Dirk Braeckman (°1958) is a Belgian photographer renowned for his introspective, atmospheric, and tactile approach to image-making. Though he works with photography, Braeckman thinks and operates like a painter, treating his camera as a sketchbook and the darkroom as his creative studio. From his earliest works, he has rejected traditional photographic conventions, instead embracing an experimental, painterly process that prioritizes texture, abstraction, and materiality over narrative clarity.
For Braeckman, the act of capturing an image is only the beginning. His true artistry emerges in the darkroom, where he manipulates his prints through overexposure, chemical treatments, and physical interventions such as wild smears of fixative. These techniques reveal the artist’s hand, making each piece a unique, almost sculptural object rather than a simple photographic reproduction. His large-format prints—often grainy, blurred, and layered with shadow and mystery—evoke a sense of timelessness and detachment, immersing viewers in an enigmatic visual world.