Yellowknife Notes

Hound is barking at Jenny as she comes to visit and view the in progress renos. Great watchdog but it would be excellent, and quieter, if she could distinguish friend from foe.

So the latest project, apart from the ongoing renos, is

Yellowknife Nudes

While I have shot B&W studio nudes for some time, there is something about the landscape in the North, at least in the summer, that attracted me to attempt a nudes in landscape here. While I have been heavily influenced by Edward Weston and Bill Brandt, it was a concept of trying to combine the abstracts the landscape offer with the human figure.

Haven't the fainest idea where it is going to go.

I'm not overly fond of the vast majority of nudes in landscapes one sees on the net. Much of what passes for 'art nudes' used to be called for what it is, a bit of T & A.

I'm also in some doubt about digital imaging. Don't get me wrong, I like it, wouldn't go back, but it feels like something is missing. It is, I suspect, the mental process. I was showing a neighbour, a local artist, how easy it was to convert a RAW image to a wide variety of styles using presets in Adobe Lightroom. Selenium toning? Bam! Sepia? A fraction of a second. Velvia, Kodachrome, or Ektachrome emulation? Instantly!

The problem I think I have with digital imaging is it seems to take away the pre-image contemplation. You were governed, by a greater degree, though the whole process by what you desired as an end result. To need repeat a shot could be a lot of work. Last winter we had a youth photo component to the Arctic Winter Games 2008. Pat Kane, the photo editor at Uphere magazine, had the youngsters shoot everything manually. Their work improved immediately.

Technology is an old argument. When I was a student in the 70's, David Bailey was quoted in an interview that the 35mm camera was going to ruin photography as young people weren't learning the fundamentals of photography with large format cameras.

Anyway, to get back to the point...

A gutsy model this woman. While all of Canada has been complaining about the rather cold dismal summer so far, here in the North, where summer is short, it most certainly hasn't been sweet. The summer seems to have arrived last Friday but this was shot before them. It was about 16C that day.

Now these are just work prints. With eight months of winter here there is more than enough time to play with Lightroom and Photoshop when the outside temperatures fall lower than most normal North American thermometers go which is -40C.

There is a subtlety I hope to achieve. Perhaps Lightroom and Photoshop will answer.

However, if you are in Yellowknife and would like to model, let me know. I do pay a fee, I'm not GWC. (Guy With a Camera) Yes, it is a small town but as you can see, for this reason, I do preserve anonymity. Unfortunately the both models I did have elected to head south for other adventures. It is the bane of Yellowknife life, particularly with the younger people, by the time you get to know them they leave for other things.

Out rhubarb has been trod down by the builders. Our neighbour says we can harvest hers as she is on an extended vacation.