The Magic of a Big Mound of Dirt

My stomach is tight. I haven't done this in a while. I light my first joint and fiddle with my camera even though it's already set up the way I like it. I ask the model about her day. The model is a friend of a friend. Her skin glows. She walks with a sense of coiled and casual power. She both does and doesn't know how beautiful she is. Her hair falls in soft curls. The white, linen dress she chose for our photoshoot tangles with her ankles in the wind. We slow down and scope out our first location: a tree next to the old Hooters of our hometown downtown.

The model's name is, Niekia. Without hesitation, she clambers up the willow tree in front of the restaurant.

We wanted something artsy and fairylike by the water so we started experimenting with angles; the goal was to make it look like we were anywhere but in front of our local Hooters' parking lot.

I crouched behind some branches to add a little texture to the shots. This also worked nicely as natural framing for our photos.

Niekia's expressive modeling added another layer of whimsy to the photographs.

The water in this location was too shallow to do much with, but I liked how the red moss looked in the water under the overcast of the sky. The bay looked nearly black.

The effect between the moss, the lighting, and Niekia's dress, made me think of blood in the water and a mysterious woman running away... I still haven't decided if she had a hand in causing the bloodshed yet, or if she escaped it, though.

How do you read this visual storytelling moment?

After a few more shots, we decided to look for a new spot. I remembered a memorial bench a few minutes away and we walked and smoked. Niekia told me about the chicken farm in her backyard and being an agriculturalist. She pointed out sumac and told me about how you can ferment it.

We looked around more but had hit an awkward lull. Neither of us really knew where to go. We had picked downtown because of the waterfront but were struggling to make the location work the way we had hoped to.

I stood over by the memorial bench and walked to the edge where there was a small drop into rocks and water. I loved how bright the leaves between the rocks looked under the overcast.

Overcast is like nature's shadow box.

When I looked up, I saw it across the water, in the distance: a giant mound of what appeared to be dirt.

I squinted and tried to make out what it was more clearly but couldn't. I called Niekia over. I eyed her and pointed ahead, "That looks like a pretty fun mound of dirt."

She didn't miss a beat, "Want to try and find it?"

Absolutely, I did.

Now Niekia was squinting at the mound of dirt. She pointed back towards the Hooters.

She said, "I think if we drive around back over that way and park by the GO Station, we could bushwhack our way over to it."

So we hopped in Niekia's faded blue pick-up truck and rumbled on over to the railway. We picked a spot, parked, and ventured on.

Niekia pointed out which plants were poisonous and I carefully followed her footsteps.

She was fearless.

Niekia knew how to navigate the flora and fauna as though it were her backyard and not a random field next to the GO tracks.

Bushwhacking through the field blooming with patches of poison ivy, quickly became a photoshoot.

It was amazing to see Niekia loosen up the further into nature she got. The more Niekia got into her element, the more her confidence and ease came through in the photographs.

Plus, we were having a great time.

Eventually, the field spat out a trail that wandered into a more wooded area. We didn't know where we were going, but so far we had liked everywhere we'd ended up. So we continued...

until we found ourselves on top of our mound of dirt.

Turns out, it was actually a tiny, slanted beach.

Niekia didn't stop walking. She went straight into the water.

I continued the whole "following her with my camera" thing, and walked in after her.

We were staring back at the place we had just come from.

The cityscape that had just felt so suffocating in our photographs suddenly became a perfect juxtaposition with the water, Niekia's outfit, and her playful spirit.

It felt like a new source of creative energy had been unlocked.

It felt like a held breath, released.

The further into our adventure we wandered, and the deeper into the water we went, the more our photoshoot felt like a form of creative play. By the end of the photoshoot, I felt more confident in calling Niekia a friend, rather than just a friend-of-a-friend or model.

I was amazed by how organically Niekia unfurled in nature.

Niekia's passion for the environment and beautiful connection to it is what made our photoshoot happen the way it did. I wouldn't have these photos without Niekia's unique energy.

When picking who you want to photograph, it's important to lean into who they are. Don't try to wedge the model into the photoshoot; allow the photoshoot to work around the model.

Niekia's spirit and sense of adventure guided this shoot. Niekia's creativity and vision inspired her to immerse herself in the elements in ways that were artistically engaging but still felt organic and full of life. It made for an interesting balance.

In art, interesting is good.

By the time dusk started to settle in, we had taken well over 1,000 photos.

Niekia looked beautiful in every single one.

Whether tapping into her softness or her fierceness, Niekia always tapped into her creative intuition while modeling.

It was hard to narrow down which photos were my favourites. I know if I were to try and share them all, this would be a much longer piece.

We packed up close to four hours from when we started. Somehow it felt both longer and shorter than that.

By the time we were hopping back into Niekia's truck, we both had the exhausted, exhilarated energy of a day at the beach.

A beach we never would have discovered if we hadn't checked out that big mound of dirt.

I wish I had thought to take a picture of the mound from the first moment Niekia and I saw it. But that's another lesson this photoshoot ingrained in me: always follow your gut - take the shot. No matter how weird or pointless it might logically seem. Just take the damn photo, even if it feels silly; even if it slows you down.

You never know when an old photo will bring about new inspiration.

Tell me about a situation or place that ended up being better than you imagined in the comments - I'd love to hear about your discoveries.

Or, write a story about your visual storytelling adventures and share it in the comments below - what's your "big mound of dirt" moment?