Andivero Magazine #16 (May 2018) – Ezra’s House
I’ve been a fan of Andivero magazine since their first issue back in 2012. They started out as a fine art nude showcase with an edgier side and I loved the presentation, look and whole feel of the magazine. I knew I needed to get to the point where I could see my own work in this magazine. I tried many times and was rejected over and over. Then in 2014, the magazine went into a hiatus for a couple of years before returning in 2017 with a vengeance. The new concept was more fashion and fitness and nudes were gone. Playboy did away with them too. They weren’t cool any more. Or socially acceptable. Too much sex.
While there are magazines (which will remain unnamed here) that are much more focused on women as sex objects, the fact that Andivero always treated the images as art and while the images were beautiful, the women and the photographers who photographed them understood the difference between beauty and sex.
Part of the philosophy behind Elegant Boudoir is to show the strength a woman possesses when she takes control of her image and showcase the inherent beauty of the human form in a provocative and elegant way. To me, Andivero shares these underlying beliefs and is the perfect home for our images.
So, I was thrilled when I was told a few months ago after our first submission was accepted that they were returning to their roots and bringing back nudes that featured fitness and fashion.
Enter Joy Kidston, a travelling model from Toronto, Churchill House near Hantsport, NS and the chance to share it with one of my friends and favorite photographers, Steve Richard.
Being a little off the beaten path, we don’t see a lot of travelling models in these parts and when Joy, a choreographer and former dancer reached out that she would be in town for a few days while passing through on a trip to Europe, I checked out her portfolio and fell in love with her style and knew we had to shoot while she was in town. She was recommended to me by Steve and had worked with Steve at a couple of his workshops in Toronto in the past, so it only made sense to me that Steve needed to be involved in some way.
Churchill House Museum was built in 1890 by noted Nova Scotia shipbuilder Ezra Churchill and is a perfect example of late 1800 architecture in rural Nova Scotia. It has been preserved and operates as a museum and community center in the village of Hantsport near Windsor. I’ve shot there once before and loved the natural light and stained glass windows of the main areas as well as the darker areas of the foyer and sitting rooms with a group of photographers and the mansion is often rented by groups for photo excursions. I’ve been wanting to shoot something on my own there and decided that it was the perfect spot to photograph Joy. So, I invited Steve Richard to share the daily rental with me and bring along his own model to try his hand outside of his studio and he eagerly agreed.
I picked up Joy and my assistant, Chandrae, early that morning and we headed off for the 45 minute trip to Hantsport. I wanted to showcase the incredible stained windows on the second floor gallery above the main room as well as the hardwood floors and incredible natural light while also featuring the natural curves and lines of Joy’s body in contrast with the hard late 19th century straight lines of the windows and floors, so when we arrived, we were pretty much ready to go.
We shot for several hours at a few locations in the mansion and it was so difficult when going through the images afterward. There were so many amazing photos. Typically when shooting fine art sets, I am thrilled to walk away after a shoot with 1 or 2 fantastic images and ecstatic if I have 3 or 4. This session resulted in nearly 35 submission worthy images and nearly a dozen print worthy photographs. Andivero selected 8 of these images and graciously gave us 10 pages out of the 90 page May issue for our second publication in their fine magazine. You can check out this issue and past issues for free in digital format at www.andivero.com.
