Tanya

There are times, when photographing, that you KNOW everything has come together for a great image. Tanya’s complete comfort in front of the camera is at the core of this portrait, but the descision to use some of the white sheets I was using to diffuse the light (coming through a double deck-door) as a reflector on her left side was what really elevated this from pleasing, to striking.

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Sometimes the simpliest set-up is the best; in this case, I spread my white sheets over a double-deck door, and asked Tanya to stand against the wall of white…then she started curling her hair in her hands, and the image was born

Tanya

The light on the day of this session was so low I was dubous that Tanya and I would have much sucess working indoors, but as it turned out, the light was more than bright enough. That didn’t stop us from working at her bedroom window when we’d finished exploring the other photographic options in her bedroom. Window light can be absolutely magically.

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To celebrate the beginning of a new year, I went to Peggy’s Cove, hoping to work with the ice pools that form by the ocean (the mixture of salt and fresh water often freezes in interesting patterns); as it turned out, the afternoon was snowy, so the pools were covered with snow, so instead, I found myself working with ice formations.

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This image was a complete surprise - the calla lily was recycled from the previous day’s work - I’d never had a flower survive a freezing, but when the previous day’s flowers melted in the sink, this lily was unchanged, which permitted me to freeze it again - yeilding a completely different result!

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Part of the magic of working with the frozen flowers is the suspense of finding out how they froze; in this case, the resulting block of ice was almost perfectly clear, providing some beautiful air-bubbles around the mango calla lily!

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One of the challenges of the frozen flower images is how powerful some can be, and how subtle others. In this case, the frozen African Violets lost much of their colour, but the resulting baby blue is most appealing, though how it will stand up next to more vibrant images remains to be seen!

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The quest for colours continues - most of the primaries are covered now, but there a good many combinations of colours which remain to be explored, such as this pair!

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Sometimes, the beauty of an image is in it’s parallel - sometimes, the rising of a new day’s sun can be the most beautiful thing in the world.

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The biggest evolution in my frozen flower images is the realization that the images that appealed to me the most were those that featured the full flowers - that kind of images is more challenging, as the ice needs to freeze without serious flaws, but when the freezing work, they are beautiful.

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Only a few of the frozen flower images use more than one blossom, but when the ice freezes just right, these are some of the most pleasing photographs in the series.

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Made at the very end of Ruth`s first session, this image was by far the strongest of the `body` images (as opposed to portraits). The soft afternoon light wrapped beautifully around her body, while the infrared camera elevated the skin tones just perfectly.

Ruth

I almost always fall back on Nude portraits when working with model indoors; in the landscape, I can work with the relationship between a body and the surroundings, but indoors, it always seems to focus on the model, and their relationship to themselves (and to some degree, to the process of being photographed).

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Ruth had contacted me in the early fall about modeling to mark her 40th birthday, but it was almost three months later that we finally managed to work together. Initially interested in a couple`s session, we ended up working together one afternoon, taking advantage of a soft afternoon`s light coming through my livingroom window.

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In the couple of years that I have spent working with frozen flowers, I have seldom had a “perfect” result, but this Christmas Cactus is probably the best I have produced. Fortunatly, this particular flower block was created well into my explorations of the process, and takes full advantage of all the tools I’ve brought to the images (stitching for higher resolution, focus stacking for greater depth of field).

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One of the frustrations I frequently have when working with landscape is how important the uncontrolable is (in this case, the weather). While this image is very pleasing, and works quite well, without the dramatic sky, it would be rather lack-lustre, bringing to the fore the question of what makes a good photograph - the photographer, or chance?

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It was just by pure chance that I arrived at this highway look-off at the exact moment of sunset - in face, as it was, by the time the camera was set up and the image was made, the glow in the sky had faded noticably.

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Without the dusting of the snow, this image wouldn’t have worked - but luck was with me, and the beauty of the stark, bare trees was revealed by the white sea from which they emerged.

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Landscape is becoming an interesting subject for me - not exactly because I am “interested” in it, but because it seems that more and more of my casual attempts at photographing it are working - and it is facinating to me that they do, as landscape isn’t a subject that particularly interests me, but in this case, the beauty of the rock-face reflected in the water pool completely drew me in.

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It is always something of a crap-shoot whether I`ll make good images during a workshop; as the primary goal is providing instruction, making my own images is always secondary, but in this case, this image was a demonstration of technique, as well as an image I sought to make. The setting was wonderful, with a low bridge running between the two wharfs, which provided the perfect place to set up my camera.

