The Ghost of Zelda F.

Shortly after moving to Nanaimo, I stumbled across some old, abandoned cars in Cottle Lake Park (part of Linley Valley). I still haven't found out why the cars are there, but they fascinate me. I think that there are 4 wrecks, though there are so many smashed up bits that I won't say so with certainty. Axles are strewn around along with the remnants of steel cables (maybe from an attempt to recover the vehicles from the bottom of the steep incline they might have fallen down?), and some nuts and bolts. There's a good bit of rusty metal. But what really intrigues me about the scene are the plants growing through the old wrecks. Nature is reclaiming these trespassers a little bit more each year.

I knew almost immediately that I wanted to do some sort of photo shoot at this location with these old cars. I thought about it for about a year before I settled on the idea that I started to explore with Julie from North Pacific Cosplay. The concept is fairly simple: the ghost of a woman stuck in that spot where the cars wrecked. I had it in my head that I wanted it to have a 1920s flapper vibe (probably because I recently read Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler.) I'm pretty sure the cars date from later than the 20s, but since they're so decayed I don't think it matters too much.

As befits a "ghostly" shoot, we went out on Halloween and spent an hour or so playing around with different poses and compositions. Getting to combine two of my favourite photographic subjects (people and nature) for the first time in a few years felt really great. It was a lot of fun and I'm so pleased with the work we did.

Many thanks to Julie for heading out into the woods with me. To see the full gallery of images from this shoot click here.

​Thanks for reading!