The Art After the Photograph: Daryna Barykina on Fine Art Print Presentation

Daryna Barykina understands that clicking the shutter is only the prologue. Her images materialize in layers - water, light, and subjects suspended in controlled distortion - where creation extends far beyond the RAW capture.

This uncompromising precision reflects through to the paper she selects, the scale she prints, and the frames she chooses - treating every finishing detail with the exact rigor we bring to our own work.

Take a recent piece of hers: it started with a single magnolia flower her husband spotted on his commute, and it ended up as a 30x36 print on Hahnemühle William Turner paper, resting in a Deckled Edge Float Frame. She’s joining us to pull back the curtain on that workflow: how a signature style forms over years behind the glass, how an abstract concept survives the jump into a physical piece, and what gallery-level presentation requires once the work leaves the monitor. For Daryna, fine art print presentation is part of the creative process, carrying an image from an abstract concept into a finished physical work.

To understand how that process comes together, we asked Daryna to take us trough the decisions behind her work, from developing a visual signature to choosing the materials and presentation that bring each piece into its final form.

⁠Your work moves between beauty imagery, commercial content, and fine art. When did you start noticing your own visual signature take shape?

Most of it came from internal discovery, after years of shooting. You need volume before you can see the pattern in your own decisions. Starting out, you may not know your preferences — not because you lack them, but because you don't yet have the vocabulary for them. Over time, you notice you keep reaching for a certain palette, certain compositions, certain environments. Once you can name those patterns, you can guide them on purpose. You can't fight your taste; it's an instinct, and it wins. That's why exposure to museums, film, fashion, and music matters — it broadens what your taste has to draw from.

A lot of photographers imitate a style before they develop one. What did that phase look like for you?

I grew up without access to fashion magazines — my parents saw beauty and fashion as vanity. The only time I held one was at the salon getting my mom's hair done, and I'd sneak into the bathroom, tear out the ad pages, fold them small, and bring them home. I built an entire folder of stolen pages. One ad I couldn't put down was Bianca Balti for Mugler Angel — chrome, blue-lavender, a very 2000s kind of futurism with real sophistication behind it. I didn't want to be that woman in the photo. I wanted to be the one who took it. Mert and Marcus taught me color. Steven Meisel, Steven Klein, and Annie Leibovitz taught me restraint. Advertising told a full story in one frame, and I wanted to know how. Dalí's creative bravery still influences the surrealism in my work today — and his career gave me hope that you don't have to be a starving artist to make work like that.

You work with illusion, texture, and unpredictable materials like water. What draws you to complicating an otherwise clean image?

The layers are my way of stepping away from the typical photography look — the crispness, the polish, the hyperrealism. I want the substrate itself to be part of the work, not just a surface it sits on. It's an attempt to break out of the commercial mold and make something worth returning to, not something you take in once and move past.

You work full-time as a Director of Content at a beauty brand while keeping a personal conceptual practice. How do you make space for both?

Moving in-house was its own kind of shift. In a brand role, the work has to reflect brand DNA — it goes through stakeholders, feedback, rework — and by the end it's a collective effort, not mine alone. I hadn't realized how tightly my identity was tied to my work until I had to separate the two to stay effective. So I gave myself a crutch: I cleared my Instagram and started putting my off-hours into conceptual photography, the genre that had always stayed on my mind. My day job takes most of my mental energy, so on personal work I lean on discipline instead of waiting for inspiration — a single step most days, whether that's gathering reference images or shooting another layer.

Where does an idea usually start for you?

My favorite starting point is abstract — often music. I'm currently into a UK artist named Ren, who writes about duality, mental health, and spirituality with real precision. I like challenging myself with concepts that don't already have a fixed image attached — time, unease, longing — and lately, with water, I've been chasing the tactile side of those ideas. When a lyric sparks something, I see how the piece should feel before I see its details. There's always a risk it won't survive translation, and when that happens, it stings — it usually means my skill hasn't caught up to what I imagined yet.

