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PhotoForum Momento 2 (October 2008): Portaiture

G. Leslie Adkin, Amanda A’Hara, Elizabeth Corin, Paul Konings, sada, Jan Young

Edited by sada

Essay by Haruhiko Sameshima

Published by PhotoForum, October 2008

Cover photograph by Jan Young

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The images of adolescents collected together here come from a cross section of contemporary New Zealand photographers, with an historical photograph from the collection of John B. Turner and an essay by photographer Haru Sameshima.

An Auckland based photographer, Amanda A’Hara began attending motocross meets as a teenager, with her father and brothers. Photographing teenagers amidst a sports culture, A’Hara explores through her work “social fantasies, particularly as they are evidenced in the formation and structure of social and personal identities.”

The young people Paul Konings photographed were living in District 6, Capetown; friends and families, Scorpions – imminent displacement a part of their culture. Images from this immense body of work were exhibited and published internationally in the 1980’s. Paul built friendships with the people in his photographs, re-visiting them with their images over the years that he was studying in Capetown.

Elizabeth Corin photographed her friends in her final year at High School, documenting their relationships with one another. The photograph of my sister Lish at the local Farmers department store was taken during a documentary project, on a day out shopping with Mum. The boys Jan Young documented were from her local area, known to her through their community, and included her son Jack.

These photographs depict adolescents in disparate communities, their uniting thread being the permeation of the relationship between the photographer and the portrayed. The liaison allows our entrance into a sphere of cultural knowledge extraneous to our own, the unparalleled and privileged opportunity of photography.

sada