From Lens to Canvas: Photography’s Influence on My Abstract Paintings
See how Ritu Raj’s background in photography shapes his abstract paintings through light, layering, and composition.
Before returning to painting full-time, my creative practice was deeply rooted in photography. For years, I experimented with composition, shadow, and light through the lens. That experience continues to shape my approach to abstraction today.
Photography trains the eye to frame reality—to decide what to reveal and what to exclude. In painting, I carry forward this discipline of framing and composition, but in a more expansive way. Where the camera captures a moment in time, the canvas allows me to expand it, layering color, texture, and form until the image becomes a meditation rather than a record.
Light is another bridge between my two practices. In photography, light is both subject and medium. In painting, I treat color as light embodied—layering pigments until they vibrate with an inner glow. Many of my abstractions play with transparency and opacity, much like long exposures in photography, where multiple realities overlap.
The influence also extends to how I think about series. Just as photographers work in contact sheets and sequences, I often develop paintings in collections, exploring variations on a theme. My 2020 series, created during the pandemic, reflected the way photography captures fleeting moments—yet rendered them abstract, untethered from representation.
For collectors, this hybrid approach offers something unique: paintings that carry the clarity of photography and the freedom of abstraction. For gallerists, it creates an accessible entry point for audiences—connecting the familiarity of the lens with the open possibilities of paint.
Ultimately, both photography and painting are about seeing. And by bringing them together, I aim to show that abstraction is not an escape from reality but a different way of revealing it.