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How much of a shoot is planned versus discovered in the moment, especially with something as unpredictable as water? ⁠ ⁠

Nearly everything can go wrong at every layer, and it usually does. I plan for specific outcomes but keep room for a pivot. Early on I learned to leave space for accidents — water, live insects, anything unpredictable becomes part of the work rather than a problem to control out of it. That's what makes each piece unrepeatable.

How does knowing an image will become a physical print shape your creative decisions?

Thinking about print is like choosing the right outfit for an event. I now create with 30x40 or 40x60 in mind, and that scale decides how much detail a piece can carry — some work wants more, some calls for restraint. Substrate and finish are their own vocabulary, and I'm still building fluency in it. Once I understand which spaces suit my style, I expect to create more boldly.

For the magnolia piece, you chose a 30x36 print on Hahnemuhle William Turner with a deckled edge and float frame. What led you there?

The piece felt airy and calm from the first layer, almost too comfortable, so water became the tension it needed — I wanted depth without disturbing the calm the image already had. The paper choice caused a real internal debate. Hahnemuhle Metallic Photo Rag usually suits my work better, but this piece needed something gentler, so I chose William Turner for its ultra-matte, high-texture surface. The Deckled Edge and a slim Float Frame let the print read as an artisanal object rather than a standard photograph. 30x36 felt like a safe size for this one — I'm working toward printing 40x60 and larger to understand what scale asks of a piece.

What do you look for when judging whether a printed piece lives up to what you imagined?

Large size is impressive, but it can also make a subject feel out of place — size is part of the presentation, not separate from it. Once a piece is framed, I'm judging every choice again: substrate, mat size, frame material, color, finish. All of it reads differently in person than on a screen. With monochromatic work especially, I like the image to dissolve into the mat and frame rather than fight them, which gives the piece a kind of pause before the eye settles on it.

Has seeing this piece finished changed how you'll approach printing going forward?

Every print teaches me something about my own preferences and how far I can push a piece. Printing and framing are part of the creative language, not a step after it — the physical object is the most real version of the work. Creative decisions don't stop when the file is done. They carry into paper, frame, and presentation, and all of it has to come together.

Fine Art Print Presentation: From Concept to Finished Piece

Daryna’s workflow shows that fine art print presentation helps define a photograph's ultimate impact. Deciding between Hahnemuhle Metallic Photo Rag and William Turner, or choosing a Deckled Edge Float Frame over a standard mat - these choices are never secondary steps; instead, they are where a concept turns into material form.

Executing that vision requires a lab built for active partnership: varied substrates to test against a piece's exact mood, size options that push past conservative choices, and framing options meant for the physical room rather than a backlit display. Bay Photo collaborates with artists precisely in that crucial window - bridging the gap between the final file and the completed physical project. From paper and scale to framing and finish, each decision plays a role in fine art print presentation.

When you're ready to bring your own paper, scale, and framing decisions to life, our team is here to help you nail that crucial final stage of production.

Meet Daryna

⁠Daryna Barykina's fascination with images started in a hair salon waiting room, tearing advertising pages out of fashion magazines while her mom got her hair done. That collection of tear sheets became the start of a career: she trained at the Kyiv School of Photography and later completed a master's in business administration at Ukrainian-American Concordia University.

She works today as a content producer and art director for beauty brands, building marketing assets that require the same eye for composition and material she brings to her conceptual work. Her personal project "Bruised Behind the Mask" was featured in the Professional Beauty Association's CUT IT OUT: Salons Against Domestic Abuse program. Her photography has been recognized with the 2020 Grand Prize in the Lady Gaga x Adobe Chromatica Tour competition, the 2018 North Florida Rising Star Award in Photography, and the 2015 Advertising Photographer of the Year title from Neutral Density Magazine.

Outside her day-to-day brand work, she's building a personal practice in conceptual photography — image-making that starts with an abstract idea, often a lyric or a feeling, and works its way toward a physical, printed piece.

Learn more about Daryna's work at https://www.darynabarykina.com/