Photogravure Portraits Explore the Beauty of Freckle-graced Faces

While many people view freckles as an aberration or blemish, my response is the opposite. I find them enchanting, unique, even exotic. More than once, while photographing for this series, a model thanked me for making something beautiful out of what they often viewed as a flaw.—Fritz Liedtke

Whether capturing the awkwardness of adolescence, life on a coffee farm, or fairytale tableaus set in fire-scorched forests, the work of Portland-based photographer Fritz Liedtke tends towards a dreamy grace tinged with an unremitting gaze. For his series Astra Vellum, Liedtke sings the praises of “flawed human skin, with its freckles and scars, overlaid upon us like a thin veil of stars,” for which the series was named. Hand-printed by Liedtke, he brings the images to luminescent life by photogravure, a technique all but lost to photography since the advent of silver-gelatin printing. The complicated intaglio process of photogravure relies heavily on texture, making it the perfect ally to compliment skin swathed in stars.

This post was contributed by writer and photographer Melissa Breyer.

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