I took these one evening in France this summer of my 14 year old niece Eleanor.

When photographing teenagers I find there are three approaches you can go for:

One is to work with them by constructing the image together in the very contrived but collaborative way -  involving them and thereby making it fun in terms of what they wear, where they position themselves, the pose, the look etc  -  similar I suppose to a fashion shoot (except here we just chanced upon the old discarded Citroen and their was no planning or styling,  just me and Eleanor enjoying the light, the quiet evening atmosphere, and plotting how we could bring all these elements together to make a quick sale to Top Shop so we could go on holiday again). There’s no denying it, most teenage girls love this kind of thing.

The result, as here, is often pleasing, idealised, romantic and otherworldly, but when I’m taking pictures like this I can sense the tension in myself between the contrivance and manipulation and idealising of a person, and the opposite desire to get them to ‘be themselves’. Can pictures like these ever describe anything more than a surface of what’s there in front of you: a fashion statement or a depiction of of something beautiful?

With most of my family shoots with teenagers I might suggest a bit of this but more often I go for my second and third approaches. The second is simply to  just hang out with them, spend time with them, and wait til they get either bored with me and my camera and stop being conscious or aware of me, or more likely diverted by something else - in this case a stray kitten:

As well as a good deal of the hands-off, observing, anticipating a moment and trying to capture it, I also have a third approach which is the complete opposite: to be completely upfront, and simply go for it very speedily as with these two very spontaneous posed portraits - completely aware,  but no time for self consciousness:

And then sometimes, occasionally these two approaches sort of come together: This is interesting and the sort of image I love to get as it’s such a good example of  what happens when children are diverted and absorbed by an activity - again in this case the therapeutic power of a kitten to stroke. Here I asked them momentarily to turn to me, but they are not really connecting with me: they are relaxed and zoned out and in their own moment with each other and the animal. We have to work harder to read these faces but they draw us in, and because I know these two children so well, I know I have captured something of what lies underneath:

But the question remains: How far can any photographic portrait reveal a window onto an individual’s spirit?  Can one, or even a dozen images, ever give us the full picture? I think the answer is probably no.

Perhaps these pictures simply show that we are just as diverse -  complex even -  on the outside as we are within…. and that we can be endlessly photographed but still the lens will find another ‘view’, the photographer will find their own ’spin’ and as subjects we will present a different version of ourselves to it.

This balance between director and observer, constructing and capturing images,  subjectivity and objectivity continues to  fascinate (and puzzle) me even after 10 years of photographing people.

In the end it doesn’t really matter - if pictures bring pleasure, that’s all -  perhaps the closest we can ever get to an answer is by asking the subject themselves and those close to them - parents and other family and friends.

On a lighter note, this one is for Eleanor, because she would not forgive me if I hadn’t posted at least one shot of him: