Abstract. Detailed B and R surface photometry is performed for 139 faint emission-line galaxies (ELGs) and for 2 non-ELGs. They are a subsample of the ELG sample selected by Popescu et al. (1996Popescu et al. ( , 1998 towards four nearby voids. We derived the isophotal and integral photometric parameters and radial surface brightness (SB) profiles. Our sample consists mostly of low luminosity (< M B > med = −17.7), small linear size (< d 25 > med = 6.0 kpc) (H 0 = 75 km s −1 Mpc −1 ) and blue (< B−R > med = 0.93) galaxies. About 83% of the studied ELGs belong to the class of Blue Compact Galaxies (BCGs); others are luminous Starburst Nucleus Galaxies (SBNs) and a few interacting pairs. 72% of the ELGs possess a single dominant H ii region, while the remaining 28% show multiple knots. Furthermore 71% of the ELGs show regular outer isophotes, and the remaining 29% reveal disturbed outer morphologies.We performed the SB profile decomposition by means of disentangling the underlying stellar disk and the excess light above the exponential disk. We classified the profiles into 5 types: pure disk profiles (21% of studied 139 ELGs); profiles that show both disk and bulge/nucleus/H ii knot components (37%); profiles that have central light depression (13%); non-disky (concave) profiles (7%); and almost unresolved (quasi-stellar) images and stellar SB profiles (22%). Popescu et al. (1997) found that most of the studied ELGs follow the spatial distribution of "normal" galaxies from the CfA Redshift Survey. 15 ELGs and 1 non-ELG were classified as being well isolated and are distributed within nearby (z ≤ 0.033) voids. We found that these isolated ELGs are almost all dwarf galaxies with Send offprint requests to: J. Vennik Based on observations obtained at the Calar Alto observatory, Almeria, Spain.−18.4 < M B < −12.7, they show similar luminosities and colours as the nearby non-isolated ELGs. For 8 of 15 isolated ELGs an underlying LSBG has been detected. The underlying disks of isolated ELGs tend to be larger and of lower SB, than the disks of non-isolated ELGs (of the same total blue flux).