Hey, my name is Ryan Wystepek
That's pronounced "Why-step-ek"
I grew up making dumb videos with my friends on my first point and shoot camera and would always use video as a medium for any school projects when I was able. I didn't get seriously into photography though until partway through college at UMD. I picked up a point and shoot that I used for a couple years to bring hiking and to film skiing and snowboarding edits. From there I began to take more and more photos and videos and eventually found myself driving 5 hours to shoot my first wedding for a friend who couldn't make it himself. From there on I began to consider where else photography could take me and eventually created "West Epic Visuals", a play on my last name and a homage to being born out west in northern California.
Currently I work my day job as an engineer in aerospace and live in beautiful Duluth, MN. I enjoy camping up the north shore and in the BWCA whenever I get the chance to, and can usually be found in the terrain park at Spirit Mountain or Giant's Ridge in the winter.
My AI Policy
While AI is a constantly evolving technology, I am cognizant of the latest developments and trends within the industry and feel it's only right to let you know where I stand on the matter.
Since AI is now essentially a backbone of many programs it is nearly impossible to ignore its influence. I attempt to be as aware as possible when I am using it and use it as little as possible. I do not, and will not use it to create false imagery or in an otherwise deceptive manner such as: sky replacement, adding things to a scene that were never there, or extreme retouching like slimming a jawline or thinning a waistline. Areas where I knowingly use it are for functions that I could otherwise fully control, and albiet at a time penalty, do manually in a similar manner. Examples of these are Masking in Lightroom, dust and dirt spots from a lens that appear, content aware removal, and denoise. I only use AI content-aware removal for complex cases of removing persons that happen to move into a scene while shooting that are not an intended subject (i.e. random person walks into the background of a portrait shot, or a bug lands on a person's nose).
While this list is certainly not comprehensive nor complete, I feel it is morally right to attempt to provide guidelines for my use of AI.
Facts about me
I started my photography career in
2019
favorite restaurant in duluth
bridgemans
location I've traveled to
bergen, norway
