Gig Harbor photographer Janette Ryan has been shooting landscapes for years as a hobby. Now her work is reaching a whole new audience with the City of Tacoma’s “Spaceworks” project.

The project is an attempt to beautify the downtown area by allowing artists to display in empty storefronts.

Ryan said while she was driving downtown last year, she noticed other artists’ work, so she parked her car and got out to take a look.

“It caught my eye — it was all along Broadway,” she said. “I saw all this wonderful, weird, quirky art. Each building has a different artist involved in different types of media.”

Ryan read about the project on one of the storefronts. While downtown buildings are up for rent, artists can display their work there for three months.

After she submitted a statement and an essay explaining how her work would matter, Ryan received an email congratulating her that she was chosen. Her 15-piece display will hang in the window at the old Woolworth building through February.

Most of her work depicts fragments of decaying, man-made structures, like piers and pilings, captured amid a swirling display of moving clouds. She shoots long exposures, which make the natural environment appear to be in motion around a stationary object.

Ryan grew up in the area and obtained a degree in commercial photography from the Art Institute of Seattle. She moved to Los Angeles and worked as a photographer’s assistant and location scout. She worked alongside noted photographers for Rolling Stone magazine and helped shoot recording artists like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Lenny Kravitz.

But, over time, she grew tired of city life, where she lived in Venice Beach and said she often heard gunshots fired from rival gangs.

“It was exhausting living there,” she said. “I was always on the edge of crappy neighborhoods.”

While she shot a wedding in Port Townsend, she met her future husband, whom she had known in school. When they married, she happily moved back to the area.

“I love Gig Harbor,” she said. “It was so good to be home.”

Ryan continued her photography as a hobby and shooting for Gig Harbor Little League.

Still, she was surprised when she was chosen for the Spaceworks program.

“I never thought it was good enough,” she said. “I feel like a photograph is never done. I just can’t leave it alone.”

Ryan’s husband and children are supportive of her passion, which can involve long night sessions. She often shoots at twilight or in complete darkness, the long exposure capturing the available light over time. She experiments with different time exposures, leaving the lens open for 45 minutes to an hour to get just the right look.

Ryan shoots in digital color, then changes the scene to grayscale with Photoshop.

Her passion for shooting lonely, isolated subjects, often in bad weather, poses its own set of challenges. As clouds are an important part of Ryan’s work, stormy skies offer more artistry than shooting on bright sunny days.

In an effort to get just the right shot, Ryan sometimes ends up lugging her tripod and photography equipment across treacherous ground in the dark.

“You have to pay attention to the tides so you don’t get stuck,” she said. “It’s all about learning patience and trying not to get nervous about creepy sounds. I’m friends with some homeless people under the bridge. I buy them a cup of coffee.”

One foul odor Ryan was plagued with while she shot under the Narrows bridges turned out to be a dead seal washed up on the rocks.

Curious onlookers often don’t understand the artistry she’s creating with seemingly mundane subjects.

“They come up to me and say, ‘What are you shooting that for?’ ” she said. “They ask me why I don’t shoot pretty sunsets. But I like to shoot man-made stuff in some sort of decay. I like the solitude and tranquility of it. I love the interplay between nature and what man has done to the environment.”

More of Ryan’s work can be viewed at www.jryanimages.com.



Lifestyles Coordinator and reporter Susan Schell can be reached at 253-853-9240 or by email at susan.schell@gateline.com.