In early 1995 I began to experiment with the use of a wind-blown fabric as a prop during studio nude figure shoots. I had achieved some very beautiful pieces, but nothing that excited me as being exceptional. Then, in May 1997, I began a series of pictures that I call “Dances With Ghosts.” My objective was to do portraiture from a figurative perspective, and to incorporate movement and fluidity within the images, and do it with a very warm overtone color. I was striving to maintain the essence of the subject’s personality while highlighting the elegance of the figure in motion. To achieve the deep amber tone that is one of the hallmarks of this series, I used tungsten light with daylight rated film (usually Fuji Sensia II 200, and sometimes Kodak E-100 SW) and underexposed the film by one f-stop. In truth I came upon this happy circumstance while shooting some of the “Dark Shadow” images with an ISO 400 Ilford film. Model Nicole was really in the mood and was dancing wonderfully well with the wind-blown white fabric streamer. When I ran out of the Ilford film I loaded a roll of Sensia 200 slide film. Without thinking I kept shooting and did not change either either the tungsten lights, or the aperture setting on the camera. The next day, at the lab, Nancy Davies asked me what filter I had used to get the beautiful amber tone in the images. I looked to see what she was talking about and realized what I had done. While I had discovered the signature tonal look of this series by accident, I knew that it worked and I have continued to work with these “false light” images.

These are some of the first photos with Nicole in what I called the “Dances With Ghosts” series shot in May 1997..