It’s been too long since I’ve posted last, but I have new work to show for it!  My photographs have recent taken an interesting turn toward a darker pallet, along with an intensification of the surface textures.

The metal mirror series has been less about bona fide true reflections than about creating a new body surface and topography.  Skin, light and the metal combine into a new form of the body and lately I have been taking that to an extreme by intensifying the treatments applied to the metal in order to bring out an enhance the resulting texture.  Divots, scratches and marks serve as landscape markers in the new topography.  I have also been concentrating on dramatic top lighting to create a chiaroscuro effect, where light and shadow play across the contours of the body.  The result is a painterly rendering of the human form, that I further enhance in post processing.

I find the results reminiscent of Dutch painters in the 17th century and I try to emulate their balance of light vs. dark both in the composition of the photograph as well as in the post processing.

The surface treatments are a combination of abrasive metal polishes, physical scratching, solvent treatments and sometimes a thin layer of gesso or shellac.

Lucas James is a fine art photographer based in Manchester, NH.  Anisotropic Images Photography.