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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.

Ryan McGinley

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Ryan McGinley
Age: 47
Born: 1977
Born: October 17
Photographer
Ramsey
New Jersey
Worked
Knew
Portfolio
Art
Portfolios
School
Ticket
Hard
Suburbs
Really
Scholarship
Tickets
Develop

More quotes by Ryan McGinley

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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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The cool thing for me about moving to New York was that I got to create a new family.
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I'm going to put every aspect of myself out into the world and try to convey it through photography.
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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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I didn't have to be friends with people who were into pop music.
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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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I'm always interested in an atmosphere where dreams and reality mingle on equal terms.
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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 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.
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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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A lot of my close friends have committed suicide or died of heroin overdoses.
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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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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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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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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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There was no luxury. I never got on an airplane until I was 18. We drove everywhere. My dad was like, Waste not, want not.
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You find the people that you need to find. There's this gravitational pull.
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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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It's weird being a photographer because you really have to divorce yourself from the image.
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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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