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From 1998 to 2005, Neil Drabble photographed an American teenager, Roy, as he grew from adolescence into adulthood. On one level, this extensive body of work can be seen as a fascinating record of a transition that remains compelling. A closer look reveals other nuances; a collaboration, a partnership, a personal portrait, and at the same time a universal image of adolescence. Drabble chose not to depict the significant events that might appear in a family album, nor the defining moments associated with documentary photography. Instead, these photographs focus on the apathetic, off-stage periods—the “in-between moments” of everyday life. This focus on the marginal passages of overlooked time places the viewer at the heart of adolescence, defined as the period between childhood and adulthood, suspended between desire (for the deferred promise of adulthood) and regret (for the loss of childhood as a refuge).
By photographing the same person repeatedly and intimately throughout their formative years, a sense of mirroring began to emerge, reawakening something of the artist’s adolescent self and blurring the line between portrait and self-portrait. Neil Drabble grew up in the gray Manchester of the 1970s, watching American television shows and dreaming of a perceived glamour of adolescence spent in places where teenagers ate pizza, drank Dr Pepper, talked on the phone with friends until late, and drove cars rather than waiting at rainy bus stops. The process of depicting Roy and the collaboration between the older photographer and the younger subject allowed Drabble to reframe his own teenage years in a certain way and to engage vicariously with aspects of an alternative American youth he had longed for from across the Atlantic.
Published by Mack Books, 2019
24 cm 28 cm, 132 pages, like new
ISBN
From 1998 to 2005, Neil Drabble photographed an American teenager, Roy, as he grew from adolescence into adulthood. On one level, this extensive body of work can be seen as a fascinating record of a transition that remains compelling. A closer look reveals other nuances; a collaboration, a partnership, a personal portrait, and at the same time a universal image of adolescence. Drabble chose not to depict the significant events that might appear in a family album, nor the defining moments associated with documentary photography. Instead, these photographs focus on the apathetic, off-stage periods—the “in-between moments” of everyday life. This focus on the marginal passages of overlooked time places the viewer at the heart of adolescence, defined as the period between childhood and adulthood, suspended between desire (for the deferred promise of adulthood) and regret (for the loss of childhood as a refuge).
By photographing the same person repeatedly and intimately throughout their formative years, a sense of mirroring began to emerge, reawakening something of the artist’s adolescent self and blurring the line between portrait and self-portrait. Neil Drabble grew up in the gray Manchester of the 1970s, watching American television shows and dreaming of a perceived glamour of adolescence spent in places where teenagers ate pizza, drank Dr Pepper, talked on the phone with friends until late, and drove cars rather than waiting at rainy bus stops. The process of depicting Roy and the collaboration between the older photographer and the younger subject allowed Drabble to reframe his own teenage years in a certain way and to engage vicariously with aspects of an alternative American youth he had longed for from across the Atlantic.
Published by Mack Books, 2019
24 cm 28 cm, 132 pages, like new
ISBN
