Marrington Shoots

We lived in Charleston, SC for almost 5 years during the 1980's and during that time I used my wife as my primary, and almost my only, model. I did get to shoot with one or two other ladies from time to time, but those opportunities were few and far between. That was fine, really, since Wanda was such a great model and always willing to pose for me, so I had lot's of opportunity to practice with the camera.

The image to the right was taken in a place called Marrington Plantation, which was actually a park area on the Naval Weapons Station. Wanda and I spent quite a bit of time shooting on the plantation, as it was conveniently close to our home, and we would often bike there during the week for a picnic and a photo shoot. During the week the place was essentially deserted and we could wander around the grounds for hours without running into anyone else. We were almost surprised once by a group of young boys out riding their bikes, but they didn't see us and we were shooting clothed shots at the time anyway.  We had a bit of laugh about that inciddent.

During this time, I experimented with black & white film quite a bit, but I finally determined that I really preferred color images. B&W is great for composition and tone, but I just prefer the pop of color. The image above was taken with a Canon AT-1 manual focus, manual exposure camera and a Vivitar 70-210 Series 1 zoom on Tri-X film. It's a scan from a print, rather from the negative, but a decent image all the same.

We've always played around a lot with our photography and had fun shooting in interesting places. This sign warned visitors to Marrington that there were dangerous alligator's in Mark's Pond - so we just had to take this shot.  We also did a shoot with Wanda in hose, heels, and lace lingerie at the edge of the pond. Strangely enough, we never saw any 'gators while we were there.

I have many more images from Marrington and from those days in Charleston, so I'm sure a few more will pop up now and again in this blog. 

Fantasy and Reality

A number of years ago, we some a great couple in Las Vegas. It turned out that they were also from Oregon and had a home on the McKenzie River. We had a great time talking with them while we were there and they were quite interested in my photographic endeavors. They told us they had a great view of the river and surrounding forests from their home, and offered to let us use their land and their deck for photography if we ever wanted to visit.

Life being what it is, we didn't get down there right away, but we were able to visit them the following summer and were amazed at the beauty of their home and of their land. The McKenzie moves deep and swift past their land, and in the summer their deck is covered by a canopy of green. The home decor relies primarily on the natural wood tones of the lumber used to build it as does the multi-level deck that rises from the slope that leads to the river and attaches to the back of their home.

Over the years, we've used their land for several photo shoots and the image above is only one of many images I've captured there. This image, however, is somewhat special. For our 25th anniversary, I decided to give Wanda a different kind of gift that would merge my love of glamour photography with her love of fantasy art and decor. It just so happened I know a very talented and creative art designer in San Diego, and I commissioned her to use this photograph to create a custom piece of art for Wanda. The first image she produced is below and to the right.

As you can see, she extracted Wanda from her surroundings and added a castle wall, swords, a gown, jewelry, flowers, and other articles. The swords are from photos of a sword that hangs in our home, the flowers are images of columbine I shot for another project, the table and knife behind her replicate other items in our home, but the gown and the jewelry come entirely from the artist's imagination and skill.

We did collaborate quite a bit on the image as she sent me several images prior to the producing the final version. The wall came first, then we decided to put swords on the wall. She found the flowers on my website and decided to use those in the hair. The table was her idea as well, but I suggested the knife that's on the table. The table's color and texture match an antique piece that we have in one of our bedrooms.

Since the final image was to be framed and hung in our bedroom, I did ask for one final addition, for even though our bedroom is a place of privacy and intimacy, we do occasionally have other people in the room. The final image that was printed and framed can be seen below:

Super Trooper

Wanda has been my best model for a long time. You might say, I really learned most of what I know about photography by shooting her. As that primary model, she has tolerated my passion for images not only by posing for me, but also by standing is rushing water, climbing trees, braving frigid temperatures, snowstorms, and oceans waves. We've often hiked several miles to get to a spot where I want to shoot, and she's right there beside me the whole way (sometimes dragging me along). When we're out shooting, she knows that if I see a bit of water, I'm going to want to pose her in it. I have hundreds, if not thousands, of images of her over the years in streams, forests, deserts, oceans, on on mountains, rocks, beaches, and trails. This post, however, about snow.

Wanda gets cold easily. Her idea of a comfortable temperature is about 90 degrees F. In the winter she wears socks, and house shoes and thick sweaters. But, despite her need for warmth, on more than one occasion she has posed naked or near naked in the snow for me. Take the first image here, for example. We went up to Mount St. Helens one day in late winter for this shoot. We stopped at the entrance to the Mount St. Helens National Monument where the snow was piled up many feet deep in front of the entrance sign. We climbed a steep embankment to get into the wooded area adjacent to the entrance and proceeded to take a series of images I thought would be fun to shoot. Wearing at times only snow boots, she tromped through the crusty snow while I exposed shot after shot. By the time the shoot was over, she had scratches on her legs where she had broken through the crust and the ice had scraped her legs, her lips were blue, and her hands were red. Still, when we returned to the car, she was more than game to strip down for this shot with the entrance sign.

A few years later, we had this huge snowstorm in the valley. I easily persuaded her to go for a walk with me in the falling snow to shoot a series of images for fun. I wanted to experiment with various shutter speeds and with flash to see tje various effects falling snow would produce. I could have easily done it without her assistance, but having her along to pose made it much more fun. As you can see, she was quite willing to accommodate my requests. What more could a man ask?


The last time we shot in the snow, we stayed close to home and simply used the back yard as the setting, but once again, she gamely endured to cold to satisfy my desire to shoot something just a little different. I'll say this much for her, present her with an interesting idea for a photograph and she'll give it her best shot.