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I’ve only been across the P.E.I. bridge a couple of times, but each one left me wishing I’d had time to stop and make some images. Fortunatly, on this trip (to teach a workshop) I had an hour to spare, and spent some time working with the 17mm T/S lens, and the massive structure.

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While I never go into a session with concepts in mind, as soon as we began working with Stephanie’s mask in the studio, she began to describe some ideas she had, foremost of which was wanting to “look like a broken doll”. It was only towards the end of the session that we really hit our stride, and made a series of images that really focused on Stephanie’s ideas!

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I never thought that a mask would be so engaging to work with, but between Stephanie’s enthusiasm, and the beauty of the feathers around the mask, the session yeilded some stunning photographs!

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A new image…I haven’t worked with frozen flowers since the summer but, with the Fall in full force, I’ve begun freezing images.. This orchid was a gift from a friend who couldn’t resist a half-price sale!

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There is no way to balance out the destructive nature of a forest fire, especially when it cost people their homes (but fortunatly, no human fatalities). That being said, as the forest slowly rejuvenates, it provides the most magical place in which to photograph!

Elissa

Elissa and I drove for some time, trying to find fall colours; in the end, we found these brilliant bushes, and I made a series of images of her behind them - but this one, the last in a series of portraits, is my favorite, for the beauty that shines through her eyes.

Elissa

The entire focus of this session was to work with fall colours, but as it turned out, they were few and far between; fortunately Elissa and I came across this richly colour branch which served our purpose well!

Elissa

This was the last image of Elissa from this session and it was more of a test than a serious image. I don’t often think of making portraits with a 17mm lens (equal to a 12mm on a APS-C sized DSLR) but, given how important the surroundings were, I thought it would be worth a try…and it certainly was.

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I usually avoid working with direct sunlight whenever I can, but in this case, the harsh shadows, combined with the dramatic dark lines of the burnt trees seemed oddly appropriate,.

After the Fire

I’d worked in this space once before, with Vanessa, but all that session did was leave me with the feeling that so much more could be done with the setting, given more time. Sadly, while Elissa and I had the best of intentions, by the time we’d arrived, the cool fall weather had taken its toll, and Elissa was starting to become chilled; all the same, she was up for the creation of a handful of images, with this being one of the first ones we made, simply standing a looking out over the renewing forest.

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While Elissa and I were specifically looking to work with fall colours, I often found myself drawn the strong angular light of the fall afernoon, which provided strong shadows to work with. I also took advantage of the 17mm TS-E lens with this image, keeping Elissa centred in front of the camera, and shifting the composition to the right, which provided me with the composition I sought, without distorting Elissa’s figure unnecessarily,

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As soon as I saw this broken branch, I knew I wanted to make an image of Elissa below it. Fortunately, it was just the perfect height for her to reach and arch herself back, catching the beautiful afternoon light raking across her torso and belly.

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This was the last composition of this session; I wanted to make a photograph that emphasized the chaos of the burnt trees but still focused the eye on Vanessa’s figure. In order to prevent her form from being heavily distorted, I used a tilt-shift lens, keeping her centred in front of the camera but shifting the composition to the side. This image is featured in my short article on tile-shift lenses.

The Burn

All through the site of the forest fire, I saw potential - dramatic shapes set against the new growth on the forest floor.Towards the end of the session I caught sight of a beautifully curved tree that was too large to have Vanessa pose against.  I realized, however, that by using it in the background, I could mirror its lines in the model’s body. The lovely, silky bokeh of the 85mm f/1.2 perfectly completed the image.

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Vanessa and I worked hard to match her figure perfectly to the burnt branch above her - the final touch was asking her to pull her hip in, so the branch never touched her hip or back. The large aperture of the 85mm f/1.2 lens helped focus the eye on the model and branch, as opposed to being distracted by the surroundings.

Vanessa

A super-wide angle lens is not the most common choice for a full-body portrait, but in this case, using a bit of the shift to keep the perspective neutral (as opposed to pointing the lens down), and then a lens swing to shift the focus from being parallel to the camera helped make the most of the situation. This article is featured in a short article I have written on tile-shift lenses.

