by Chamberlain Zulauf<\/p>\n
Even though Ryan Hunt belongs to the class of 2018 he\u2019s still relevant around campus as the man behind the camera and the eyes of Roanoke\u2019s student life. It might be a surprise to learn that Ryan graduated with a major in music, concentrating in marketing. You might not even know he\u2019s been playing the piano since he was five. Or, that when Ryan was in middle school, he produced a song for Tyga and Lil Wayne. Seriously, it\u2019s called 500 Degrees and is on Spotify. Peep the song credits.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSomehow for whatever reason, I got lucky, and he listened,\u201d said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n Classmates of his will remember when the handle was @ryanhuntmusik and not @ryanhuntphotography. In fact, the original plan was to focus on music. During his time as a student Ryan played keys in jazz band for seven semesters.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSo, when I was coming out of high school, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study in college for a career. Music was basically the only thing I was passionate about at the time, so I started taking music classes here,\u201d said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n In jazz band and throughout the music major Ryan especially connected with his advisor and director Dr. Blaha, who retired the same year Ryan graduated. Ryan\u2019s senior project was to replace the score of <\/span>Star Wars: Rogue One<\/span><\/i> using online software. For the project Ryan produced and hour and a half\u2019s worth of full orchestral music for the movie\u2019s soundtrack.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy senior recital was basically me playing the movie with my music on top of it for my family, friends and some of the other music faculty and people here. That was definitely one of my favorite memories,\u201d said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n Today Ryan plays music in local cover bands and for his church, Our Lady of Nazareth. His favorite college memory was playing background piano in the presidential mansion for Maxey\u2019s Christmas parties his junior and senior years.<\/span><\/p>\n The passion for photography we all know Ryan for today didn\u2019t get serious until his junior year,<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cI kind of wanted to explore more with photography, starting my sophomore\/junior year, so I invested in some nicer camera equipment. I reached out to the athletic office and the MarComm office of Roanoke College and also to the local Roanoke newspapers to see if there were any photography opportunities there,\u201d said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n The transition into photography was cemented when a friend from high school connected Ryan with his dad who had been covering UVA sports at the Roanoke Times for 40 years.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHe gave me a shot and we went up to a couple UVA basketball together. Basically, I had no experience at all in sports, so the photos weren\u2019t great but going to those games and sitting on the baseline with 10,000 people in the arena, it was a lot of fun, and I knew that was something I wanted to get into\u2014being able to capture a moment\u201d, said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n Ryan\u2019s photography career has taken off since those UVA games. Ryan shoots for UVA sports, as well as Roanoke and works for USA Today in shooting football and basketball for Virginia Tech. He has even tapped into the wedding and family portrait market.<\/span><\/p>\n Students on campus today probably know him for shooting most of our senior photos, myself included.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI remember the other photographers helping me out at those first UVA games, now I can consider myself one of those \u2018real\u2019 photographers. I’ve been doing photography for about five now but there\u2019s still a lot to learn\u2026 My first assignment with [USA Today] was last April, shooting a NASCAR race in Martinsville. And that was definitely a super unique experience\u2026 Photography a lot of networking. That’s something that some people like and some people don’t. Some people get frustrated when you reach out and don’t hear back. But you just have to keep pushing at it. I’ve always loved computers and technology and social media\u2014all that. So, it’s just it’s all just part of the trade. Another thing I really like about what I do is that my schedule is really never the same. Graduating, I could never see myself having a nine to five desk job because I love creative projects. I love creativity\u2026. There\u2019s a lot of breaking into the industry and learning on the fly. That\u2019s something my freshman year self couldn\u2019t have done; I didn\u2019t get outside my comfort zone back then, but photography has allowed me\u2014and sometimes even forced me\u2014 to break outside it\u201d, said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n One of Ryan\u2019s favorite quotes, and fridge magnets, is that \u2018life begins at the end of your comfort zone.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI have probably eight to ten favorite photos that I’ve taken across all the various kinds of things I shoot. One of my favorite photo sessions was photographing Taylor Swift at her Reputation concert tour in the summer of 2018 in Washington DC.<\/span><\/p>\n I got this awesome photo, there was a red light shining on [Taylor Swift] and she\u2019s isolated by herself. It\u2019s very cinematic\u2026 I actually have become a pretty big Taylor Swift Fan. I wasn’t a super big fan when I was in high school in college, but I really love a lot of her new music and especially seeing her in concert made me appreciate her\u201d, said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s been a successful and storied life after graduation for Ryan, campus is glad to still have him around. What he\u2019ll miss the most from his student years is the time he got to spend with his friends while he was still able to see them frequently. He and his friends,<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWent to Commons together, Wing Night at Mac and Bobs, studied together and hung out. If I could give any advice to current students, it would be to appreciate the time you have right now. Once you graduate adulting hits you pretty quick. You don’t have time to hang out or just be stupid and be young and fun, kind of like you used to, so appreciating what you have is super important,\u201d said Ryan.<\/span><\/p>\n Ryan sees the Roanoke College experience as a fun and transformative process to becoming an adult. Seeing the way everything has turned out for one of Roanoke\u2019s most prolific Alumni, his time in the Roanoke Valley has been nothing less than picture-perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Chamberlain Zulauf Even though Ryan Hunt belongs to the class of 2018 he\u2019s still relevant around campus as the man behind the camera and the eyes of Roanoke\u2019s student life. It might be a surprise to learn that Ryan graduated with a major in music, concentrating in marketing. You might not even know he\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-6699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folks-at-noke","tag-summer2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}