Adrienne Salinger is an American photographer who in the early 90’s created a photobook where she took photographs of teenagers and their bedrooms, the series is called ‘In My Room: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’. She said ‘bedrooms tell stories about us. They become the repository for memories, desire and self image’. This supports the same idea I have been trying to portray in my own work.
She chose teenagers as it is a stage where they are on the edge of change, they mostly all lead similar lives with going to school and living with parents but will soon be going in different directions. (This is intereting as I have chosen the stage just after this where they are living through this change).
To keep her images very real, when she met the subjects in malls and restraunts, she told them not to tidy their rooms. This means the images shows clearly how these people live. Similar to other photographers who have conducted similar projects, the series of images become more intriging when you begin to compare them with one another.
Salinger uses some kind of light or flash which means there is very little tone in the images. This does mean there is much light availble highlighting both the subject and their possessions.
Although she photographs just in people bedrooms, her work is still relevant to help mine. Firstly the way she goes about the project is important, she makes sure they dont change their rooms for the photo which means nothing is staged. Also the way she photographs is effective. So far I have relied on available light in my shoots. I want to see the difference if I add an artifical light. This is something I am going to try in my next shoot.
Lucy Davis 