Existing comment:
Florence and Daniel
Evan Baden
Building on photographer Evan Baden's prior work on the intersection of youth and technology, The Taradiddle High School Yearbook Project (2014–15) explores how photographic images are manipulated through social media platforms to construct public personas that often belie the truth. A collaborative project, Baden and high school students in Oregon, Minnesota, and Illinois drew upon real-life teen experiences to create images and a narrative. Like all the images in the series, this portrait of Florence (right) and Daniel blurs the boundary between truth and fiction, public and private. The subjects, two transgender teens involved in a relationship, are depicted in an intimate interior setting. The privacy of this moment is interrupted by the unwavering outward gaze of the central subject acknowledging the audience, much like carefully staged images shared through social media. |