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I have always loved the drama of wide-angle lenses, but have frequently been frustrated by the distortion and warped perspective that they often add to an image when used with smaller cameras (as opposed to wide-angle lenses on large format cameras, which can correct perspective with camera movements). All this changed in June of 2009, when I received my 17mm tilt-shift lens, which opened up much the same possibilities with my digital SLR camera.

Vanessa

There is nothing quite like window light for portraits - even if the window was made decades before, and the light is filtered through bushes and trees.

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Towards the end of the session, Vanessa’s first modeling Nude, we made a series of portraits on the crest of a hill, lit by the setting sun. Vanessa’s position was just sycronicity - she’d just finished a pose curled upon a rock, and had jsut sat up, when I asked her to stop moving - her pose was perfect and the light was magical, bright, yet directional - just perfect to work with!

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After Vanessa and I finished working with our last set of water images, we packed up and headed for the car…or that was the plan. We came over a rise and saw this sculpture on a rocky outcrop. I asked Vanessa if she’d like to work with it, and minutes later, she was clambering about in the twisted metal and rock sculpture.

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As soon as we reached the ocean, Vanessa and I started working with it. Initially I made images of her back on, set against the sky reflecting in the sky, but quite spontaniously, Vanessa began to trail her hand through the water, and I caught a glimpse of this. After shifting the camera position, I had her repeat the motion again and again, as I photographed it. Out of this came a number of striking images, but this one is the most statuesque.

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This was from the first set of images I made of Vanessa; the first images carefully omitted the sun, but as I refined the image, I realized the sun was a crucial part of the composition. Though Vanessa had never modeled nude before, she took to the process like a fish to water, and from the start worked with me to make some beautiful images.

An essay about the finishing of this image is on-line here.

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The result of a 16 minute exposure, this is one of the most successful of my recent explorations of night photography - often I am using multiple exposures to balance the shadows and highlights, but this image, made a couple of days after the full moon, had just the right balance to work without any post-production!

Sui

At the very end of this session, Sui spent some time working in a tidal pool; the water was only warm enough to permit one good pose, so we made the most of it. This was one of the few handheld images I’ve made with the Canon 17mm T/S lens. First I had to focus the image with the live-view (infrared does not focus at the same distance as the visible spectrum); then I composed the two images (shifting the lens between them) that made up the composition, all the while keeping the camera the same distance from Sui.

Sui

This summer has been one of the foggiest for years and has led to some beautiful images, including this one. It was made less than 18 hours before the arrival of a hurricane. The fog was blowing around the two of us with great energy, but it looks wonderfully peaceful in this image.

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While Sui and I went to the coast primarily to work with water, we both decided it would be best to work with the rocks on the shore first, figuring we could head back to the car once she was cooled off from being in the water. After working a bit with rocks by the water, we found this massive rock wall; and within five minutes, I was clambering all around, exploring Sui’s wonderful pose. With careful post-processing, the harsh line on the rocks above her is pretty much invisible.

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As most of my water Nudes have been in river and lakes, seaweed hasn’t played a major part in those images; in this case, however,Elissa was lying on a rock in the centre of a bed of rock-weed (ascophyllum nodosum for those who care), which in infrared rendered very pale. This made for a different image, as it focuses more on the motion of the seaweed under the water rather than on the surface.

Elissa

I haven’t often worked with models in the ocean (as opposed to my water Nudes in rivers and lakes, which abound), so it was a great treat to have Elissa model in the Atlantic Ocean for most of this session; the water was quite comfortable, and the sheltered inlet we were in provided enough protection from the swell of the open ocean. We made a couple of different images on this particular rock, but I liked this one the best, with Elissa’s pale skin providing a nice contrast to the dark shadow below the rock she’s upon.

Elissa

This image quite consciously quotes a much earlier portrait of Victoria which I made in Alberta in 1999. I haven’t done a lot of work in fog (as much as it seems to be the most common type of weather sometimes), so I wanted to make a portrait of Elissa which spoke as much about the setting as it did about her. Using an extremely wide-angle lens, and then stitching two frames together (as opposed to cropping one frame into a square) gave me a very dramatic composition, showing much of the world around Elissa, while still keeping her the centre of attention.

Elissa

Though my main focus when working outdoors is creating images of the Nude in landscape, I am always open to other possibilities, the foremost of which are striking portrait. This image was made about half-way through the session, when Elissa was resting between poses in the ocean. She glanced over her shoulder at me, and it looked just perfect. I asked her to stay still, switched lenses, and made this image, my favorite portrait of the session.

