up with to get reasonable exposures.

4"x5" film

The most successful candle nude, on the left, was made towards the end of the session - the radiant light from the candle and the subtle fall off over the curve of her hip and back translated exactly from what I saw onto film, make the candle session a wonderful success.

Megan's First Session (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

I have not done any studio photography since December 1995. This was more because of lack of access than lack of interest.

Megan is a co-worked of a friend, and knew of my photography through him. She expressed interest in working with me, and after meeting and going over my work, we set a time to do some photos. Both of us would rather work on outdoor nudes, but given the weather outside (our first session took place only a week after the major ice storm that put most of Quebec and Maine in the dark), we decided that could wait until we could walk outdoors without risk of frostbite and went into the studio.

35mm transparency film

This was the first time I'd used studio flash in over two years, but it came back swiftly, and very soon the consideration was what to image, not how to light it. Megan has done a fair bit of self-portraiture in the studio and was thus comfortable being in front of the camera; Even though this was our first session working together, it went surprisingly well.

6x12 cm film

By far the nicest element of working with Megan was that she is comfortable with her face being in the images. Most of the models I have worked with in the past have been reticent about being identifiable in the images. There is something incredibly powerful about a confidant portrait of a person standing (or sitting for that matter) completely nude and looking directly at the viewer. These kinds of images are very different from my outdoor nudes, but no less compelling or beautiful.

6x12 cm film

The session as a whole was very successful. I made some very strong images on infra-red film, and began a relationship with a new model. I hope that in the coming weeks and months, Megan and I can do more work, eventually working our way outdoors.

Mortalities evolves into Evolving Beauty

On this date, July 1, 1998, my original website site, Mortalities (1995-1998) was republished as Evolving Beauty, with 120 images posted over 15 galleries.

A Final Figure Session in Fort Knox (Prospect, Maine)

Similar to the earlier session with Cass and Ellen, my final full day in Maine was full of rain and drizzle. Cass and I had hoped to return to Schoodic and work on the rock with the ocean around us, but given the weather, we had to either scrap the session, or find a sheltered place to work We settled on Fort Knox.

4"x5" film

In 1990 and 1993, I had worked with nudes in the forts, but since then I had stuck strictly to more natural settings. This was more an accident of timing than a deliberate avoidance of ruins as a setting for nudes. Part of the reason I enjoy working with the nude outdoors is that it removes context from the images - images of nudes in "personal" surroundings - a bedroom, living room etc, re-enforce the sense of the individual, as opposed to promoting the universal. While I have made images in personal settings, and feel they are very successful in their own way, they function in a far different way from my outdoor nudes. Using a fort as the setting for nudes is about halfway between the personal nude and the outdoor nude - the fort serves more as an architectural framework than a personal signifier, yet it is not in the wilderness, as my other images are.

4"x5" film

Because this was my last day in Maine, and among my last days of serious photography this year, I brought will me all my film and cameras - my 120 back had kicked-it in the day before, so I had to rely upon re-loading in the field to take more images than I had film holders. By the end of the day I had reloaded three times, for a total of 87 final images (some were misloaded, double exposed, or otherwise flawed). Due to the ambient weather conditions, there were real problems with contrast - the mist and fog in the air brought down the local contrast in many of the images to almost mid-gray, which has made many of the images difficult to print.is a problem aside, I think that many of the images I made on this day have potential - I will have to work with them in the darkroom before I can pass final judgment.

composite of five 4"x5" film images

Many of the images I made of Cass were variations on a theme - this was more because I knew it was my last day and I had film to spare, than because I would prefer to work this way. n several cases, producing several negatives in a single setting lead to surprises - successes where I did not expect them. But on the whole, it reinforced my reason for using a view camera - considered, planned images are far more successful, all things considered, than those taken from the hip, relying upon spontaneity and luck (I mean no insult here to 35mm shooters - many of you can do things I would never dream of attempting with a view camera). The lesson of the day is three-fold - 1) before I next go on a two week photo trip, pay off a minor deity to alter the weather in my favour 2) forts can indeed work as settings for the nude, as a universal as opposed to personal and 3) view cameras are still where it's at for me.

A Final Session at Fort Knox (Prospect, Maine)

4"x5" film

My third visit to Fort Knox was by far the most successful - first of all, I arrived with plenty of time to work, second of all, the light was reasonably co-operative, and third, I knew my way around sufficiently that I had ideas that I wanted to work with when I began the day.

