Ryan McGinley

I am a huge fan of McGinley's work, and he's a huge influence on the pictures I take. I really like the timelessness of his pictures, and the way he incorporates nature in all of his images.

A woman holds a buzzard. The scratches on her suggest that this shot was quite difficult to get.

These are all photographs from his project "Somewhere Place". I like how scratched up and bruised the models are: it shows how carefree they are, like children with scraped knees.

A young woman holds a kitten in her mouth by the scruff of its neck, much like a mother cat would do.

Ryan McGinley mostly uses nude models, which really highlight the closeness to nature all of his subjects share.

A young man falls out of a tree into a pond. The angle of this shot makes it unclear as to what exactly is going on.

His pictures really capture a sense of youth and freedom, and his use of natural, muted colours is really beautiful. He has a clear sense of composition and colour - two things I think are very important to photography.

Update

Okay so it's been a while, so I'm going to make a lot of posts, sorry!
Firstly, what I've been doing photography-wise recently. As ever, I've been taking photos of family and friends, but those were all taken with my traditional camera and haven't been processed and printed yet.
I've also bought myself a digital camera, for the first time ever. I saved up all year and finally can take pictures in this century. I now have a Canon 1000d, which isn't the best, but works fine for what I need it. I've also got myself a flickr account to upload my digiphotos to.
Shootwise, I've not really been that productive. I've mostly been learning how to use it, which is terrible, but I think I'm there now, so lots more pictures to come, I'm sure. I have a few shoots planned, it's just a matter of getting organised (argh)

Uh, recently I went on a march in Cambridge against the EDL, although I was there on a strictly photojournalistic capacity. I only briefly spied the EDL, and wasn't able to take satisfactory pictures. The photographs of the UAF march were alright though, I feel. I've uploaded them to flickr, but as my flickr isn't all sorted yet, I'll just post a few here:

This guy was speaking at the beginning. He was very passionate, and I tried to capture that.

Marching through Cambridge.

A young woman tells her son about the march as it passes by her house.

I tried to shoot the march with the idea of "community" in mind.

Trying to get a sense of scale of the march.

Okay so those were the best ones. They're not great, and I only really have myself to blame for that (although the weather was very odd all day - bright sun then rain, then sun again). Still, I learnt a lot about my camera and I hope the next shoot - whatever it may be - will be better.

I also shot some pictures at a local dog show, before that. These are the best ones: 

I have alway wanted to take pictures at a dog show to not only show the bond and familiarity between dog and owner, but also to show off a few of the different breeds of dog. No other animal has so much variation in a single species, and I find that completely fascinating.

I hope to shoot more soon.