The history of painting on monochrome photographs is probably nearly as old as photography itself. As color photography has become the default mode for recording images, the reasons to manipulate photographs with paint have become much more personal. One reason is to push the final result a little further down the line from representational to non-representational art. Another would be to ensure that the final piece is a unique work of art, not infinitely reproducible like a digital file. The Danish artist Erik Steffensen has said that he combines painting and photography in order to 'widen the space'. What I take from this is that by adding paint one adds detail or meaning, one fills in the gaps between what one experienced in the moment and what the camera was actually able to record.
Along these lines, I like this version of the image better than the file I posted back on June 22.
