By: Adam Cohen

One of Hopkinton High School’s art students, Ryan McLean, was  able to sit down and share his interests in art and photography and discuss why it is so appealing to him. McLean, like many other students, is not spectacular at painting or drawing, “So, I always had more of an interest in photography,” he explained. “Painting and drawing is a very abstract thing, whereas photography for me is more realistic because you’re taking pictures of real life things”.

Photography is more than simply just taking a picture with a camera, uploading it onto a computer, and then posting it to Facebook, Flickr, Myspace or any of the other social websites. Although there are many different genres and branches of photography, “painting with light is definitely the genre of my choice,” said McLean. “It is something where you can kind of take a picture and alter it without using Photoshop because the picture can be altered while you are taking it. You can use the light to change the pictures and how they look. Photographing at night or painting with light is equivalent to a painter starting with a blank canvas”.

McLean’s photography can be found on his Flickr site, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rymclean. While on the site, look for his award winning photograph of Adrian Emrick for the 2009 Hopkinton High School Photo Contest.