Brooke Ryan - photographer
Artist Statement
Growing up in Cazenovia, I was out with my camera by day marveling at nature and capturing its beauty. By night I was regularly gazing through my telescope, mesmerized by the vastness of the universe. I wondered about Earth's significance within that space.
Today, my photographic art serves as a reminder of what we must preserve here on Earth. I often combine the pursuits of my youth using photo collage, juxtaposing the starry night sky with landscapes and seascapes to illustrate the eternal presence of the universe.
I cherish the colors of changing seasons, but also appreciate the monochromatic and minimalist effect snow has on the landscape. I am drawn to photograph nature's more subtle beauty, extracting and enhancing it using experimental photographic techniques and/or during post-processing.
Artistic Process
To capture my base images – the starting point for all of my photographic art - I travel and hike with my full-frame, digital single lens reflex camera, filters, lenses, and sometimes a tripod in tow. Infrared photography requires a bright, sunny day, a filter, a tripod, and exposures up to a few minutes long. I create Pep-Ventosa style art by walking around the subject shooting multiple images. Neutral density filters and a tripod allow me to capture the movement of water and the gentle motion of leaves and branches without overexposing the images. To create photo composites I combine components of different images into one work.
All of these techniques require extensive post-processing for which I use Photoshop, Lightroom, and Nik software. Depending on the desired outcome, I stack images, adjust color, light, and shadows, sharpen, blur, blend, eliminate distracting components, apply blending modes, and/or add layers of textures often resulting in images with a painterly softness about them.
You can see more of Brook's work at her site https://brookeryanphotography.com/.
©2024 Brooke Ryan. All rights reserved. Duplication is not allowed without permission.
