Fall Colours Field Trip (Ingramport, Nova Scotia)

The last fall colours field trip of 2019 had a poor start...the initial location where I'd arranged to met the students had NO colour to be found, but fortunately, there was a backup location just down the road. Fifteen minutes later, the students and I were out, looking at colour, and making images.

Digital original

As tends to be my default with water, I worked a lot with neutral density filters, and was very pleased with the result. I am particularly pleased with the look of reeds and grasses reflected in the time-smoothed water - I certainly will see if I can incorporate that into my work with models in the future.

Digital original

After working with long shutter speeds for the first part of the field trip, I switched to my macro lens, and made some details of plants...and the colour just didn't work for me, so I converted it into monochrome, and was much happier with the result.

Digital original, 2 frame stitch

The final image was actually made below a highway bridge - the river the passed below was slowly moving, but with a neutral density filter, I was able to introduce enough blur that the colour of the foliage, as opposed to the surface of the water, became the focus.

Fall Colours Field Trip (Shubie Park, Nova Scotia)

Digital original

I am fully aware of the irony of making in posting a blog post with the title Fall Colours, and leading with a monochrome image, but the above photograph was the first image of the field trip which spoke to me - and no colour was anywhere to be seen.

Digital original

Shortly after the monochrome images of the twigs were made, I caught sight of a small rock in front of a wall of fall colour - and the lower I moved, the better the reflections became, so I inverted my camera, and worked just above the ground. I experimented with a couple of different shutter speeds and in the end, 1/4 of a second provided the perfect mix between stillness and motion.

Digital original

The last images were a mix of the early monochromatic stick images, and the rock reflection's burst of colour. Some thin water grasses emerged from the lake, and with a long lens and careful composition, I managed to get the hint of colour into the frame, making a very quiet, yet colour-dependant image.

A First & Final Session (South Shore, Nova Scotia)

Digital infrared original

First sessions are always challenging; I have to walk the balance of engaging the model and gaining their confidence, while still pursuing images that move my work forward. For this session, after a couple of missed attempts, E_ and I managed to synchronize our schedules, and headed to the coast for an afternoon session. The session had to be short due to other commitments, so once we arrived at the coast, the two of us dove into the process of making art.

Digital infrared original

A great advantage to Nova Scotia in the fall is that when it is warm enough (as it was on this day), the light is lovely all day long - for this session there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but the sun was low enough to provide contrast and definition to both the landscape and E_'s figure. A great advantage of the coast where we were working faces the afternoon sun, so the light was about as good as it gets at that time of day.

Digital infrared original

After a little over and hour, the session had to be called to a close, to get back to Halifax on time. I could have photographed to sunset, but as a collaborative process, it isn't always what I want that come to pass. In the end, E_'s first session was also my final work with the Nude for 2019 - so it was a first session, and the last.

A Final Session in the Forest (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

Since Hailey and I first worked together in 2018, we have worked almost exclusively at the coast, with a focus on working in water (following her passion on that front). For this session, I suggested we try working with something new, and work in a forest close to Halifax.

Digital infrared original

The fascinating realization that came out early in the session was that Hailey's spent little to no time in forests; she grew up in the Canadian North, and found all the trees, underbrush and ferns quite overwhelming. It was not possible to convey this in the images we made, but her constant wonder and surprise at the nature of the landscape she was in was a definite undertone to the session.

Digital infrared original

Though I have worked in Nova Scotia forests for several decades, I still find them challenging settings to photograph - trees are, ultimately, big vertical sticks, and as such can be quite challenging to photograph a model with. Fortunately, in the area we were working in, a fair number of the trees has some shape (or in the above case, lean) to them, which provided some inspiration to work with.

Ocean Sunset with Hailey (South Shore, Nova Scotia)

On this evening, Hailey and I had about 90 minutes to work before sunset, so we headed out to explore the possibilities. We've both explored the shore on which we were working extensively, but still managed to find a space completely new to both of us.

Digital infrared original

Below a high rocky outcrop we found a narrow pseudo-cave, formed between the outcrop and a massive granite boulder. With some care, we both moved into the space and Hailey found a perfect rock shelf to lie upon. The light coming into the crevasse was quite delicate, and provided lovely highlights on Hailey's reclining torso.

Digital infrared original

After emerging from the crevasse, the evening light was even more striking than it had been earlier, so we made a series of images taking advantage of the low, raking light. Working right by the calm Atlantic ocean permitted me to keep the horizon low, and balance the busy, highly textured foreground against the largely empty sky above.

