BIO

Ryan Johnson, Owner/Photographer

I was always fascinated by photography and computer science since an early age, although my siblings and I hated posing for family photos. While studying computers in my spare time and physics in high school, I encountered many computational challenges relating to graphics, color, and image compression, as well as the physics behind optics and light, and this contributed to my interest in photography as a science, however, I grew to love the artistic side of it in my years in college.

I started out with a Point and Shoot in high school and would take photos at events my mom hosted. In my first year at college, in 2008, I received my first DSLR camera (a Nikon D3000) as a Christmas gift. I started my artistic journey as a nature and still-life photographer. After teaching myself photography and color grading in Adobe Lightroom, I purchased an "upgrade" to a Nikon D7000, which was marginally more appropriate for fast-paced event photography. A few years later, I volunteered as the event photographer for the newly-formed Asian American Association at The University of Memphis.

Later, I paused my studies and worked at Jimmy Alford Studios, Inc. as a studio portrait photographer. While at Jimmy Alford, I made yearbook photos and worked with high school seniors and their parents to create lasting memories for their personal albums. Jimmy Alford didn't frequently receive walk-ins, however, when they finally had a couple walk in for some portraits, I was selected by the staff as their photographer.

After this, in 2018, I realized I was using Photography as a diversion from finishing my degree in Computer Science, so I sold my camera and returned to college.

After graduating in 2020, I worked minimum wage jobs outside of my degree area, failing to secure an entry-level position due to COVID increasing the competition for entry-level remote work in coding. In December 2021, I secured my first job in IT at ALSAC/St. Jude. I finally returned to photography in late 2022, upon request of a friend to help make a menu and website photos for his new restaurant concept, IBIS Restaurant, in downtown Memphis. You can see their website here: https://www.ibismemphis.com and their instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/ibismemphis 

As for genres, I approach new genres as requested.

As mentioned above, I have a degree in computer science. I am not just a photographer but also a full-stack developer and Flutter app developer (Google's SDK for cross-platform app development).

CONTACT

To contact me, send an email to bigrpicture@zohomail.com or message me on social media.