Ryan McGinley Quotes
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I just remember how excited I was to have a boyfriend and be in love and to document it.
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I'm not going to hide behind anything.
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Whatever emotions you're going through, you somehow seek out the people that are going through similar emotions or that maybe have something you need.
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All my work, really, is based on my brothers and sisters. I had so many adventures with them and a big part of the work is to recreate those. It's easy for me to be around a lot of people, because I can retreat. I can watch everything.
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I want to venture into film more, and I think that a nice way to transition into doing that would be a documentary. I think it would be interesting to find one person that really fascinated me or maybe a band and travel with them, but I don't think I could do it like I used to do it.
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I'm just a photographer, not a movie star.
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I have a really big family, and pretty much all my work is about my brothers and sisters. I'm the youngest of eight - my mom had seven kids in seven years, and then she had me 11 years later - so I was basically raised by all these teenagers.
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I was never raised with anybody telling me that gay was bad.
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I think a lot about control nowadays, and I really want to let go and just be more in the moment.
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You have to be able to observe life as if you were a camera all the time, constantly looking at light and the way that things are placed and the way people hold themselves. You need the ability to see something in someone or something that no one else really sees and be able to bring that to light. Basically, you have to be an obsessive crazy person.
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The camera gives you some control.
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The cool part about New York is that you can do that. You can talk to all the people you admire.
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When I was in art school, the photo kids were separated from the rest. If you did sculpture or painting or graphic design, you were all taking the same classes, but the photographers just went straight into photography.
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Just having the camera, being able to pull back from situations and be an observer, it saved my life... I realised I could find these intimate moments and that people trusted me. That, basically, my camera was magic.
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Everyone I'm photographing, I feel like I'm remaking a family, in a way. My brothers and sisters are my heroes. So many of my models resemble them.
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I really don't want to be part of just one group. I'm interested in doing everything - making music videos, shooting campaigns, having -gallery and museum shows, making movies. Everyone wants to put you in a box, and I'm afraid I'm not that kind of person.
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I was pretty Irish Catholic Jersey, the middle of the line.
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I slowly began making a few photos with animals over the years, and I liked how people reacted to them. When I would have the animals on set, I'd notice the way the models would interact with them and there was so much true emotion that you rarely see between two human beings.
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A lot of people, even my parents, thought, "Art school, I don't know. We'll support you but the success rate for artists is really slim."
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I was never told, "Fags are going to hell." You just didn't talk about it.
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I was voted most artistic in school.
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When I moved to New York, I was still in the closet.
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Growing up, my room was covered in posters. I was like, "I want to make posters."
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My mom had seven kids in seven years, and then she had me 11 years later. So when I was born, my oldest brother was 18. And my youngest brother was 11. By the time I was 7 or 8, everyone had moved out. I went from being with ten people all the time to being an only child. It really freaked me out.
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I spent all of my money on film. I remember I would do these set-design jobs or transcribe or just anything to get, like, a $100 check and go immediately to Adorama and buy expired film.
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Everyone started to have a camera. That's when I started to travel outside of New York and go into nature.
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A lot of artists need structure.
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I was growing up in the suburbs; I was one of eight kids. So I did have a community when I was younger, but all of my brothers and sisters were older.
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From 8 to 19, I was skateboarding every single day. That was my life. I worked at a skate shop. I watched skate videos.
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I can work with shyness, but for the most part I want people to feel comfortable with me. It's really more about the photographer feeing comfortable right when they walk in that makes the subject feel comfortable.
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