Digital infrared original

In contrast to the dramatic wide-angle of the shoreline images, I created a set of images of Hailey posing in high grasses just inland from the rocks. Using a portrait lens and large aperture to create a wonderland of shallow depth of field, I took advantage of the magic of infrared kept the image from being too contrasty (I was photographing directly into evening sunlight, after all)

Digital original, 4 image exposure blend

The last images of the session were spent enjoying the warm wash of light the sunset provided; Hailey and I had moved right down to the shore for these images, and I used a super-wide lens to set Hailey's figure against the broad Atlantic shore she posed upon. A lovely end to a September session.

Hailey and Ingrid at the Coast for Sunset (Atlantic Coast, Nova Scotia)

As soon  as the calendar turns to September, I begin to watch the weather, aware that the warm days and lovely evenings will eventually draw to a close. With this in mind, in Early September, Hailey, Ingrid and I headed to the coast, and spent a lovely evening explore the landscape and light.

Digital infrared original

One of the first successes of the evening was a set of images I made of Hailey on a rock, in front of a scrubby stand of trees. The evening sky had some lovely low clouds on the horizon, and I used a long lens with a large aperture to keep the background soft, and provide some distinct separation between Hailey and her surroundings.

Digital infrared original

The passion that Ingrid and Hailey have for working in water has been a huge influence in the work the they have helped me create over the past couple of years. The ocean on this evening was particularly calm, which made working with these seaweed covered rocks particularly easy - as the waves came in, water swept through the channel, and reinforced the flow of the bodies between the rocks.

Digital original, five image exposure blend

The last images of the session fulfilled the real hope for the session - a sunset-focused photograph. Until moments before, I was feeling quite negative about the chances of getting some colour in the gray evening sky (and therefore was working with my infrared-camera) but in a split second, a red wash of light spread across the horizon, and sent me scrambling to change cameras. Fortunately it was near at hand, and Ingrid and Hailey already had poses worked out, to permit me to make a handful of images before the sun disappeared for the day.

A Final Island Day (Prince Edward Island)

Digital original

On my last day of this brief visit to Prince Edward Island, I decided I needed to get a quintessential hay-field photograph, and as it happened, just outside of New Glasgow, I spotted a field of freshly cut hay. Ten minutes later, I had made a couple of dozen different compositions - the best of which is above.

A Butterfly House (New Glasgow, Prince Edward Island)

Digital original, three frame focus stack

By far my favourite part of this trip to PEI was the discovery of a Butterfly House in the Gardens of Hope, New Glasgow. I'd wanted to go to the butterfly house in Halifax (at the Nova Scotia Museum) but never have managed to make the planning work...but in this case, we arrived at the garden about an hour before the butterfly house closed...so there was more than enough time to photograph.

Digital original, two frame focus stack

Tough I had my tripod with me, there was just too much congestion (between the butterflies and the people) to set it up, so I photographed hand-held for the entire time, but that didn't stop me from making numerous focus stacked images!

Digital original, two frame focus stack

One of the last images I made in the butterfly house was also one of the most pleasing focus blends - I made two images, one of each butterfly, and then manually combined the images together, to better reflect what my eye saw.

Digital original

The last images of the day were of a beautiful gray heron hunting in the evening light - not easy to photograph, even with a 420mm lens.

Island Wandering (Prince Edward Island)

Digital original

Early in this day of wandering we drove east across the top of the province, photographing anything that caught the eye. In this case, a small fishing port at high tide.

Digital original

On our way towards the south-west of the province, we passed by a large field to sun flowers, and had to turn the car around, so I could park and make some photographs...I'd never seen such an endless sea of sunshine!

Digital original

The last photos of the day were made in Summerside, looking out towards the Northumberland straight, and some lovely layers of clouds.

The North Shore (North Rustico, Prince Edward Island)

Digital original

A three-day sojourn to Prince Edward Island provided me with the chance to do something I don't often do - walk with a camera. While waiting of a dinner reservation, I sauntered around the fishing village of North Rustico, and made some images.

Digital original

My favourite image of the evening was the above one, with the brilliant evening sun coming through  the edging on a wharf - the texture of the pressure treated lumber was lovely!

Digital original

The last images were of some lobster traps, working with large apertures to throw the incredibly busy background out of focus...the fact it gave me a fast enough shutter speed to avoid camera shake was an added advantage!