Ryan Mayfield: Experimenting With Perception

Local photographer Ryan Mayfield came to Utah from South Bend, Indiana, and is currently attending grad school at the University of Utah getting his PhD in counseling psychology. When Mayfield isn’t studying for school, you’ll catch him with his camera experimenting with perception and trying to live in the moment to create good and interesting photos.

In 2022, Mayfield decided to put down his paintbrushes and pick up a camera after the height of the pandemic, to get out into the world and make connections. He believes that photography gives him a good balance of technical detail with the freedom to go in many different directions. 

“Photography is a cool medium because it’s one of the few that forces you to go out into the world and create art,” he says.

His influences range from Wes Anderson to Studio Ghibli to surrealism. He says they help him find beauty in everyday little slices of life and to not need complicated subject matter or techniques. “Reality is subjective to a certain component, and I like that we all perceive things differently,” he says.

“Photography is a cool medium because it’s one of the few that forces you to go out into the world and create art.”

Currently, Mayfield is using infrared photography and loves to shoot film. He believes there’s a difference between good photos and interesting photos—and while ideally, you would like to have both, he focuses on finding something that interests him first and then making it as good as he can. Mayfield says he loves to experiment with different styles and the idea that each person can have a different perception of the same image.

“Perception creates each person’s unique experience and the reality that they live in,” he says. “My approach to photography is, ‘How can I make this photo different for someone else that is standing right next to me?’”

In January of 2024, Mayfield was invited to show his work at a gallery called The Arts Building here in Salt Lake City, and while this was outside his comfort zone, he’s glad he did it since it opened more doors for him creatively and helped him to apply to other galleries as well.

“I learned that you don’t need to have a massive following for people to appreciate and discover your work, and you can still have those artistic opportunities.”

“I think as an artist, when you put out a body of work you take on a vulnerability when you share that side of you and I’m so glad I opened myself up to something like that,” Mayfield says. “I’m trying to remain open to opportunity and to always take the risk.”

Mayfield is a lead organizer of a grassroots community collective called the Salt Lake City Photo Community. He says community is the thing that inspires him the most as a photographer. He’s been inspired by the Salt Lake photography scene and believes that learning from other photographers has expanded his creative horizons and connected him to some amazing people.

“There is such diversity in the photography community here in Salt Lake, so drawing inspiration from what I learn from someone else just makes me a better photographer,” he says. Mayfield thinks of himself as a private person, only having made his photography Instagram page public in December last year. He only did this after connecting with people in the community who taught him to see the value of sharing his art with people. He didn’t do this for validation but thinks of it more as the artistic process.

“I learned that you don’t need to have a massive following for people to appreciate and discover your work, and you can still have those artistic opportunities,” he says.

“There is such diversity in the photography community here in Salt Lake, so drawing inspiration from what I learn from someone else just makes me a better photographer.”

He only has one year left here in Salt Lake City before he goes off for an internship to finish his graduate degree. He says he’s trying to maximize all the time he has left in this beautiful state before he leaves it. He’s not sure where his photography style will go, but he has been inspired by the Salt Lake City Photo Community.

“I’ve made some amazing connections here, and after my time in Utah ends, I would be very interested in creating a photography community wherever I go,” he says.

If you want to see how Mayfield experiments with perception, check out his Instagram @dreamwavephotgraphy and @slc_photocommunity for future work by Mayfield and other amazing local photographers in Salt Lake.  

Read more about local photographers:
Preserving Calm: Peter Wiarda Explores SLC’s Endangered Architecture
Worth a Thousand Words: The Photography of Melanie Moreno