portrait of Kristina 3

very interesting project....

Startling eyes and a very graphical result... You're getting ever more painterly, and I think I totally understand why. (Difficult to maintain interest in "straight photography", it doesn't have line and it doesn't have one's one marks.) A couple years ago I tried hard to integrate painting with liquid emulsion. Not by applying developer with a brush, but by trying to paint on the liquid emulsion so that the photographic image itself can have the graphical interest of painting -- of brushwork. I spent lots and lots of time on it and gave up. Tried adding substances to the emulsion to make it workable as "paint" -- no-go, the additives killed the luminosity of the photographic image. I got a couple interesting pictures but had to conclude "Why bother with all this -- if I want a painting, I'll paint one!" I think this whole area can work as part of a larger collage, a mixed-media piece. I have seen some interesting examples, can't remember by whom now.

Hi Sven

Thanks for your comment.
I also have tried to make the emulsion look "painterly", but as you say; it is difficult.

Especially with this emulsion, as I have to put two layers on the paper.. and the second layer tend to erase the first one's characteristics..

I did these, as I thought the emulsion had gone bad - so I just played around.

I am not so interested in making "photographs" - I am after images. And I then use a negative to start with.

Sometimes it works - sometimes not. And sometimes the negative cries out to be a "real" photograph.

It's all about finding the right too for the image in question...

"It's all about finding the right tool for the image in question"... So true. I work so very slowly, I get lost going down roads of technique that usually turn into dead-ends -- but I often find something interesting that comes in very useful later. Just wish I had more time for it. Cheers Emil -- keep exploring, I'll keep watching! Svend