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I’d never been in this space at high time before, but when I saw how little of the rock in the foreground was visible, I immediately asked Elissa if the last image of our session could be made with her posing upon it - I’d already made two other images in the same space (here and here), and wished to complete the series with this very different view of such a beautiful space.

Allison

The last images during this session were a set of portraits made with the setting sun lighting Allison. I have mixed feelings about harsh, direct lighting, but in this case, it worked beautifully!

Allison

Towards the end of this session, I asked Allison if she’d be willing to try working in a tidal pool (the ocean was a little cooler by this time, and wasn’t practical anymore). After testing the water, and finding it more than warm enough, we proceeded to explore a number of poses, but none was as pleasing as this, with the late evening sunlight falling across Allison’s toros, and throwing her arms in sharp relief against the rocks under them.

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Allison’s haircut is just perfect for this image, framing her face, but in no way interfering with the sunlight falling on her torso.

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Several months before making this image, I’d created a photograph in the same space, but at the time, I couldn’t realize the image I really had in mind, as I didn’t have an ultra-wide angle lens. As soon as the session began, I mentioned to Jill that we’d save “that rock” for the end of the session, which was when this image was made. I don’t see this as a case of one image being better than the other, but it certainly is a situation where one image directly lead to another.

Jill

I have always loved how infrared renders seaweed, and whenever I can, I try to incorporate this into my water-nudes. In this case, I’d asked Jill to find a comfortable pose on the rock, so that as the water moved around her, she’d become surrounded in the dark green-brown seaweed, which rendered almost pure white in infrared.

Jill

I’d thought this session would be one spent working with the rocks along the Atlantic shoreline, but when Jill discovered how warm the water was, we spent most of the session working with it. This portrait made the most of the harsh lighting, and is one of my favourite portraits of the session.

Jill

I’m quite surprised by how successful this image is, given how sunny the afternoon was. All through this session with Jill I returned to making portraits of her, always asking her to be back-on to the sun. Of all of them, this is my favorite.

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After Noushka finished working in the water, I did a small number of photographs of her wet skin before she towelled off and we headed back to Halifax.

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We made some more traditional water nudes towards the end of Noushka’s first session. We worked by the side of the falls where the stones around her were naturally dark and wet. The combination of the rocks, and the way the infrared camera rendered Noushka’s pale skin made Noushka’s pale skin even lighter, yielding a very dramatic result.

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Sometimes, it is the lines and shape of the landscape that inspire an image but for ones like this, it is the lines of the model herself that inspire the photograph.

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Made early in Noushka’s first session modeling, this was also the first image I shared with her, helping her gain some confidence in the process and the results. One of the pleasures of working with digital cameras is the ability to immediately share particularly successful images with models. When working with film, it would often be days or even a week or more before I could share the results with a model; now, when an image is strong right on the camera screen, I can share the results then and there.

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This is the longest exposure I have used for a digital night photo to date (2030 seconds), and feels like the gateway to new body of work, just waiting to happen. There is such a magic to long night exposures, both in how the colours render, and how the movement of the planet (and thus, the stars) makes the sky alive with light.

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It’s only after working with the frozen flowers for more almost a year that I have come to the conclusion that it is the complete flowers that hold the most beauty for me; especially at the beginning of the exploration, I made details, focusing on elements of the whole, but this only served to distract from the flower’s form.

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I hadn’t even noticed this tombstone, but when we’d finished working with the larger stone, Miranda asked if I wanted to work with this one - and as soon as I saw how surrounded it was by brush, I said yes, certainly, envisioning how light the foliage would look in infrared!

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The day was coming to a close when we came across this small graveyard; years before in New Brunswick I’d made an image with Ingrid posing Nude on a gravestone, and while this image was very different, I never the less felt this image was related.

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One of the pleasant surprises of working in Cape Breton was how warm the water was (it helped that the day was in the high 20’s). I hadn’t expected Miranda to do any water nudes, but was more than enthusiastic when she suggested working on this rock. It is always amazing how important shutter speed is to water images - in this case, with Miranda, the shutter speed was much shorter than I usually use in rivers, in hopes of capturing some of the flow of the water, around the rock on which she was perched.

Miranda

If someone asked me what I looked for from a good figure session, it would be a striking Nude (focusing on the body), and a strong portrait. This image, my first outdoor session with Miranda in almost a year, certainly fulfills the second criteria!

