Triskaidekphobia

From December of 2011 to November or 2012 I spent a year exhaustively meeting, talking to and photographing people born at the very end of the 20th Century. Using a 4x5 view camera I created still portraits. Using a video camera, I created video portraits. During this time I photographed and interviewed two-hundred-and-fifty thirteen year olds. Many things, among them media, electronic communication and over-parenting, have created a culture very different from what came thirty years ago. So I started the project with some basic questions: What is it like now to be thirteen? What does a thirteen-year old look like? How do they see themselves and the world? What are they thinking about? So often we are told what to fear for them, what to fear from them. What do they fear? What do they look forward to? I am equally interested in exploring the commonalities across time. I believe at the core the struggle of adolescence is the eternal transformation to adulthood.