4"x5" film

I could spend a month working with Fort Knox - especially now that I have seen the result I got on my initial visits. The light and repetitive nature of the architecture calls to me in a way few things do, and I found the days I photographed there among the most pleasurable sessions I've had in years. I had the time to work, the subject to work with, and the skills and tools to achieve my pre-visualized images. The only limiting factor was the changing light, and the inevitable end of the day. I would have worked with colour extensively on this day, but my 6x12 back gave me technical difficulties early in the session, and rather than fight with it all day, I swallowed hard and put it away, instead relying on black and white to convey my vision of the day.

4"x5" film

The one element which has always been elusive for me in the past has been a way to capture the sense of space within the forts I work with. Cameras inherently distort and change one's perceptions though their nature, and it is difficult to use these factors to one's advantage. With the view camera though, and extremely wide lenses (like the 65mm super-angulon) it is possible to give some sense of the incredible visual spaces that exist in the forts. Fort Knox was the first fort where I extensively used my 65mm, and the sense of space which resulted is wonderful - the exposures, some as long as 25 minutes, provided enough depth of field for the image to be sharp throughout, but the sense of receding depth is wonderful. There are no forts in Halifax which have the long, well-lit shooting galleries that surround Fort Knox, but seeing how the 65mm lens performed in such conditions makes me eager to apply it to the sites that surround Halifax.

Two Models in the Rain (Schoodic Point, Maine)

The biggest difficulty with working with the nude outdoors is that the weather seldom co-operates - either it's too sunny, or too cool, or threatening rain - or even raining. On this particular morning, Ellen, who had modeled for me a week before, and Cass, who I'd met shortly there-after, had got together to work with me - but it was threatening rain.

4"x5" film

Ever optimistic, we set off in the car - directly into the rain. Grasping at straws, we went all the way to the the coast, only to find it shrouded in rain and fog. I wanted to call it quits, but both Ellen and Cass were determined not to let the rain prevent the day from moving ahead, so after buying some cheap plastic rain-gear, and weather-proofing the camera-gear as much as possible (wrapping film-holders in a plastic bag) we set off to work. It must have been quite a sight, two nude models clambering around on cold, wet rocks as I struggled to keep the rain off the camera,frame the images and direct the models.

4"x5" film

The coastline where we photographed was incredible - the jagged rocks and stone beaches were a paradise to image in. Working as quickly as I could, I managed to make a good 20 images before the models finally gave up being stubborn and admitted they were cold. The work though, was well worth their effort. There's little direct evidence of the rain in the images, but the glistening rocks and wet hair contribute to an over-all impression of the day. The fact it was raining a fair bit when the images were made was negated by the long shutter-speeds, though the contrast on the negatives is a little low, probably due to the amount of moisture in the air.

4"x5" film

The final set of images made on this day were actually made in the last moments we had before setting off back to Orono. After we finished working in the rain, we all bundled into the car and drove a little further, to the Schoodic Park parking lot, where we came across an incredible space. A huge rock face had broken lose from the remainder of the bedrock, and slid downwards, creating a natural cavern - the light shone through it, creating a wonderful rim-light effect on the far opening. Though they were still a little chilled from the earlier modelling, both Ellen and Cass agreed that such a space should not be overlooked. There really was only one camera angle that worked, so after fifteen pose variations, we bundled the gear up and headed back to the car, and a hot spaghetti dinner in Orono.

An evening at Fort Popham (Prospect, Maine)

4"x5" film

Fort Popham was constructed to defend the Kennebec River and the town of Bath, Maine, from naval assault. It was never completed however, and to this day piles of unlaid stones litter the inner courtyard of the fort. The remarkable thing is, even though it is unfinished, it has stood for over 150 years virtually intact. The basic design was drawn from Fort Knox, though there are specific elements which differ.

4"x5" film

It took me a while before I could get past the visual beauty of Fort Popham, and begin to photograph it. The light which filtered through the open arches and into the gun casemates was soft and delicate, lighting the barrel vaulting in a very sculptural way. Almost 50% of the negatives I made at Popham were of the casemates, the repeating arches and the light that moved through them. The ultra-wide angle lens was critical at Popham - it allowed me to covey a sense of the massiveness of the casemates, while ensuring enough information was in the photos to give a sense of the openness of the space.

4"x5" film

The other element that drew me in at Popham was its spiral staircases. There are two of these at Fort Knox to the North, but those were obstructed by construction, and had modern, shiny hand-rails in them. Photographing these stairways was a challenge though - the enclosed tight space made me rely upon the 65mm lens, and for the final two images, I took the camera off the tripod and placed it face-up on the stairs. The image here was made in this manner. The exposures for these photos were over four minutes, and the fact that two people passed right over the camera and through the image is totally unapparent in the final image. The power of photography to record the elusive, and ignore the apparent is incredible to me.