End of an Age

In End of an Age, British photographer Paul Graham captures the threshold moments that mark the ending of adolescence, the small slice of time between youthful indulgence and the emerging awareness of adult responsibilities. His photographs resonate between these two poles: between full-on consciousness and escape: between staring the world in the eye or shying away; between seeing the world with shocking clarity and the desire to hide oneself from that reality: turn away, get drunk, close your eyes, get stoned. It is a situation that each of knows and remembers all too well, a traumatic time. And it is often the threshold of a profound psychological transformation — a chartless sea in which one might successfully navigate, get becalmed, or simply drown. Paul Graham’s pictures consider this point in one’s life, and reflect upon its trauma, uncertainty and pain. The photographs alternate between ultra-sharp direct flash images where every detail is minutely recorded, and the opposite extreme, with loose available-light photographs, saturated with color, blurred and sometimes poorly focused. First and foremost, these compelling color images are portraits in the fullest sense — images that seek to reflect on the inner self through our material presence.