invited guest: Mick Ryan
"This series of photos of my daughter entitled Tomfoolery started all quite by accident. It was last summer and it was oppressively humid and hot outside so we were forced to spend several weeks almost completely indoors. I didn’t have a lot of work so we started playing around with some of the stuff I had accumulated from junk shops and tacky tourist stalls around Shanghai. There’s about 40 in total in the series and it seems like every time I take a shot it is the inspiration for three more so I have along way to go yet.
Some of the photos are pre planned while others are just a reaction to the objects and playing around with them until I see something that creates a reaction in me. Whether it’s something that makes me laugh or cringe, I’m searching for something more than just a pretty picture. I’m looking to tell a story, though not a narrative, more like clues that can be read into in a variety of ways that is completely up to the viewer. I want to involve the viewer in the photos rather than dictate to them.
Some of the photos are pre planned while others are just a reaction to the objects and playing around with them until I see something that creates a reaction in me. Whether it’s something that makes me laugh or cringe, I’m searching for something more than just a pretty picture. I’m looking to tell a story, though not a narrative, more like clues that can be read into in a variety of ways that is completely up to the viewer. I want to involve the viewer in the photos rather than dictate to them.
Although I’m not influenced by the surrealist movement at all the mood in my photos is definitely dream like. My photos are like childhood memories, while they are like somebody’s childhood it certainly wasn’t mine. It’s a dream childhood, or perhaps a nightmare childhood in some cases, but I want to try to evoke the mood of a memory: something half remembered, half understood, dark, mysterious but hopefully – occasionally – precious. "
-Mick Ryan
invited by Lina Nääs
Posts
9 comments:
I saw your work recently in a photomagazine Mick and I'm happy that you're sharing your work with us as well. It's all solid, great, material. Great invitation!
Fantastic work, looked through your homepage and I must say I liked each and everyone of them.
Many thank´s for sharing here with us!
An thx to Lina too....
:-)
Your work makes me think of Man Ray
- the man who rescued photography from the evil engineers and their tech stuff
This is absolutely wonderful
I enjoy it a lot
Your web site is great too!
/Ulf
I find it very interesting to see your way of visualizing childhood memories since many of my own photographs revolving around that specific issue.
Great pictures.
These are wonderful. All of them. The one with the peacock feathers is so damn cool!
Thnx to you, and Lina!
/christofer
Such wonderful work, Mick. I know I'll be returning to your site again and again -- and that's the sign of real photography in my book, more meat on the bone than one can possibly digest in a single sitting.
Tell your daughter a woman in America just loves her :)
Thanks for being here, and thanks Lina for inviting Mick!
Jeanne
Fantastic photos Mick, really love the all...thanks for showing...
I haven´t checked you site yet but surely will as soon as possible!!!
Jeanette
14 June 2007
Of Fly Catchers and hidden lakes.
Of sleeping lizards and morning dew.
It is of birdsong and misty dawns
and fleeced clouds floating in a still pool.
The waters ripple awake in the gathering morn.
The first water birds head out for the far shore.
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