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In the late Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties, Adrienne Salinger would method women in line for the bathroom at purchasing malls throughout America, and ask if she may {photograph} them of their bedrooms.
‘Think of that! Now, can you imagine?’ she asks once we catch up over Zoom. ‘I would then spend a long time in there, wow. And of course I’ve met their parents. And the only rule I had was that you can’t clean your room. I wanted it to be who they are.’
Adrienne Salinger: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms
The results were published in 1995 as the photography book Teenagers in Their Bedrooms, which quickly achieved cult status. The title has now been republished, as an expanded version including additional photographs, and the images hold the same power as they did three decades ago.
Singer loved the experience. ‘I was just really interested in what [the subjects] thought about things,’ she says. ‘Because when you’re a teenager, you have a clarity about your life that only starts to dissolve as you get older, when you have to compromise. You don’t have to when you’re a teenager, because you’re not paying the utility bill, or renting. You don’t have to have a job. You haven’t started. We’re supposed to be having a great time, but really, we’re not. So even though they changed their mind a lot, I respected their point of view. And every single person is so different.’
(Image credit: Taken from ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’, photography by Adrienne Salinger, published by D.AP.)
(Image credit: Taken from ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’, photography by Adrienne Salinger, published by D.AP.)
The photographs capture private sanctuaries. Surrounded by posters, books, accessories and clutter, the teenagers are poised between adulthood and vulnerability, in a mish-mash of taste, personality and comfort.
Singer wanted to be true to her subjects. She chose to use continuous lighting – where the likely results of the shoot are very transparent for the sitter – rather than strobe flashes, which give the photographer a lot of creative control, but can feel more aggressive and, she felt, ‘could have reduced the person’. She adds, ‘There’s no such thing as a pure collaboration if you have the camera – I have the power, which I would explain to them. [But] I couldn’t rip them off. And I wanted them to confront the viewer and stare into the lens, because then they have some power, some agency.’
Singer got to know the teenagers she photographed, talking to them for hours and hearing their secrets. ‘Teenagers especially have a very bad reputation,’ she adds. ‘They’re quite hard done by and dismissed quite a lot. So maybe it was nice for them as well to have someone seeing them and spending time with them.’
Teenagers in Their Bedrooms by Adrienne Salinger is published by DAP and available from amazon.co.uk, £29.75
(Image credit score: Taken from ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’, pictures by Adrienne Salinger, printed by D.AP.)
(Image credit score: Taken from ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’, pictures by Adrienne Salinger, printed by D.AP.)
(Image credit score: Taken from ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’, pictures by Adrienne Salinger, printed by D.AP.)
(Image credit score: Taken from ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’, pictures by Adrienne Salinger, printed by D.AP.)
(Image credit score: Taken from ‘Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’, pictures by Adrienne Salinger, printed by D.AP.)
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you may go to the hyperlink bellow:
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