In Petra Collins’s ‘The Teenage Gaze’, she captures moments of adolescence from a creative adolescent perspective, giving a fresh a stereotype-free view of young people, not dissimilar to being a ‘fly on the wall’. Collins’ age and personality allowed her to capture personal, intimate images of turbulent moments in the teens’ lives, as well as providing a contemporary discourse on their lives and the culture they live in.

The moments being lived by the subjects in the photos are ones you’d rarely see captured on camera, as they can be considered regular, daily occurrences for the teens. However, by having an outside perspective it allows for the pictures to become a monumental frozen piece of time.

Collins’ also takes advantage of the lighting, location, and props within the shots in order to create beautiful imagery.

I would like to emulate certain aspects of her work by taking documentary style photos over a period of time, in order to create a visual diary of my own sense of place – but from an outside perspective. I am aiming to capture affectionate, loving relationships between the adults of ‘generation Z’ firsthand.

Within these images, much like Collins’, I would to take advantage of and pay particular attention to the available natural light in my pictures. I will be using Kodak 200 iso colourplus film and an Olympus Mju-ii to take my photos – meaning I will need to be using either strong, natural light in my photos, or a flash.

All photos from: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?rs=ac&len=2&q=petra%20collins%20teenage%20gaze&eq=petra%20collins%20teenage&etslf=6747&term_meta[]=petra%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=collins%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=teenage%7Cautocomplete%7C0&term_meta[]=gaze%7Cautocomplete%7C0