Ryan McGinley

RYAN McGINLEY

Out of all the photographers mentioned in last class, the ones whose pictures appealed to me the most were by Ryan McGinley. However, not all of his photographs appealed to me.

Ryan McGinley is a contemporary 35 mm film photographer, born in 1977. He was one of the youngest artists to have a solo show at the Whitney as well as named photographer of the year in 2003 by American Photo Magazine. He work is often compared to Larry Clark, Dash Snow and Nan Goldin.

He beginning works were mostly of his friends, almost always in the nude, in a documentary or portrait style. His work focuses on the care-free, rambunctious nature of teenagers through young adulthood. His work appealed to me more because it wasn't as dark and upsetting as works by Dash Snow or Larry Clark. His use of color is impeccable in many of his images and create some stunningly beautiful images. That was one of the things that originally drew me to his work. I also liked how he uses nudity as a sense of rawness and uses it to capture a person's emotional state or confidence and not always provocatively.

The images of his that I found to be most interesting and striking were the images of the nude figures with sparkler, fireworks, flares, etc. I find these images compelling because of the way the light interacts with the figures and skin of the subject. The use of color is very strong and create a warm tone. This images capture a sense of free-spirit and having a good time being youthful and happy.  I loved many of the portraits in his collection and will post some of my favorites below. Overall, I enjoyed his playfulness with color and expression in his portraits (yearbook series especially) as well as the contrasting emotional, more somber portraits. His use of light is excellent as well especially in the portraits that are black and white where you can really see the highlights and shadows on the nude figures.

His newer works are very color-oriented, where the color almost acts as camouflage. The images are usually of nude figures blending in and, in a way, becoming the nature around them. These works are very abstract and more modern that his original works. I am neither in love or dislike these images, they are interesting and compelling visually however I do much prefer his rawer, youthful and expressive images.

Ryan McGinley, Back against wall, 2004

Ryan McGinley, Fireworks, 2007

Ryan McGinley, Fireworks, 2002

Ryan McGinley, astrallagoon, 2013

Ryan McGinley, Sara, 2013, 12x18

Ryan McGinley, Untitled, from Yearbook series

Ryan McGinley, Sal, 2010

Ryan McGinley, Amanda Haystacks, 2011

The Nature of (my) Photograhs

Reading this interview between Seven Shore and Luc Sante about Shore's book The Nature of Photographs has revealed new ways of how I think about photography and how I photograph. The most influential aspect of reading this interview is that it made me stop and really think about my own techniques and work. When I am going through the process of creating a photograph, many  times I am very aware of what I want the photograph to look like exactly. I'll think about where I'll need to be, at what time for what lighting, props, poses, etc. But there are also many times where, when I am stuck in a conceptual rut, I go out into the world unknowing and the photographs form around me in real life. There have been many times where I have had ideas for a shoot and have received photographs that didn't excite me as ones that came from endless wandering and good timing.

With some of the photographs I have created so far this semester, I can apply this idea about being hyper-aware versus being able to create photographs "mindlessly". For example, during shooting for the current events assignment, I was being very conscious with my decision making. I had previously researched churches, picked my "models", planned poses and my framing (wanted it to appear very symmetrical and have religious icons centered whenever possible). All these conscious decisions allowed me to make the images more fluidly while embedding other symbols, emotions, etc. into the image to make it more than just an image of reality.

That being said, no matter how conscious I was, there were things I was not so conscious about, and I did end up having some "happy accidents". For example, one of my images has a natural vignette due to the lighting of the frame. Although I was conscious of most aspects, that also distracted from realizing those small things in the background until after the picture is made.

On the flip-side to this, when I went shooting in the city to take pictures of strangers, I was more "mindless" in finding my subjects and locations. However, when I did, i felt like i was able to pay closer attention to the littler things such as lights and shadows, figures or objects in the background, etc. It's a simple, yet complex process to construct a photograph.