EDITORS’ PICK
The Languid Flow of Fleeting Youth
YOUTHHOOD
Youthhood Editors’ Pick
“It takes a very long time to become young.” – Pablo Picasso
Following Wilfrid Estève’s selection of winning images for our ‘YOUTHHOOD’ theme, this compilation of 20 images, selected by the Life Framer editors represents some of the other talented photographers whose work struck us and left a mark. Some are more literal representations of the theme, and others are more abstract, but each one is a stunning image worthy of exposure and attention.
These are intended to be a conversation starter… so feel free to join the discussion on our social networks.
Banner image and text courtesy of Robert Sadin.
“Everything fades over time, especially memory. My work incorporates the unfamiliar and often unseen beauty I find in familiar things that have morphed over time. I incorporate original landscape and portrait photos and snapshots culled from family archives with organic manufactured and ephemeral subjects that stimulate my imagination. This allows me to create highly textured tableaux that look familiar but only exist in the world I create. Their narratives are illusions but the memories are real.”
Image and text courtesy of Tim Coad from his series ‘Engagements with Twilight’.
“Twilight is an ephemeral transitional moment in time. An Intimate engagement with the immediacy power and sublimity of the natural forces. The threshold and tenuous grip we have on life propels me to investigate the fragility of existence and reality. My work explores the tension of a loss of place and loss of self-identity, a distancing and detachment. My work deals directly with the contemporary culture of youth that I am living in. Young people are in transitional states, searching for identity within external sources. There is a detachment from childhood and an exhausting reach to cling onto remnants to identify with. Twilight acts as a zone of investigation for the period of youth – an in-between state”.
www.timcoad.com and Instagram: @timjamescoad
Image and text courtesy of Tommaso Sacconi from his series ‘Therapy’.
“I find it really hard to separate myself from things that belonged to me. Always before throwing them away I have to celebrate the detachment and convince myself that what I have collected is not completely useless. I recently realized that it helps taking pictures of everything before I get rid of it. Especially using films or Polaroids as they don’t leave me empty handed. These images are part of my old life”.
www.tommasosacconi.com and Instagram: @tommasosacconi
Image and text courtesy of Emmaline Zanelli from her series ‘Cardboard Children’.
“This is from a series taken of young people at costume workshops run by myself and artist Kaspar Schmidt Mumm. We run the workshops in tight time slots and using very limited materials – usually only cardboard tape and paint. The children work fast. We make a portrait of each child as their costume is completed – often paint still wet. In the portraits the children become anonymous, commanding”.
www.emmalinezanelli.com and Instagram: @emmalinezanelli
Image courtesy of Oksana Briclot.
Instagram: @briclotfoto
‘Jenson, Amelia and Marni-Lee, New Brighton, 2016’ courtesy of Dean Davies.
www.deandavies.co.uk and Instagram: @deandavies
Image and text courtesy of Michalis Poulas from his series ’18’.
“First time I met my son was when he was 4 months old back in 2011. My wife had given birth while I was on an inpatient rehab programme. I had been an addict for 10 long years. In my attempt to redefine my relationship with society, as a person; with my companion as her spouse; and with my child as its father; these images came out of me.
“Tragic figures we are. Methinks that being aware and conscious is not conducive to true happiness. One lives more blissfully when one is unaware of how tragic life is. We. Are. All. Chasing. Our. Own. Selves. In the very end, the only thing that might remain is Love; in the sense of relentlessly striving for what is ideal”. – Emmanouil Kriaras”.
www.michalispoulas.com and Instagram: @michalis.poulas
Image and text courtesy of Eduard Korniyenko from his series ‘Lord of the Guns’.
“In Russia, military patriotic education has become part of the school system. From an early age children study Russian history, practice appropriate for their age tasks and skills, train at the patriotic military clubs. In Caucasus region. where the cult of arms and military traditions are strong, there exist specialised cadet schools. In these schools along with standard scholar courses, are added such disciplines as spiritual teachings, multi-day field trainings with nights outside, parachute jumping and mastering arms.
