This bedroom series portrays individual identity. It conveys this through exploring the idea of young people and how they understand themselves through what they wear and what they own. Studies show that identifying yourself through what you own peaks at middle-adolescence (Jarrett, 2013). The series displays links between what each subject has, how they style themselves and how they style their places and this all reveals important parts of who they are.

I created the series for young people as they will connect to the idea of showing parts of who you are through your bedrooms. It might also connect to millennials as the photos were taken in the late 2010s and this is when some millennials were teenagers themselves. I imagine this series being shared online like Brandon Stanton’s ‘Humans of New York’ photoblog that became a social movement (2010). Each image could be shared with a sentence or two that help capture the person and a hashtag could be developed that encourages people to share their own similar images.

This photo series is part of the genre of documentary photography and the photographic movement, photojournalism. Photojournalism is where photographers aim to convey life candidly and show larger truths through specifically showing split-second moments (Parson, 2023). Documentary photography can be about providing an accurate representation of people, place and objects and so my series does both of these things by aiming to show truthfully who each person is while the moment I chose to photograph should reveal something deeper about each person (TATE, 2023). My photo series reflected this movement and genre by capturing things as they were and using natural lighting. A specific inspiration for this series was Adrienne Salinger’s book, ‘In My Room: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms’ (1995). This inspired me to consider how bedrooms continue to form part of young people’s identities while they may have less objects when we live in an increasingly online world. 

The bedroom series shows young people as the subject with their bedrooms as the background. While some backgrounds show more than others, each photo captures a clear action or moment that helps the audience understand each person. Compositional tools such as fill the frame were used in the photos to create a sense of intimacy between the audience and the subject while moody natural lighting was utlised to make the images feel raw and real. The series shows how different young people interact with personal environments and so each person is the focal point of each image. 

To create the series, I first sought out people who could model for it. I asked them about themselves, their hobbies and interests and how they see themselves. I asked  them about what they usually do in their rooms and captured this. As I wanted ‘fill the frame’ to be the most obvious compositional tool, I cropped in some of the images. This also ensured the background helped to portray the story and not distract. I also shot with a low aperture as this slightly blurred the background so that the subject would stand out. I enhanced the brightness of some images on Photoshop while still aiming to show the scenes with their authentic, natural lighting. 

The process of creating this series went well as I stuck to my timeline and created a series of twenty different portraits in a short amount of time. I took lots of different photos of each person and worked with them to showcase parts of their rooms that they felt reflected them. I would like to improve communication by being less nervous and more confident so that I can help my subjects feel more at ease which will make the photos feel more authentic. 

I like the diversity displayed in each image and feel that people and their rooms were portrayed authentically. I think that using fill the frame did create intimacy with the viewer and the high aperture helped the subject stand out. I would like to improve lighting in the future and may use reflectors to create more light on the subject while still using the natural light available to keep it authentic. I also think some images seemed gloomy and could be edited to have more saturation. I believe the theme of the series would engage young people and work in a social media space but it would capture more attention if the images were more vibrant. 

Jarrett, C. (2013) “The Psychology of Stuff and Things” URL

Parson, J. (2023) “Photographic Movements” URL

Salinger, A. (1995) “In My Room: Teenagers in Their Bedrooms” URL

Stantan, B. (2010) “Humans of New York” URL

TATE (2023) “Documentary Photography” URL