Welcome
Welcome to my world of Photopaintings — where photography and painting merge to create one-of-a-kind artworks. As a handpainter and photographer, I bring color, emotion, and atmosphere to black-and-white images using historic techniques I have refined for over four decades.
About My Photopaintings
The word Photopaintings emerged from my desire to unite my two passions — photography and painting. Handpainting (or hand tinting) is a technique as old as photography itself, one I rediscovered in the 1980s and helped bring back to prominence through my best-selling book, The Art of Handpainting Photographs (Watson-Guptill: Amphoto). As a photographer and handpainter, I celebrate the dialogue between these two art forms. The name Photopaintings also honors one of my artistic heroes, Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose photography, philosophy, and book “PhotoPortraits” deeply influenced my creative vision.
My journey began with a question: Why paint photographs? Early color photography was fragile — it faded — and I could not, with integrity, offer prints that would lose their brilliance over time. Even when created by skilled printers, color photographs lacked true uniqueness; the negative allowed endless duplication, producing images that, while beautiful, remained reproducible. Many could capture a landscape or a portrait, but few could create a one-of-a-kind work. Handpainting offered something more — permanence, depth, and the unmistakable presence of the artist’s hand. Through this process, I found a way to merge the precision of photography with the emotional resonance of painting. Each Photopainting begins as a traditional darkroom gelatin silver print and evolves through translucent layers of oil glazes and artist mediums. These handpainted photographs have received critical recognition for their integration of photography and handpainting.
Critical Response
As The New York Times observed:
‘Cheryl Machat Dorskind applies subtle color to black-and-white prints to amplify the romantic feeling of mist-shrouded coastal landscapes… her hand-colored photographs celebrate nature’s misty, moody character… Pale pink and blue tones give the images a delicacy and an aura that suggests an uncommon moment.’”
In 1988, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Allen Ginsberg at his East Village apartment, in an intimate setting shared only with my husband and me. At that time, he was deeply engaged with photography, and he generously devoted himself to a thoughtful portfolio review of my work. His direct observations and perceptive questions challenged me to articulate my intentions more clearly. Afterward, he shared his own photographs, and we went out together to photograph, continuing the conversation through the act of making images. That experience helped crystallize my understanding of handpainting as a narrative use of color — a way to translate feeling, memory, and experience into visual form.
In the early 1990s, I embraced the digital revolution, expanding my craft by integrating digital negatives with traditional photographic processes. Today, I continue to paint with light — blending handpainting, film negatives, and modern technology to create timeless Photopaintings that celebrate nature, emotion, and the enduring beauty of the photographic image.
My Digital-to-Darkroom Workflow
Sometimes, I work in reverse.
I photograph digitally, then shape the image in Adobe Lightroom Classic and Adobe Photoshop — refining contrast and tonality while envisioning the final gelatin silver print. From this digital negative, a film negative is produced and contact printed onto traditional photographic paper.
These black-and-white silver gelatin prints become the foundation for my handpainting. I often choose this approach because it allows precise control over composition and tonal relationships before the painting begins.
Each Photopainting, whether originating on film or in the digital realm, becomes a means to feel and recreate the moment in my mind’s eye.
The images live in the space between light and memory, where I shape something deeply personal.
The work itself is best understood through viewing.
Selected Photopaintings
The following works reflect an ongoing exploration of light, memory, and atmosphere through handpainting. Each piece is developed through a deliberate process that bridges photography and painting, resulting in singular, one-of-a-kind works.
Explore the collections:
