In Other's Eyes
We interviewed photographer Laura Pannack on capturing identity and self-image in the digital generation.
“What happens when we present ourselves to the camera?”
It’s a big question in a conversation full of them, but photographer Laura Pannack needs no persuasion to wax philosophical. “It’s about how you create something authentic in a moment that is so inauthentic.”
Pannack is Zooming in from her roof terrace in London, soaking up a modest sun against the early-April gusts. The laptop microphone crackles between her enthusiastic deep dives into the nature of photography, the universals of youth and complicated effects of social media. Though she says she has limited time, she’s unphased when our conversation pushes way over. Not all too surprising for a photographer known for committing considerable time to long-term projects, taking days or weeks getting to know her subjects: “I just think familiarity and building relationships can’t be rushed”, she insists.
“I have to engage with somebody in order to photograph them. I can’t just treat them as an object.” The resulting photos are often startling in the intimacy they capture. A bare-chested young hasidic man swimming or texting in bed. Teenagers hunched conspiratorially over cigarettes, or making out on the grass.
A girl staring down her own reflection, disarmingly candid. These aren’t images we’re used to seeing, especially of young people today, the most mediated generation yet thanks to social media. How does she achieve this intimacy?
“It just comes down to me being respectful of that other person. I don’t hide that I’m an outsider. Honesty is integral to my practice in the sense that a lot of the people I’m photographing may be part of communities or beliefs that are very different from mine. I want them to know that I’m doing that with a completely open, non-judgmental mind.”
When it comes to capturing the naked truth, Pannack really puts her money where her mouth is.
“I did a project on young British naturists years ago, and it was really important for me to be naked, because I wasn’t comfortable with that. I needed them to know that I’m putting myself in a position where I’m not just a photographer taking pictures, I’m somebody being vulnerable in front of you, wanting to understand you and connect with you.”
For Pannack, this is a personal passion. “I’m bored very easily, I hate predictability, I love a challenge, and I found that the most unpredictable thing to photograph was always people.” As a photographer, she’s dabbled in photojournalism, fine art photography and work for NGOs and commercial clients, but what keeps her coming back is a keen interest in human psychology. “Yes, I’m looking at light, colour, shade and shape, but predominantly I want to get inside that person and work with them to present something that has life.”
But this isn’t always easy when contending with the unnaturalness of being photographed. “When somebody’s photographing me, I’m bored as hell. It’s so manufactured, it’s such an event!” Given Pannack’s determined quest for authenticity, this can be a tricky balancing act. “I think the idea of presenting a true self is completely impossible because we’re intangible beings – we’re ever-changing, every second. If I took a picture of you a sixth of a second later, you’re presenting a different truth. So it’s about how can we represent the current truth, or make our own truth together. It’s about collaboration: not just observing and snapping what's in front of me, but also bringing ideas to the table, giving people the opportunity for them to create ideas.”
This respect for the autonomy of her subjects shows through, and goes some way to explaining her easy rapport, especially with the teenagers she photographs. In conversation after a shoot with some teenagers in Hastings, it’s impressive how forthcoming both Pannack and the teens are. One, Martha, openly and confidently discusses growing up with a rare developmental disorder, her sexuality, and her preference for and comfort with presenting more androgynously or masculine: “If someone doesn't like the fact that I don't shave, then that's up to them.” In response, Pannack is both clearly nonjudgmental and forthcoming about how her interest is an outsider’s: “I have to admit, even though I work with teenagers because I feel a bit like a teenager myself, I feel a bit out of touch.” It’s like she’s one of the group, even though Pannack is the first to point out the age gap, both to them and to me. “When I grew up, there wasn't social media – there weren’t even mobile phones!”
As the teens later attest, this kind of intergenerational connection is rare. When asked, they’re quick to identify strongly with others their age, in contrast to millennials. “Our generation has become a lot more enlightened”, Martha points out, and the rest agree, particularly when it comes to gender. “Now being nonbinary or trans is just normal”, says another, Adam. “It’s more mainstream. That’s definitely a new thing about our generation.” Martha’s girlfriend Izzy insists that on these matters millennials normally “just won’t listen”: “they don’t wanna listen because they’re older and think they’re more experienced. Whereas it’s quite obvious that in terms of equality we know more.”
Pannack clearly agrees (“It appears to me there’s no judgment”), though her fascination with young people, like many of her interests, also touches on profound and ageless questions. “I think that's what interests me even more about adolescence, because it is this time of transition. We’re all – I hope – constantly on a journey of self-exploration, but during that time it’s so heightened, because you are literally metamorphosing into a different human being. That transition is just so much more intense and obvious, both visually and emotionally.”
