Photographer Ryan Muirhead Talks Depression, Creativity, and What It Means to Be Human
https://petapixel.com/2014/03/24/photographer-ryan-muirhead-talks-depression-creativity-means-human/
A lot of people with a talent for photography harness that towards a business in shooting for clients. Why haven’t you done that?
When I started shooting I was miserable. I was suicidal. I hated everything about my life. I was going through tons of stuff that I had no outlet for. When I found photography it became my outlet. Soon after, I grasped the concept that you can use art to express something that is going on personally, and that other people will relate. That’s like Art 101. But I never knew that before, because I wasn’t an artistic kid at all. I wasn’t always making stuff. I didn’t know I would be a creative.
I assumed you had been shooting since you were a kid.
I took my first photo ever when I was almost 27. It came from that place of turmoil. Once I found it, I didn’t want to do anything else. It was such a revelation. And for about three years, doing something with it never crossed my mind. It was just this compulsion. I had found this thing and was compelled to do it over and over and over and over. And the attention and the social media following was an accident. I was just shooting and making stuff and then I thought, what do I do with all these pictures? A friend told me to start sharing them online, and things developed from there.
But I started doing this for me — as a type of journal. And I haven’t dropped that. All my work is still so personal to me, and I’m always putting what I’m going through into the work that I’m doing. It’s like, how do you sell that? That sounds like the cliché “artist selling out” trope, and I don’t even believe in that. Everything’s just a game and you set your own rules. But it is really hard for me to sell this. I’d rather teach it or tutor or speak about it and try to show why I’m doing it. But to commercialize it, not only does that feel weird, I’m not even sure it’s possible. What I’m doing isn’t task oriented. It’s more like, “I feel like shit today,” or “I feel like I can make it now,” and that’s where the images are coming from.
So in some way art has to do with hope?
Yeah, I mean it would have to be hope, to me, because it is continued exploration. It’s addressing something that in however many thousands or millions of years we still don’t have an answer for, but we wont give up on addressing it. For me, that’s hope.
What inspires you? What do you turn to for renewal?
I turn only to other things. I do not turn to photography for inspiration. Rarely do I even look at photography. When I do, I only look to the masters—the great photographers whose images have withstood time. I don’t look into what other people are doing, because that’ll just pollute your unique voice. Anything else is game. Song lyrics, that’s my number one source of inspiration. Song lyrics. Poetry. Then cinema, music, sculpture, painting, acting, anything that isn’t photography. Other art sources make me feel the creative drive, and then I want to go express that through photography.
What have you learned about yourself through this love affair with photography?
Everything. It’s completely revealed to me who I really am. I guess I didn’t know before, or I was too scared to admit it. A lot of this has been retrospective though. It has occurred through coming to terms with my anxiety or depression, or better understanding my worldview or religious outlook or views on humanity and then looking back and realizing I was so anxious because I thought my view was incorrect or damaged. In reality, those ‘damaged’ views were what I really believed at a deeper level but had not come to terms with yet. I’ve experienced so many insights like that through art. And it happens more every day.
What would you say to the person who is just starting on a creative endeavor? Or what would you say to the person who maybe feels hopeless or lost that wants to explore creative work but doesn’t know where to start?
I would point out that creative endeavors are not start-stop endeavors. It’s a lifestyle. And that’s the only way it can be. With photography, I don’t think, “I’m gonna go take a picture today.” I’m asking myself all the time, “What do you see? How would you tell this? How would you say this differently? What could you say with one image about where you’re at right now?” And I’m doing that nonstop, even when I’m not shooting. I can’t stop. It’s a perspective shift.
For example, it’s not like great authors or philosophers were normal and then they would do their philosophizing. They were seeing the world differently. And not because of ability, but by intent. Great art asks great questions, but it also causes the artist to ask great questions of him or herself. Why are you depressed? Why does creativity seem like a great idea? Who are you really? What are you afraid of? What do you hope for? That stuff’s f***ing scary. But until you start asking those questions and putting it back into your work, then you’re just taking pictures of flowers or just learning how the camera works or wishing you had better oil paints or more expensive canvas or that big zoom lens or the newest Nikon camera.
In the end, it’s about honesty. It’s about the willingness to face really, really shitty questions about yourself and not lie. Maybe you don’t start out being honest to the entire world, but at least don’t lie to yourself. And that is so hard. That’s the journey. That’s why it turns into a lifelong thing. That’s where good art comes from, and if you’re gonna do that, it’s gonna set you on a completely different path.