Kenyan marathon runners run in the high desert of Santa Fe, NM
Aurora Photos: You were recently featured in PDN’s 30 New and Emerging Photographers, can you describe briefly the steps you’ve taken to get to where you are today?
Ryan Heffernan: Building my career to date has been an adventure.
Its been a combination of constantly making images, finding mentors for constructive feedback, creating portfolios from bodies of work and trying to get that work in front of the right people in the industry. I love it all and it certainly keeps me busy.
Being included in PDN’s 30 this year is a huge honor and has been a great opportunity for reaching a larger audience with my work. Aurora has also been incredibly helpful in getting my work out in the world along with helping provide a marketing outlet for strong personal shoots.
A.P: Your portfolio ranges from photographing the Kenyan marathon runners to captureing a fantastic looking English Bulldog, how do you approach each shoot? Do you have any shoot that stands out among the rest?
R.H: I’ve been extremely fortunate to make a living photographing things that I love. Running and bulldogs fall right in there. I try to tell stories with my images and am constantly looking for interesting angles, using natural and artificial lighting, and utilizing post-processing when needed to push the image to create something beautiful.
A.P: In our highlighted shot of Kenyan marathon runners in the desert of Santa Fe, NM, can you describe how the project came together?
R.H: It started off as a personal project. I was introduced to a group of Kenyan marathon runners in Santa Fe, NM through a fly fishing buddy who’s an avid runner. The Kenyans were living in Santa Fe for 8 months out of the year, training and trying to win an income by running medium and large US marathons. When winter came they would return Kenya to be with their families. They all were incredibly nice and excited about doing a photo shoot. So we scouted some great locations in northern New Mexico and pulled the shoot together. We’ve done a number of other shoots since and they’ve become good friends.
A portrait of a group of Kenyan marathon runners taking a break
To view more images from Ryan Heffernan, visit Aurora Photos.
novusselect.wordpress.com 