THE HOURGLASS

The irony is not lost on Kathy Ryan, the renowned longtime photography director of The New York Times Magazine, that the piece of equipment that lured her into making celebrated photographs of her own was not, say, a Leica, but rather her iPhone. Just over a year ago, Ryan began snapping photos of the office in earnest and posting them on Instagram. Within a couple of months, the little app in her pocket had provoked two revelations: first, that Ryan was herself a photographer with a singular talent for still life and portraiture; second, that the skyscraper in which she had spent so many of her days—and more than a few long nights—was a prism that refracted light in extraordinary ways. “I didn’t realize how amazing the light in the building was,” Ryan says. “I just didn’t see it clearly until Instagram. Suddenly now I see it all the time, this incredible light happening.”

So was born “Office Romance,” Ryan’s ongoing valentine to the Renzo Piano-designed building in which she works and office life more generally. In Ryan’s work, post-it notes appear as exotic as Birds of Paradise and colleagues stand in shadows cast by the building’s horizontal bars that are so severe, the subjects appear to be wearing striped Breton shirts. 900 Instagram shots later, Ryan has 44,000 followers and counting. “Most people don’t appreciate the beauty of it, this divine light,” Ryan says. “There is incredible poetry in the office.”

For Whisper Editions, Ryan has selected four of the most popular photographs from her enchanting Instagram series and gathered them as a set. Together, the six-by-six prints capture the unexpected beauty of day-to-day life inside Ryan’s muse, The New York Times building, and reveal the very remarkable eye that has made Ryan one of the most preeminent photography editors in publishing.

Shop Ryan's edition for Whisper here.