I don't think I have done much more than scratch the surface of the idea although I have been working on them sporadically for years now. The paintings are set in a studio much like one I used to work in. It's often crowded with assistants and assorted people, most of the time is spent arranging things, arguing, setting up a shot, and the subjects range from nudes to still lifes to circus clowns. What I miss from photography is the experience of working directly with light - which is nothing but raw magic. Any photographer can tell you that light has a will all its own - it goes around corners, winds up where it can't be, refuses to do what it did yesterday, reveals things that aren't visible, and hides things that are.
Light only pretends to obey the laws of physics.
Painting does not emulate light well, only a more technological process can do that - but paintings can generate their own. In my own work I find that the more 'accidental' and uncontrolled the creation of light is in a painting, the more effective an illusion it is - it 'feels' more like real light if it doesn't 'make sense', which tells me a lot about 'real' light. But no matter what, I am happier with the process of painting than being a photographer. Painting does not only record an experience, it is one - and for the viewer as well. Paintings are fetishes - primitive, magical, inhabited things.