Photographer Jonathan Hobin chose to convey important messages through his “In the Playroom” series of images that depict children reenacting major current events and headlines of our time, including major news items such as 9/11, Abu Ghraib torture, Hurricane Katrina and the Osama Bin Laden raid. AES+F have created frozen-in-the-moment tableaux that radiate an unsettling but awe-inspiring combination of sheer beauty and mounting unease. Equipped with a steely array of futuristic looking armaments, the models are airbrushed clean and kitted out in crisp white clothing. Set against the backdrop of the desert, there is no sign of an enemy or of the horror of war. The children did not strike any special poses for the photographs and mostly behaved naturally in front of camera.įor their Action Half Life project- the name of an actual computer game - AES+F recruited young teen-models to act out the roles of conquering heroes and heroines in a conceptual battlefield. For the first performance of the series, AES+F chose more than a hundred students from specialized ballet and sports academies as well as child-models from 3.5 to 11 year in age. It revolves around themes of professional children in ballet, sports and the media industry and corporate identity. The Le Roi des Aulnes series was shot in the palace of Catherine the Second in St. The teens in Calvin Klein ads, models and pop stars who started their career during childhood, as well as young sport stars, are a relatively new phenomenon in the media world. Their works discuss important social issues and can be sometimes seen as provocative and uneasy to watch, questioning conventional ideas and concepts.Īccording to AES+F, the mass media image of humankind became increasingly younger in the last decade. (Photo: Xie Kitchin on Sofa, Charles Dodgson).ĪES+F, a group of four Russian artists, is dedicated to the theme of childhood and adolescence in modern society and contemporary culture as a representation of an enlarged mirror of society itself. Dodgson’s fascination with children’s physical beauty and intellectual development are misunderstood and often interpreted through a contemporary lens which leans towards viewing an adult fascination with childhood as predatory and sexually perverse. A few of his photographs depict semi-nude children, but Victorians saw childhood as a state of grace and nude photographs of children were considered innocent.Įdward Wakeling, the Editor of Lewis Carroll's Diaries, claims that Dodgson’s unhealthy attitude towards children is one of the most prevalent myths that dominate our present age, pointing out that in the Victorian age, attitudes toward children were very different. (Photo: Alice Liddell as the Beggar Maid", Charles Dodgson)īy Victorian standards, however, Dodgson’s photos were considered rather conventional. A few major biographies suggested that he had pedophilic urges but never acted on them. Dodgson was an accomplished portraitist and his work is well known and much discussed, particularly his portraits of Alice Liddell.Ībout half of Dodgson’s photographs are of children and throughout the years he was criticized for his interest in using children as subjects and was accused of seeing little girls as substitutes for incestuous love objects. The photographers we present in this article convey messages, or artistic concepts, with children as their photographic subjects, and by doing so raise questions about the body, society and culture, as well as issues of realism and representation.Ĭharles Dodgson was a teacher and a scholar but to readers all over the world he became renowned as Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Images of children in photos can bring to the forefront issues of vulnerability and trust resulting in feelings of unease and discomfort. The realistic or documentary message conveyed by a photo about life, the state of the world and reality can be powerful, all the more so when using children as subjects. This is not just because of the possibilities to manipulate the subject, but also because of the documentary aspects of photography. The power of a photographer over his or her subject is immense.
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