mother laughing, a negative

When I look at an old photo I think of how different the formation of an image by photo-chemical processes of traditional photography is compare to digital. In traditional photography an image in the form of a negative is captured on film by photo-chemical reaction, then developed into a positive print through another chemical reaction. In digital photography, which shouldn't even be called photography --should it? --an image in the form of pixels is programmed to appear in a screen.  What does it even mean, a pixel? Information coded? Isn't an image we see as reality in fact an information we receive through chemical processes in our eye then decoded in the mind? So, film photography to an eye is what digital is to a brain.
I am an artist. An eye? A brain? No-no, I don't want to be dismembered this way! I wan to be whole.   
Looking again at the old photo of my  mother laughing, I try to reconstruct the negative. I play with my eye, I play with my mind, and my emotions. O, don't forget hands; they are always in motion! Tonight I don't have time to document the process. Too bad; at some point the painting looks really great except for some irritating flow below the corner of the mouth, which I try to eliminate and end up repainting the whole thing in the rush now.  It's feeding time already and Mark is calling me impatiently. Tuna steaks for dinner. He grills.
How to paint an old photo?  Each of my paintings so far is pointing out at different aims. I have to think. What is the painting of a negative about? Something our nowadays technology done away with? Something obsolete? Then I value it. Maybe again, it is something, which on order to comprehend, I have to twist in my mind?