Warning! Mostly philosophy and musings ahead, but some outdoor images included at no extra charge.

I spent a few days at Fall Creek Falls in Middle Tennessee earlier this week.  The falls is a stunning site, the highest waterfall in the eastern United States, and I’ve visited before, but there was more rain of late than the other visit and it was almost like a different scene.  I traveled light this trip and only took my camera and one lens, but still found time to take a few photos.  Not the normal contents of this site, no models present, but some interesting images in any case.

After getting in Sunday around noon, I had a nice long stretch of free time.  The recent few months have been both busy and a bit turbulent and I’ve only been able to get out into the woods while shooting.  Taking a leisurely walk with no agenda other than enjoying a beautiful, warm spring day felt great.  I had commitment for later in the evening, but for a few hours I only had time.  I started with a nice paved trail snaking along the lake and saw a few flowers peeking out, the nicest being the flower to the left.  From there I continued on past the dam and to the main falls.

I saw almost no one until I neared the Fall Creek Falls itself.  I spent a few moments at the crowded overlook at the falls.  I took a few photos, but the brightness of the day and angle of the sun did not cooperate with me and I couldn’t get the shots that I wanted.  So I hiked down a side trail that went behind the falls.  Here is a photo taken using the base of the small wooden bridge that crosses this as a tripod.  I believe this is Fall Creek, the stream that just downstream from this spot tumbles 256 feet into a gorge creating Fall Creek Falls.

Being in the woods with just you, your thoughts, and a camera makes an amazing way to decompress and ponder life.  Things become clearer when you only have the sound of birds, frogs, and the wind around you with nothing else to distract from the dialogue in your mind.  The occasional other hiker may pass and exchange a greeting, but you mostly have the chance to visit with yourself.  Sitting and watching ducks swimming on the lake a dozen feet away makes it easier to look inward and reflect upon life.  It gave me a chance to weigh some paths that I’ve been pondering and I came back to my room more than four miles after starting a little tired, a lot sweaty, and feeling more clear of purpose and plan than I had in months.  Questions that had me in turmoil now seem in context and a path has emerged from the cluttered brush.

My commitments kept me inside Sunday evening and then much of the day Monday.  Late I made it back out and visited Piney Creek Falls in the same park.  A much smaller falls, but also much less crowded and a bit more unfinished.  There is no paved path here, just a short and steep trail of rock and dirt that ends at an overlook with at with no rails or fencing between you and the canyon.  I didn’t take my camera on this trip, only my iPhone, but that provided the means to take a few photos.  The photo to the left I think is the best of the falls.  Another longer trail leads back behind the falls and to a suspension bridge over the creek just around the bend atop the falls.  The wind made taking a photo there difficult, but I did get one image

As I got back to the room around dark a storm began to blow in.  I sat on the patio and watched the weather blow in taking a few photos along the way.  Without a tripod, I had to function as my own holding still for each photo.  I did manage one very nice view of the lighting over the lake below.  Not long after taking this photo the wind picked up, the rain began to fall harder, and the combination pushed me inside.

 

The stormy skies in this image reflected my mind as I’d arrived Sunday, turmoil and questions.  As I went to bed Monday night I felt more the tranquility of Fall Creek above.  But that spot still lies just above the chaos of a roaring falls.  My mind is calmer and my direction clearer, but the questions are still there.  I have a path and a plan now.  It’s not perfect of course, nothing in the real world is, but it fits where I am and where I need to go.  Time alone will tell where it leads me, but I feel more confident than I had before.

 

I left late morning on Tuesday reminded about the outdoor beauty that had brought me into the outdoor nude work I’ve done much of the past year and increased desire to do more now that weather has reached a warmer level.  I also feel ready to move forward and a calmness I’ve not had for months.

I’m currently overcommitted in my life and I don’t see things changing until sometime around the end of the month at best.  I’ve been travelling an unusual amount for my full time job since mid October and that small nudge seems to have pushed my schedule into overload.  Some things have had to go to the backburner and this blog has been one of them.  The irony of my silence here is that I’ve been doing a lot of shoots lately and have enough material to post to the blog through the end of the year if I did not more.

I have some catching up to do, so for today, I’m going back to September and posting a few photos I did when Katlyn and Melissa were here back in September.  Given the amount of Melissa already on my blog, today I think that I’ll go with just a few with Katlyn alone.

Both are outdoor nudes done earlier that day.

Wow, two contemplative posts in a row.  Don’t worry we’ll get back to photos shortly, but in fact the shoot I’m posting next is the one that finally pushed me to a decision I’ve been contemplating for a few months now.  That decision is to be a bit less anonymous about my work.  As you may have guessed from the title, my name is Bill Morefield and I do art nude photography (among other things).  The rest of this post is a bit long, but it’s about why I did anonymity in the first place and how I got back to here from there.  Some thoughts maybe for those of you on either side of the camera considering the same question.  Do I use my real name or not?

Most of nude models that I work with ask for some level of anonymity that I’m happy to grant. Almost all work under a pseudonym created using a completely fake name, a variation of their name, a nickname, or some part of the their real name with a fictional last name. In a few cases, a model has asked me to provide more anonymity by not showing her face or a distinguishing body feature like a tattoo because of their profession or concerns about the effect on a planned future profession.

The sad (to me) truth is that for many women, being found to have posed nude would be the source of negative feedback or friction from family or friends. I’ve seen that happen and had a very promising model give up on modeling because of the reactions of her family when they learned that she’d posed topless in some images that we took. In addition of course are some professions (teaching elementary school comes immediately to mind) where being found to have posed nude online could even result in the loss of a job in many more conservative areas.  Using a pseudonym helps the model have better control over sharing that part of her life.  She can choose who she lets in to that part of her life and the rest of the world can remain ignorant.

For the photographer the issues are different, but there are still factors.  I have had the occasional issue in a romantic relationship when the subject of much of my photography first comes up, but rarely is it a relationship stopping issue.  I also live in a very conservative area and there are many who I’m sure would not approve the work that I do.  Still, I didn’t start working under the Candid Vision name for anonymity.

When I first began to work more often with models I did so as just Bill and used my main email address as my primary contact.  At the time I received large amounts of email and even larger amounts of spam and I had a few shoots get delayed because the message from the model was lost in the mass of junk email.

The final straw came when I lost the chance to work with a model that I really wanted to work with because my lack of reply to her message, sitting unnoticed in my spam folder, was interpreted by the model as ignoring her.  She was insulted and I was never able to repair it.  I decided it was time to get a separate email for photography.

After writing out a few name ideas for domains I found the first few on my list already taken. Candid Vision was the first on my list available so I bought the domain and set up email and web hosting for the new candidvision.com domain.

A few months later I did a search for my name on Google and was surprised when the second link was to my profile on a photography web site. I admit that it unnerved me a bit to see the second match for my name lead to a site showcasing several nude photographs that I’d taken. At the time photography was still a little hobby and I was still exploring and experimenting. I moved to the name Candid Vision for all my work and updated my stuff to that and began using it on new places.

A lot has changed in the years since then. I’ve gotten more experience, worked with more people, and gotten better at craft of photography.  What’s changed more than anything is my desire to better network with both models and photographers and continue to push myself artistically.  I now feel that photography is a large part of my life and while I realize there are people who will disapprove of the fact I do nude photography, it stopped bothering me that this is the case a long time ago.  Candid Vision is not going away, I still like the moniker and that will stay, but the anonymity is gone.  I’m Bill, it’s nice to meet you.