What Ryan Brenizer Loves: Junebug

I am very happy to be added to Junebug’s exclusive list of best photographers in the NYC area. They limit each metropolitan area to a select number of photographers and it’s quite an honor to be selected in New York because, well, we have the most people, and so many talented people flock to what I like to call “an amusement park for workaholics.”

As soon as I discovered Junebug, I knew that they were a publication that really “got” photography, feeling free to publish images just because they loved them, whether or not they showed the latest styles in centerpieces. It is an honor to be on their list of photographers they love.

I wrote a little personal statement for them, might be worth sharing here:

I have been blessed by photography. It has filled me with purpose and joy, and taken me places I never thought I’d go. I have covered three U.S. presidents, been blessed by the Pope, and been stared down by Muhammad Ali. I’ve shared a laugh with Smokey Robinson, and had a picture I took of him used when he received a lifetime achievement award. I’ve photographed a 110-year-old woman as she told me what it was like to climb onto the torch of the Statue of Liberty. I was chosen as the only independent photographer allowed near Obama and McCain in their last meeting before the 2008 election. But I have never felt so blessed by photography as when I am photographing a wedding. At weddings, we are most visibly ourselves — the walls we walk around with come tumbling down under the forces of joy, anxiety (and sometimes a bit of alcohol). To document that experience, the relationship of friends, families, and a couple launching a new stage in their life, is an incredible feeling. When a client says “This is the first picture of seen of my parents that actually looks like them!” I feel like I’ve done something with lasting value. And to do that with so many wonderful couples, from down the Manhattan street to as far away as Singapore, makes it all the better.

I am a storyteller and a problem solver. When I am posing you, I work to make you comfortable enough to find the real emotions and expressions within you. And when I am documenting the day, I work to make you comfortable enough to forget I’m there.