Stages of making the photograph

Hellow everyone,

Making a photograph for me is like painting on a canvas. Not saying I’m a painter but Im sure Im a perfectionist.
Choosing things to expose on that piece of paper is a big deal for me, I start by making a sculpture, a Fake Mate, I make tens of photographs of him with a dslr camera, then make up the lighting and make the corrections on the sculpture again. Its a fact that one “thing” has that look for that only given light. Isnt it the same when we approach to “things” with that given thoughts and place them to where they will sit in our minds.

This is before making the paper negative, made with a dslr, checking if everythings setup:

I use Ilford paper to make my paper negatives. As Im working in 50 by 50 cm image area, this is the best option.
I have been exposing at f90 since some time ago, loving all the textures and everything getting recorded. Working with a Zeiss Jena Apo Tessar 750 mm f9 in these days.

Heres an iphone photo of the scene:

That backdrop is made from pieces of sackcloth. Those pieces each were being used to wrap up our trees in the garden in winter times, so they already had dirt and marks and textures on them. I believed and tested that cloth was too light in means of tone so Ive sprayed some black paint on it. This way it matched with the fake mate and the lighting.

So heres the negative that was scanned by iphone:

I make quick inversions in iphone so that I can decide if the exposure is right or not.
Phones just got into too many things, we cant let them behind.
The negative was made at f90 and exposed for 18,5 minutes.

Then making the print:
Using contact printing method, neg and the unexposed paper sandwiched between two 8 mm 60x70 cm glasses.

This photo was made with iphone while the print was in the final wash.

I like Ilfords matte fiber based papers but this one was made onto rc base pearl paper in 20x24 inch size as I am still waiting for the matte ones to arrive from Uk.

Making one photograph when my fails and sometimes lackness of time and other factors taken into account, can take a week maybe.

Its like a battlefield or a party space the next day when I break into the atelier.