Being an artist is the hardest
career one can choose
to do. There’s not much of
a road map for it.
ANDREA: How did you arrive at the main themes in
and it was sort of like nature, movement, and nudity. Those
your work? Such as shooting people naked?
were the three things I was interested in. It gave me an original voice, and I think people were just really responsive to it.
RYAN: I started shooting photos at the end of 1998, and
It felt very comfortable and easy for me to do.
at that time I hadn’t studied photography. My first year
I studied painting. My second year I studied poetry. My
ANDREA: What was it like for you early on in your career?
third year I studied graphic design. But my last year, I realized I really wanted to become a photographer. That’s
RYAN: The first five years, I feel I was sort of in the history
when I started practicing photography.
of downtown New York, from 14th Street to Canal Street. I
Then, for the first two years, I was narrowing down my
was trying to find my voice—publicly, since I got success-
possibilities of what I wanted to shoot, so I was shooting
ful at a very young age. I was participating in the lineage
everything. I was shooting my family and architecture and
of Allen Ginsberg, photographing his group of artists, to
my food. I would go around New York and shoot graffiti
Larry Clarke, photographing his group of artists.
and my friends. I was living on Bleecker Street with this
I feel like from ‘98 to ‘03, I was photographing in this
girl who was a dominatrix. She was really free with her
twenty-block radius that other people had also made a
body and she was the first person who was okay with be-
large body of work in. It’s almost like a school or some-
ing nude in front of the camera. I didn’t even have to ask
thing, like “Downtown.” So yeah, I had just come to New
her; she just liked to have fun and dance around and be
York and was discovering Downtown. Like most artists, I
sexy. And it was really great for me to just explore that.
was photographing my tribe, and everyone was trying to
I took an interest to that, and I also took an interest in
figure out how to be artists. Of course, most artists were
skateboarding. That was a big part of my life, skateboard-
wild and went out every night and stayed up all night. It
ing and snowboarding, from age six until I was nineteen.
was a tight group of people who didn’t really have much
That’s pretty much all I did everyday. When I was skate-
interaction with the outside world at all. We were a very
boarding I would always have a camera with a fish eye
insular family, trying to figure out how to support our-
lens, and I would be the one filming all my friends doing
selves as artists and how to live as artists. Figuring that
tricks and edit skateboard videos of people doing numer-
out has a lot of turmoil. Being an artist is the hardest ca-
ous tricks in a row. I just really like a lot of movement.
reer one can choose to do. There’s not much of a road map
That was always something that was interesting to me:
for it. Getting advice from people isn’t the easiest thing.
doing things repetitively, trying to get the best version of
somebody doing something. I guess I was just narrow-
ANDREA: Who or what inspired you early on?
ing things down, the things I like. One of the things I really liked in high school was life drawing. I did that for
RYAN: Early on, I was inspired by a lot of the movies
five years t o develop my portfolio. It was something I re-
I mentioned earlier. I was really inspired by Terrence
ally loved, and my mom would always drive me to life
Malick—”Badlands” and “Days to Heaven” were really
drawing classes, so I always took an interest in the body.
inspiring. Then there were certain books that I felt so in-
Once I started to photograph people nude, I was just re-
spired by, like Theatre of Manners by Tina Barney. I loved
ally fascinated by it. And once I realized I was capable of
that book and would look at it all the time. She got so deep
blowing up my photo to poster size, there was something
in her world. She just got so deep with the people, and I
about that that really blew my mind. My whole bedroom
felt like the level of trust and intimacy in the photos was
as a kid was just covered. You couldn’t even see any of
something I hadn’t seen. And it was really a world that
the wallpaper because it was just covered with posters of
I had never experienced, like Laura Ashley, that kind of
rock bands that I liked and stuff pulled out of magazines.
household. Another book I looked at when I was young
When I realized I could make my own posters, that was it.
was Jack Pierson’s All of a Sudden. I think it comes back
I was like, “Wow! So cool!” I loved it.
to that thing of people having a specific vision of a very
So I managed to narrow down my interests in photography,
small world. Things like that really inspired me.
Ryan McGinley, Opposite: Jonas, (Waterfall), 2008; Following pages: Left: Kaaterskill Falls, 2015; Right: Kensie & Clyde, 2015.
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