Miranda

When working with new models, a lot of the energy of a session goes into find a pose, but with someone like Miranda, who’s worked with me for almost a decade, poses seem to come as fast as I can work with them. In this case, I’d pointed out to her a ledge on this rock, and explained how I’d hoped to work with the rising cliff behind her - and by the time I had my lens on the camera, and the tripod in place, she’s already found a fabulous pose!

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Made during a field-trip I was leading for a night photography class, this image is a combination of perfect timing, and painting with light - my test exposure captured a beautiful sky blur, while the second image, when I painted the basket with light, had a lack-luster sky…but the two of them together were perfect.

The Find

An experiment with painting with light.

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After teaching a class on painitng with light, I was on my home when I saw this perfectly parked digger (i.e. it was parked in the shade) - I couldn’t resist!

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Both Stephanie and I really liked this line of rocks, and with a bit of work, we came up with a wonderful pose, with her legs tapering and mirroring the rock behind.

Stephanie

This was the last image Stephanie and I made during our first session working outdoors together - we’d begun with a number of sucessful landscape nudes (here and here), but I’d wanted to make a portrait of her before the session was over, so when I spied this spot, where a rock had sheared in half, I thought it’d provide and idea setting for a portrait - then, as Stephanie moved into the space, I saw how her hip aligned with the rock, and the final portrait came together beautifully.

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Stephanie and I have been working together for more than six months, but this was our first chance to work outdoors - between her schedule and the weather, it took months for all the stars to alighn for both of us. This was made early into the session, and has a wonderful irony - Stephanie has told me I’d have to provide her with lots of direction, as she had no experiance posing outdoors - yet for this image, the pose was entirely hers, and completely spontainous!

Into the Fire

A friend and I went to the beach, to burn some of her past…much of the paper was documents, but some were personal writings, all of which she wanted to be destroyed. Only towards the end of the fire did I notice the beauty of words disappearing into the fire.

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Kayla had come to Halifax for a weekend, and crashed on my couch. The next morning, I caught a glimpse of her checking out the great outdoors, and was lucky enough to make this image!

The Kruzenshtern at Berth

The tall ships are in Halifax again this year [link] , with several of the larger ones being berthed in the ocean-going piers near the mouth of Halifax Harbour.

The Krusenstern or Kruzenshtern (Russian: Барк «Крузенштерн»;) is a 375’ long Russian four masted barque and tall ship that was built in 1926 in Bremerhaven-Wesermünde, Germany, as shipyard number “S408” under the name Padua (named after the eponymous Italian city). She was given to the USSR in 1946 as war reparation and renamed after the early 19th century Baltic German explorer in Russian service, Adam Johann Krusenstern (1770-1846). The Kruzenshtern is the second largest ship in the Russian fleet.

Of the four remaining Flying P-Liners, the Ex-Padua is the only one still in use, mainly for training purposes, with her home ports in Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) and Murmansk. After the Sedov, another former German ship, she is the largest traditional sailing vessel still in operation. Originally, like all P-liners, she was painted according to the colours of the German national flag of the German Empire era, black (hull above water, topsides), white (waterline area) and red (underwater body).

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While I’ve worked extensively with the Nude in lakes and streams, the ocean hasn’t played a major role in my water images for a variety of reasons. In this case however, the setting was perfect, with perfect, angular rocks sweeping out of the ocean, and a shelf perfectly placed for Elissa to pose upon.

Elissa

Elissa and I had hoped to work with the sunset over water for this session, but it turned out that the location faced the wrong way for that. We were fortunate though, to find some wonderful long grass to work in, which lead to this portrait, made towards the end of the session.

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This striking glacial erratic seemed perfect as a photographic setting but I was concerned its bulk would overwhelm Elissa’s figure; I asked her to perch as close to the edge of the rock as possible and used my widest lens to keep her prominent in the image. Though they are rare, there are times when the success of an image is immediately evident on the camera’s view screen. This image couldn’t have been made without my new 17mm tilt/shift lens, as I was actually standing to the right of Elissa, and shifted the lens to the left to achieve the framing (two images stitched together to create the more square aspect ratio).

Harriet

The last image of the session was a standing portrait, against a group of trees with which we’d worked for a good twenty minutes. By this time, the morning sunlight had softened due to the rising clouds, which in turn made the light in the woods wonderfully soft - just perfect for a portrait!

