New Video online: Laura Pannack

Laura Pannack, a young British photographer, sits down to discuss her work and several photographic projects focusing on the lives of modern youth today.

Resembling an imperfect social documentary, Pannack’s work is an intimate and captivating look at young people during different stages of their life and the situations and people they encounter. Discussing the details of one of her projects, Pannack talks about spending two weeks, “with friends” in the woods at a youth camp photographing the individual lives of the camp participants. The photos reveal a more subdued look than that of general public stereotypes of crazed teenagers who smoke and drink obsessively, have unlimited premarital sex, and with nothing but incessant thoughts of texting and Nintendo Wii swirling in their heads. Pannack does an excellent job and her photos are quite a striking exhibition of unlikeness and refreshingly honest.

“Young Love” is another compelling project Pannack worked on that brought her very close to her subjects, sometimes forming lasting friendships. Young love is synonymous with the beginning of real hopes of marriage, sex, and commitment, albeit commitment is limited as few high school relationships lead to marriage, but Pannack’s photos acknowledge the youths are just fine living in the moment. Her images succeed in taking the viewers to an extreme level of voyeuristic intimacy, the many intriguing compositions symbolizing adolescent thoughts, dreams, emotions and all the complex feelings that make us human.