Ryan McGinley
I'm interested in reaching the masses with my work. It's one of my goals.
I'm just a photographer, not a movie star.
I went through a pretty big David Bowie period when I was younger, and that has affected me profoundly in my life and my work.
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.
I know that my mind is so A.D.D., and I want instant gratification - and photography can provide me with that - but at some point, I want to make an independent feature.
I don't want to be an artist that gets stuck doing one thing. I don't want to be an artist who people look back at and say, 'His early work was really great.'
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.
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.
It's weird being a photographer because you really have to divorce yourself from the image.
I'm making the art for me first. I'm making it because these are the pictures I want to see. I'm making pictures that don't yet exist.
My photographs are a celebration of life, fun and the beautiful. They are a world that doesn't exist. A fantasy. Freedom is real. There are no rules. The life I wish I was living.
I have absolutely no interest in creating depressing images.
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.
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.
All I do is make photos. It's my life.
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.
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.
Most of the e-mails I get nowadays are from students who ask me how I got my start. In truth it's from having a really supportive family but also having a good patron who will help you - like financing all those early trips I took.
I think that's an important lesson for young people who want to be artists: You have to find someone who believes in you and who will help you find that time where you don't have to think about a job but just making work. If I didn't have those people in my life, I wouldn't be in the position I'm in.
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.Collection: Crazy
In a lot of ways I look at these old photos, and I don't know if I would have been able to communicate with these people on this level if I didn't have a camera. I think I would still be so shy.Collection: Thinking
In college, all my friends were graffiti writers, but I never wrote graffiti. I wanted to participate and do something cool on the street, so I'd make these portraits of people. I'd isolate them on a white wall, make a silkscreen of it, and do these portraits in bathrooms and all around. That's how I started the Polaroids.Collection: Wall
I don't want to be an artist that gets stuck doing one thing. I don't want to be an artist who people look back at and say, 'His early work was really great.Collection: Artist
What I really believe is that there are no coincidences anymore.Collection: Believe
I was never raised with anybody telling me that gay was bad.Collection: Gay
I just remember how excited I was to have a boyfriend and be in love and to document it.Collection: Remember
A camera gives you a purpose.Collection: Giving
I was never told, "Fags are going to hell." You just didn't talk about it.Collection: Hell
Actually, I didn't study photography at first. I went to school for painting my first year, poetry my second year, graphic design my third and fourth year, and photography my fifth.Collection: Photography
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.Collection: Jobs
I'm always interested in an atmosphere where dreams and reality mingle on equal terms.Collection: Dream
I'm going to put every aspect of myself out into the world and try to convey it through photography.Collection: Photography
I've been attracted to Kate Moss since I was a teenager.Collection: Teenager
Most of the e-mails I get nowadays are from students who ask me how I got my start. In truth its from having a really supportive family but also having a good patron who will help you - like financing all those early trips I took.Collection: Supportive
Just being friends with people now for over 15 years, you realize what we all came out of. What we came out of was the intense feeling of growing up. It sounds kind of cliché, but it's true.Collection: Growing Up
A lot of my close friends have committed suicide or died of heroin overdoses.Collection: Suicide
The cool part about New York is that you can do that. You can talk to all the people you admire.Collection: New York
From 8 to 19, I was skateboarding every single day. That was my life. I worked at a skate shop. I watched skate videos.Collection: Skateboarding
I think the driving force when I moved to New York was the fear of going home with my tail between my legs.Collection: New York
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."Collection: Art
I put all of my time into art because I couldn't go back to Jersey and work at Starbucks.Collection: Art
I didn't have to be friends with people who were into pop music.Collection: People
A lot of artists need structure.Collection: Artist
I didn't have much of a life in crime as a graffiti writer.Collection: Graffiti
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.Collection: Photography
Growing up, my room was covered in posters. I was like, "I want to make posters."Collection: Growing Up
I was studying graphic design at the time, when negative scanners and all that stuff was coming out, and you could do it all in your apartment. So I would shoot, make contact sheets, scan all the cool negatives, and make all these zines and books of my photos to give to my friends. I was really into zine- and bookmaking from skate culture.Collection: Book
I got a lot of attention when I was really young, and people have it in their minds that I'm still 24 years old. So I made the decision that I had photographed everything I was interested in in New York. New York is a town you have to embrace, but you also need to leave. I may revisit it one day, but for me it's a place to live rather than one to make work in.Collection: People
I'm not going to hide behind anything.Collection: Behinds
I was voted most artistic in school.Collection: School