Elizabeth Opalenik's work is unified by one sensibility that can only be described as “gracefully sensual.” Whether a film or digital take, of a flower or of a nude, whether crafted with the camera, or in the darkroom, or secondarily in Photoshop, or by using a paint brush, when Elizabeth’s photography is laid out together, her work flows as one body of work.

Mordancage, the experiential technique that Elizabeth has mastered, is practiced by only a few artists. It is a process whereby the artist strips away the darkest parts of the emulsion of a silver gelatin print. The stripping away of the emulsion is the most important stage of the process --- the image transformation, creating a relief, or a raised area on the print. Water is used to float the delicate silver emulsion on the image so as to rearrange it and dry it back down on to the print. The end result is a one of a kind and unique photographic image. It is in the laying back down of the photograph’s emulsion where Elizabeth has made her trademark. She reconfigures the emulsion as a drapery, much in harmony with her own style of photographing dancers, nudes and elegant still life.

Her innovative images using figurative and flower themes have been shown in over sixty international exhibitions, and profiled in most major photographic publications. A sought after teacher/lecturer, she privately leads figure and alternative process workshops in California, Provence, Tuscany, Mexico, Argentina and on barges in Burgundy; she also conducts classes for The Maine Photographic Workshops, Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, The British Guild of Portrait Photographers, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, National Geographic and others. Her work has been profiled in most major photographic publications and most recently she was featured in Zoom Magazine's 30-year anniversary issue.