Ryan McGinley Quotes

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.

I'm interested in reaching the masses with my work. It's one of my goals.

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.

You find the people that you need to find. There's this gravitational pull.

I'm always interested in an atmosphere where dreams and reality mingle on equal terms.

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."

I'm going to put every aspect of myself out into the world and try to convey it through photography.

A lot of my close friends have committed suicide or died of heroin overdoses.

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 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 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.

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.

I've been attracted to Kate Moss since I was a teenager.

I think a lot about control nowadays, and I really want to let go and just be more in the moment.

I just remember how excited I was to have a boyfriend and be in love and to document it.

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 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.

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.

I was never raised with anybody telling me that gay was bad.

I was voted most artistic in school.

The camera gives you some control.

I put all of my time into art because I couldn't go back to Jersey and work at Starbucks.

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.

The cool part about New York is that you can do that. You can talk to all the people you admire.

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.

I didn't have much of a life in crime as a graffiti writer.

Growing up, my room was covered in posters. I was like, "I want to make posters."

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.

I'm just a photographer, not a movie star.

My dad was in the Korean War. He got shot seven times. He had seven bullet holes in him. And out of his troop of 35 guys, he was one of nine guys that came back. And when he came back from that he had seven kids in seven years.

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.

I knew my ticket out of the suburbs was art school, so I worked really hard to develop my portfolio and get a scholarship.

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.

A lot of artists need structure.

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.

When I moved to New York, I was still in the closet.

The cool thing for me about moving to New York was that I got to create a new family.

A camera gives you a purpose.

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.

I didn't have to be friends with people who were into pop music.

What I really believe is that there are no coincidences anymore.

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 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 really don't want to be part of just one group. I'm interested in doing everything - making music videos, shooting campaigns, having -gallery and museum shows, making movies. Everyone wants to put you in a box, and I'm afraid I'm not that kind of person.

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.

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.

All I do is make photos. It's my life.

I was pretty Irish Catholic Jersey, the middle of the line.