trinity

Beth has become one of my favorite models. Initially we worked together on fashion shoots; a couple of years ago, at the end of a catalog shoot for a local designer who paid both of us, Beth approached me and asked about doing an art shoot. The next day we were out at the dunes creating images.

Although she already excelled at fashion work, there's a different kind of learning curve for art photography. There's nothing to hide mistakes. We did pretty well that first time, but it got better with each successive shoot. Beth is now at the amazing level in both the fashion and art nude genres, in my opinion. I've just finished choosing 44 images to work on from the most recent shoot, such a wealth of good things that it was very difficult to choose.

Beth is a chameleon, as are so many fashion girls. Her hair is different each time, and she seems to be a whole new person. This time she'd cut her hair short. She's also been dancing a lot, with a resulting obvious improvement in lean muscle tone.

We set the shoot for early October. Initially I'd planned a major excursion to a remote wilderness area southeast of where I live, it would have been two hours of driving each way with most of it on national forest roads. Fate intervened, a little before meeting time Beth called to tell me her car wouldn't start. So, a change of plans: I drove 30 minutes north and picked her up. On a whim, we decided to stay north, to shoot on the Trinity River instead.

It took about an hour to find a spot a little east of Willow Creek, a river access point that neither of us had ever visited before. The walk in was something a little less than a mile, and very steep on about half of that. The officially designated wild and scenic Trinity River flows in a deep canyon at this point, rocks and Douglas fir looming overhead on the walls of the gorge. The advantage of a difficult hike in, of course, is that there are typically very few other people around. We saw only two others on this warm and sunny day, two women who were friendly and open-minded enough that we just kept shooting as they waved and walked by.

The footing was often precarious as we scrambled over steep rock faces and boulder fields perched over the deep and cold river. The sun was bright and the shadows strong, but with some careful metering I was able to hang onto the highlights. An occasional puffy white cumulus cloud offered softer lighting. We stayed for several hours, alternately shooting and talking.

On the way out we paused at a large puddle in the trail, not far from the parking lot, for a few shots with a very different feel. Then it was back in the Jeep for the ride back to town.

Because of extended travel it's only today that I've had time to really work on the images.