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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
Art
Portfolios
School
Ticket
Hard
Suburbs
Really
Scholarship
Tickets
Develop
Worked
Knew
Portfolio

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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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.
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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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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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The cool part about New York is that you can do that. You can talk to all the people you admire.
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Everyone started to have a camera. That's when I started to travel outside of New York and go into nature.
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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.
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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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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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All I do is make photos. It's my life.
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I'm not going to hide behind anything.
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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 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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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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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 didn't have to be friends with people who were into pop music.
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It's weird being a photographer because you really have to divorce yourself from the image.
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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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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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