Photography – Fine Art, Architecture & Stories as seen by Elise Prudhomme

Photography Work

Elise has explored photography since her mid-teens, after taking a class in black & white printing at Smith College. The magic of chemistry, combined with the precision of the lens, was the sought-after solution for her creative outlets.

Elise’s work focuses on our evolving relationship to the environment. Themes of territory, human intervention and transformation guide her in the search for unpredictable and intriguing scenes, bordering on the iconic, which she identifies as the “new picturesque”.

For Elise, the medium of photography is the ideal way to combine her lively and avid gaze, her sense of humor and her appetite for the unexpected. Composition is for her totally intuitive and akin to music, complex and detailed. Regardless of the source of inspiration (personal or professional), taking photographs is the discovery of rhythms, lines and patterns in geometry. Like Henri Cartier-Bresson said “you see a photograph all at once like a painting”.

The Wet Darkroom

All of Elise’s photographs are developed and printed by her own hand, which is a rare thing these days. Whenever possible, Elise prefers working in an analog environment with film negatives and a wet darkroom. Working in the lab on a silver-gelatin print is like cooking in the kitchen but with different ingredients! Learning how to use different photographic tools, experimenting with different film formats and chemistry, developing recipes for film emulsions and exploring printable surfaces are some of the exciting aspects of her creation.

She experiments with diverse historical techniques where happy accidents are the secret to creating her unique visual pieces. Alternative processes such as platinum-palladium, cyanotype (see the series Ferric) and gum bichromate are no longer a mystery to her.

Her love of the craft of photography, combined with a true artisan’s spirit, is at the heart of her work.