These are a few of the shots I took of Lauren a few weeks ago, when she came over for a portrait session in the old apartment. We had a lot of fun using the pocket doors as a backdrop and Lauren was terrific in front of the camera.
May 26th, 2010
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I first met Kirsten Chursinoff at Northern Voice a few years ago, when she came up to chat with me between sessions. She recognized me from Flickr and as we talked I realized I’d seen her textile work a few years before at The Secret Garden Tea Company.
This portrait session was very much inspired by the colourful fibre art Kirsten creates with fabrics and threads. She provided all of the objects I worked with and she brought over a large variety of things to choose from. She was also very patient as I placed layer upon layer of thread over her arms and upper body. I wanted these photos to be similar to the portrait of my sister. I was interested in exploring the theme of fibre arts further and feel there are many interesting ways to use thread as a prop.
The final shot is a composite pulled together from two photos. I created the set using spools of thread and a cute pincushion Kirsten brought over, and then had her pose separately holding the giant scissors made by Peter Kiss. It all came together nicely in photoshop – after a few hours of hard work that is.
May 23rd, 2010
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Sometimes I don’t have a clear idea of how I want to photograph the person I’ve asked to pose for one of my portraits. This was the case with Kristi, though I did know I wanted to use a natural setting.
My original idea was to use her garden as the setting, but it was too early in the year for the garden to have much growth. I decided to improvise and scouted around for a location near her home just before the shoot. The ivy was located at the front of her house and proved to be the perfect setting for the portrait. The vines were thick enough to crawl into and I disentangled a few and layered them over her body.
I like the smaller series of nature portraits that is slowly taking shape within the larger body of work.