Twenty Years In…

A More Intentional Start

For the past twenty years, I’ve been photographing the world around me — music, personal projects, and nearly all of it on film. I’ve shared images here and there over the years, but I haven’t been especially intentional about how the work lives beyond the moment it’s made. I’ve spent more time chasing the next frame than thinking about what happens to the last one.

In the meantime, the archive has grown — boxes of negatives, contact sheets, and thousands of images that felt important when I pressed the shutter and then quietly went back into storage. Lately, I’ve been going back through that work with a different mindset. Book and zine projects are starting to take shape, beginning with a 20-year anniversary zine featuring photographs from my first music festivals — Coachella and Bonnaroo in 2006.

This blog is part of that shift — a more deliberate way to share the work, the stories behind it, and the projects that are in progress. I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to document so much over the years, and for the people who have trusted me along the way. There’s a lot to go through, and I’m looking forward to finally sharing it with more intention. -Ryan

Matt Schultz of Cage the Elephant, Bonnaroo 2009. Hasselblad XPan on Kodak Tri-X 400