Tiergarten, Berlin, July 1

Description

Shooting her subjects frontally and sometimes from below to monumentalize them, Rineke Dijkstra probes the vulnerability, emotional complexity, and awkwardness of adolescence. Using a large-format camera mounted on a tripod, she captures her subjects’ expression, pose, and gesture in mesmerizing detail. Because each exposure requires a separate sheet of film and precise adjustment of composition, making these photographs requires patience and time. Dijkstra has remarked that as her subjects wait for her to set up her exposure, they drop their social masks, revealing themselves guilelessly to the camera.