Nina Leen fascination with the world veiwed through a camera lens extends to both the human and animal kingdom. Born in Russia, Leen grew up in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, where she achieved acclaim as an animal photographer. Upon first arriving in the United States in 1939, her reporter’s eye led to a series of wryly amusing works on the habits and rituals of her newly adopted homeland. Her series on, “A Teenager Monopolizes the Telephone,” or her descriptions and images of “The American Male,” are timeless evocations of symbols of modern American society. (read on)

Read The New York Times obituary for Nina Leen. Browse her “teenagers” series for Life Magazine.

The Breakfast Club, John Hughes, 1985: “Hackers Will Be Expelled” [click for hi-res]

Calling All Girls was an American teen magazine. Read more on Wikipedia.

See-Saw explained:

“An established artist edits the photographs of his younger self – I’m delighted to be able to share a sampling of my earlier photography. These come from bodies of work begun when I was “living behind a camera” in small town Ohio. A camera was my sword, my shield, my close companion then, and when I moved out into the wider world.

Photography was a passing interest, at age seven, when Cousin Bill gave me a box camera. At age thirteen it kicked in hard, and from then on was a solid pursuit. I was hooked. I became a kind of local treasure, winning contests with a good eye for composition and a whole lot to learn.

I’ve looked back at some of my earlier work, after four decades as a professional photographer. I chose the period from ages 7 to around 47, and pondered its influence on my contemporary work. I see that I had a fascination with movement as well as light. I see that I developed reflexively and intuitively in capturing the essence of a moment. I see that the innate compositional sense expanded. And so on, all insights giving me a chance to pause and reflect as I go forward in my photographic career.

At the age of 48 a major shift occurred. I found my personal photographic voice. But that’s another story, one that sprung from the early fascination. I see now what I saw back when, as the evolution of my transition into fine art photography.”

Biography:

“Michael Philip Manheim has been a professional photographer since 1969. A chance encounter with photography, at the age of 13, locked him onto a life-long pursuit.” Read more over at Contemporary Works

“Joe Szabo is a teacher, photographer, and author who began his photographic studies at Pratt Institute where he received an MFA degree in 1968. He taught photography at Malverne High School in Long Island from 1972-1999 and at the International Center of Photography in New York since 1978. Joseph Szabo has been photographing his teen-age students for the past twenty-five years, and has perfectly captured the ambivalence of that time of life. As a high school teacher of photography, he takes seriously their pretentions, passions, and confusions, and he knows intimately how students put on, act up, behave, and misbehave. As Cornell Capa says in his foreward, “Szabo’s camera is sharp, incisive, and young, matching his subjects. One can use many adjectives: revealing, tender, raucous, sexy, showy… in Szabo’s hands, the camera is magically there, the light is always available, the moment is perceived, seen, and caught.” In 1978, his book on adolescence Almost Grown was published by Harmony Books and acclaimed by the American Library Association and placed on its “Best Books of the Year” listing. In 1984, he received a Photography fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennial, the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Brooklyn Museum among others. His work has been collected by many institutions including the Bibliotheque National in Paris, France, The George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, New York, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.” (The Photography of Joseph Szabo).