Photography & Painting
I’ve always felt that photography and painting go hand in hand.
Although they are different mediums, the way I approach them feels closely connected. With photography, I am drawn to contrast, the interplay of shadow and light, the balance of hue and intensity, and the quiet details that might otherwise be missed. These same qualities often find their way into my painting.
Photography helps me look more carefully. It encourages me to notice composition, atmosphere, texture and negative space. A photograph can capture a moment instantly, but the act of taking one still involves selection: where to stand, what to include, what to leave out, how the light changes the feeling of a place. Painting asks many of the same questions, only more slowly.
When I paint, I often find myself returning to the visual language I have explored through photography. Light becomes a starting point. A shadow might suggest a mood. A colour relationship in a photograph might influence the palette of a painting. Sometimes it is not the subject itself that interests me most, but the feeling around it: a stillness, a sense of distance, or the atmosphere of a particular place.
For me, photography is often about noticing. Painting is about spending time with what I’ve noticed.
A photograph might begin with a walk, a landscape, a building, a reflection, or a certain quality of light. Later, in the studio, those impressions can become something more abstract or emotional. Through painting, I can exaggerate, simplify, soften or rework what the camera captured. I can move away from the literal image and closer to the feeling behind it.
This relationship between photography and painting continues to shape my work. Photography gives me a way to collect moments, study light and observe the world around me. Painting gives me the space to translate those observations into something slower, more tactile and more personal. Together, they form an ongoing conversation in my practice: one based on looking, remembering, and reimagining.
You can explore more of this relationship through my paintings and mixed media work, or browse my photography galleries.
