Quote

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.

Ryan McGinley

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Ryan McGinley
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: October 17
Photographer
Ramsey
New Jersey
Feels
Brothers
Way
Models
Like
Hero
Brother
Remaking
Family
Photographing
Everyone
Resemble
Many
Sisters
Feel
Heroes

More quotes by Ryan McGinley

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A lot of my close friends have committed suicide or died of heroin overdoses.
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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.
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It's weird being a photographer because you really have to divorce yourself from the image.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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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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All I do is make photos. It's my life.
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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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You find the people that you need to find. There's this gravitational pull.
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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.
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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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I put all of my time into art because I couldn't go back to Jersey and work at Starbucks.
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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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The cool thing for me about moving to New York was that I got to create a new family.
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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.
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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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I knew my ticket out of the suburbs was art school, so I worked really hard to develop my portfolio and get a scholarship.
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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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