End of an Age #39

Yellow-Orange blurry young woman.

In End of an Age Paul Graham captures the threshold that marks the ending of adolescence - the slice of time between youthful indulgence and the emerging awareness of adult responsibilities. His photographs resonate between these two poles: between full-on consciousness and escape: between staring the world in the eye and shying away; between seeing the world with shocking clarity and the desire to hide oneself from that reality - turn away, get drunk, close your eyes, get stoned. It is a situation that most of us know and remember all too well. It is also the threshold of a profound psychological transformation - a chartless sea in which one might successfully navigate, or get becalmed, or sadly drown.

These portraits, from 1996/97, were all made in the clubs, bars of an unnamed city. They consider this point in one's life and reflect upon its uncertainty and joys. The photographs alternate between ultra-sharp direct flash images where every detail is minutely recorded and the opposite extreme with loose available-light photographs saturated with color blurred and sometimes mis-focused. Presented in sequence as a single turn, with the images slowly rotating as we pass through the series - a single pirouette - the circle of life right before our eyes.

Edition: 1 of 1