On a regular basis cadets go through intensive training programs at a base located near Stavropol city. These kids approach in a very adult way their soldier job. Many of these children dream of a military career. One of the cadets, Dmitry Pavlov, 17 years old, told us: “I enjoy going to the field trips with all the gear, sit by the fire at night and sing to a guitar, wear military uniform, work with younger cadets. Communication with the officers is also very valuable for me. I would not learn at a normal school everything that I have learnt at the cadets school””.
www.eduardkorniyenko.com and Instagram: @ed.korniyenko
Image and text courtesy of Nathalie Perakis-Valat from her series ‘My Real Shanghai’.
“How interesting to discover China’s youth. In this country, full of contrasts, developing at a frantic pace, the one child policy has just been abolished. It is amazing to see the gap between generations. Chinese youth today are developing a sense of individuality and identity. ‘My Real Shanghai’ is the expression of a very strong impression about Shanghai when I first discovered the city. To me it clearly appeared to be a place full of real people living in an unreal environment. The digital work helped me emphasize this vision – Thanks to collage and color enhancement the surrealism became more obvious. And to play with the spectator, as the Chinese love games, I hid myself in every photo”.
www.nathalieperakisvalat.com and Instagram: @nathalieperakisvalat
Image courtesy of Michael Joseph from his series ‘Lost and Found’.
www.michaeljosephphotographics.com and Instagram: @michaeljosephphoto
Image and text courtesy of Shauna Frischkorn from her series ‘McWorkers’.
“Fast food workers serve our food day-in and day-out while wearing corporate uniforms with all the conformity and anonymity associated with their low-status. My subjects are strangers that I meet while they are on the job. I invite these workers to my studio to be photographed in their uniforms. I purposefully create an ironic yet historical dialogue between my subjects and Renaissance portraiture. Historically, the portrait’s role was to immortalize the wealthy. Conversely my subjects are unable to make a living wage. Although they’re dressed like thousands of other workers, if you look close you can see their nobility”.
Image and text courtesy of Justyna Przybylowska.
“Youth is rebellious and carefree. My images explore this affair in a glamorized way, highlighting the idealism of juvenescence”.
www.theprzy.com and Instagram: @theprzy
Image courtesy of Georg Aamodt from his series ‘Cosplay: Ideality of Reality’.
www.georgaamodt.com and Instagram: @fotograf.georgaamodt
Image and text courtesy of Elisa Tomaselli from her series ‘Enlighten’.
“Tiptoeing around my city, I can see a lot of people’s everyday stories, and I’m hooked on the intimate moments that they live, which might remain unperceived if they weren’t brought to light by my camera. My project interprets photography as if it was an open window through which one can give different meanings to reality to create icon image. The use of the flash light helps to enlighten the slightest nuances of others’ feelings, emphasizing the duration of time in which the emotions are lived, often resulting in both surreal frames and fossilized images of alienation”.
Instagram: @elisa__tomaselli
Image and text courtesy of Lucy Ridgard from her series ‘Children of the Corn’.
“This series portrays indie teenagers sprawled across the canvass of the Suffolk countryside ,evoking natural beauty versus the stylised posturing of teenagers, the timelessness of the natural world against youth and ageing. They recall my colourful experience of growing up in 80s-90s Suffolk”.
www.lucyridgard.com and Instagram: @lucyridgardphotography
Image courtesy of Angela Douglas.
www.angeladouglasphotography.comand Instagram: @angeladouglasphoto
Image and text courtesy of Simon Martin from his series ‘Cadets’.
“This series looks at the social interactions of 13-18 years that are taking part in after-school activities based around the ethos of the Royal Marines. Though the theme is military influenced, the end result for the cadets is not to create small soldiers but to build self-confidence and respect within the young men as they grow up and discover who they are and want to be”.
www.simon-martin.org and Instagram: @simonmartin.ph