Yet, as she acknowledges, being a teenager today presents its own unique challenges and opportunities. “Over the years that I've been practicing photography, that's become increasingly complex with social media.” Her interest in this particular topic stemmed from a commission about selfies. “I find the idea of a selfie just absolutely bizarre. The way we just take a picture until it doesn't look like us from a certain angle and the light's right, and then we put it out there. And that began this train of thought of the edited self, and how we present ourselves. And I thought, Wow, we are creating a digital self that we will never, ever reach.”
This is a concept that’s stuck with Pannack, and often guides her questioning lens. It’s common ground, but hints at something specific to Gen Z’s digital natives. “You know, when have you ever gone on a date with someone and they look ten times better than their pictures? It's really rare. But young people are getting increasingly good at this. So I just thought to myself, Well, how would it be to be part of this generation where when you're growing up, your digital self always looks better than your real self, and you're always aspiring to something unrealistic and kind of filtered. I wanted to explore what that was like for young people.”
So she took a typically nonjudgmental, collaborative approach. For a project titled Digital Self-Esteem, she sat individual teenagers in a nature reserve, with a mirror between Pannack’s lens and these young faces. “And I just stood on the other side of the mirror and listened to them. I said to them, ‘This is a two way mirror’, so that they knew I was on the other side. But I think because it wasn't just two seconds of them standing there, it was a while, they began to forget, and there were times of a lot of silence where they didn't speak.”
“Because how often do we really look in the mirror?”
“When we look in the mirror, we edit before we've even looked. So it's really interesting when that gets removed, because you begin to actually not recognize yourself – you see yourself. Because how often do we really look in the mirror? Like really look – to actually confront yourself and stare at your reflection. I think it's quite a powerful meditation.”
The results were surprising, and not only the photos. The portraits themselves have a mysterious quality to them, the young subjects both aloof and yet confrontational – as if they’re relaxed by no longer presenting to others, but still caught off guard by their own attention. But Pannack didn’t need to speculate:
“I interviewed them afterwards. A lot of them said that they just saw themselves in completely different ways and they noticed things about their faces and their bodies that they'd never even seen. A couple of the parents came up to me afterwards. And they said that the young people just felt better about themselves after actually looking at themselves.”
It’s a compelling case for a kind of authentic, unmediated look – in battle with the superficial image culture of social media. And Pannack acknowledges the dangers of this for teens today. “I guess from an outsider's perspective, it's very easy to say, if you look at self-generated content and things like that, they are vulnerable in a very obvious way – they become more vulnerable to predators, to paedophiles. And there is this kind of very Black Mirror version of likes and waiting on that validity, and drawing our sense of self-worth out of other people's opinions of how we present ourselves. So I think that's really dangerous as well.”
But Pannack isn’t ready to blame it all on Instagram – she recognises how these tools are a double-edged sword. “Young people are more in control of their own self-image – that gives them more freedom to create a fantasy, and have an expectation, and then that becomes the norm.” Among the pitfalls, she thinks, there’s always hope for redemption – and new possibilities. “I also think there is this kind of empowerment that comes from being able to express yourself, photograph yourself and explore your visual identity – within your own control – and use your own creativity.”
Adam, one of the teens, is quick to point out how his generation’s ‘enlightenment’ is inseparable from social media: “It’s a really good tool for that – expressing your gender identity. The use of social media to spread information was quite integral to changing people’s gender ideas and identity.” And Pannack is enthusiastic about this side of social media – “how wonderful it is that the young people can use the art of photography themselves to create new imagery and imagery of others!” – but more cautious about its tendencies to exaggerate: “I also think it's dangerous, because I think that in some senses it sets something that's unrealistic.”
It’s this nuance that sets her apart, as someone very close to and concerned by the issues facing young teens, but never ready to condescend to them. As someone working with images, and highly motivated to be sensitive to her young subjects, she paints a vivid picture of self-image in the digital era, and her place in it too. “The control of the image is no longer within the artist's realm. It's actually within the young people themselves. If we don't understand the ways that can be harmful, I think it's dangerous. So I think that I think it can be used positively and negatively.”
Ultimately, what stops Pannack from making grand denouncements is an understanding that today’s challenges coexist with age-old struggles. That’s partly because adolescence is nothing new. “I don't think the fundamentals change of us going through that transition: the way in which we kind of lean on others to conform and to offer security during a time of absolute confusion.” But it’s also because how today’s teens grapple with their images, with change and being seen by others – these are complex and difficult processes that aren’t unique to adolescence. “That works in the reverse process as well, when we begin to get wrinkles or gray hairs and things like that… I don't think that teenagers are specifically insecure.”
Sticking with the complexity, addressing struggles specific to particular groups, individuals, faces – and also finding common ground, universal meaning and a gritty, tricky humanness. This is what makes Pannack’s work so truthful and compelling, and what keeps her eyes glued to others.
“We're all vulnerable, right? That's what's beautiful about the act of photography is that it really brings it out. We have to confront ourselves with the idea of ourselves.”