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I have always loved working in forests, but in Nova Scotia, the bugs tend to be rather rampant…in the afternoon and evenings at least…but this session was a morning sessions, and the bugs hadn’t woken up yet!

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There is a great deal of power and strength in this pose, like an ancient warrior tired from waging a mythic battle.

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I asked Harriet if she could walk down to tracks towards the sun. Both of us thought it might be a but silly, but the results were quite nice - focusing on her as she walked was a little hard, but a couple, like this, were tack sharp!

Harriet

There aren’t many models who are keen about working early in the morning, but Harriet asked if we could work first thing in the morning, so we met up before 8am, and got an early start. The lighting was wonderful, and while the woods around us were dark, along the railway tracks we walked in on, there was some wonderful morning light, catching the oak leaves, and providing the perfect light for a portrait!

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As Harriet and I were walking to where we expected to work, we passed under this highway bridge - I immediately stopped, catching sight of the morning light reflecting off the bridge piers. I asked Harriet if she’d consider posing on one (this was her first session outdoors), and she was up for trying it! The results were exactly what I’d hoped for - a great beginning to the session.

Tia

All through this sessions (Tia’s first working outdoors), I made portraits of Tia, trying to capture something I couldn’t quite define. Right at the end of the session, with the wind whipping through her hair, I finally got it! A perfect portrait!

The Mermaid

As soon as Tia saw this image, she said “I look like a mermaid” - thus the title!

Tia

Towards the end of this session with Tia, the sky began to get really interesting (for most of the session it was clear and empty, which is not the best for infrared photography). We found this wonderful rock slab by the shore which was perfect for Tia to pose upon, reclining below this beautiful sky.

Tia

This image was the last in a series of four different compositions in this space. At the bottom of a seaside gorge, the rock wall above Tia was just lovely, rich in texture, but it took some time to find the right pose - in the end, it was happenstance, as Tia moved from one pose to the next, that lead to this beautiful portrait.

Tia

I don’t have many images of models smiling (though my favorite to date is of Tanya), but this portrait has such a wonderful comfort and warmth to it that I immediately knew it was one of the best images of the session. It was, incidentally, the last image of our session, and Tia’s first time posing nude.

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An image like this is completely made by the beautiful side-lighting; a different light source (or direction) would have changed the image utterly. I especially love the the line running from Tia’s sternum towards her belly-button - just lovely!

Tia

It has been almost a decade since I started working with white sheets, to focus an image on a model, as opposed to the surroundings, and I am still completely enamored with the way it simplifies an image, and keeps the focus on the beauty at the core of much of my work.

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An image of a ruined boat on a Newfoundland shoreline might be a stereotype, but it still looks good!

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The S.S. Ethie coastal steamship ran aground in a fierce storm on December 11, 1919 at Martin’s Point, a few kilometres north of Sally’s Cove. Luckily all of the 92 passengers and crew were saved, including a baby sent ashore in a mailbag. The sea has eroded most of the S.S. Ethie, however a few pieces of the hull, the boilers and engines are still visible from shore.

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The S.S. Ethie coastal steamship ran aground in a fierce storm on December 11, 1919 at Martin’s Point, a few kilometres north of Sally’s Cove. Luckily all of the 92 passengers and crew were saved, including a baby sent ashore in a mailbag. The sea has eroded most of the S.S. Ethie, however a few pieces of the hull, the boilers and engines are still visible from shore.

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I couldn’t believe my luck as I worked with these dead trees - the sky became progressively clearer as I worked, providing me with some clear blue sky to place the trees against (and in infrared, a blue sky goes practically black!). In this case, there was just enough scattered cloud in the sky to work com positionally (leading the eye to the right corner), but not enough to interrupt the drama of the dead wood against the dark sky.

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As soon as I came around this point, on the very edge of Gros Morne National Park, in western Newfoundland, and looked back, I knew I had the potential for a striking image; the sky was slowly clearing up, and the breaking clouds were move quickly above the rock formation below. Using the 17mm tilt-shift lens, I was able to frame up the dramatic rocks without distorting their shape - keeping them jutting up into the sky, as opposed to having to tilt the camera up to see the sky, which would have made the rocks seem like they were falling backwards (just like when you point a camera up towards buildings).

The Rock

A friend and I had driven to the coast, to see what could be seen (literally, there was no other reason for the drive). I was walking along the shore when I saw this lovely rock, wreathed in seaweed. It was just close enough to shore to work with, yet far enough to be surrounded by water.

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