Photographer's Research - Adrienne Salinger

Adrienne Salinger was born in 1956 in Berkley, America. A lot of her work focuses on the living spaces of people, and she has conducted projects called "At Home", "Living Solo" and - the project which relates most to my work - "My Room: Teenagers in their Bedrooms". Salinger's work has been exhibited internationally in places such as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. The series "My Room: Teenagers in their Bedrooms" was shot in the early 90s and has captured what life was life for youth at the time. Not only does it help show how young people would decorate their rooms, but through objects within the room we could find out what music and celebrities were popular and what activities people enjoyed. It also helped capture 90s fashion as the teenagers themselves were in the images. Below are four examples from this piece of work.

This image tells us that the boy in the photograph is very into music - especially rock music - as he has posters for bands such as Megadeth covering the wall behind him. Looking at his shelves, it is also clear that one of his interests is superheroes as there are lots of figurines on display. The boy is breaking the conventional 'masculine' stereotypes due to his long hair, which could be a convention of his subculture.

The boy in this image is leaning up against a wall whilst posing with a skateboard. The way that he is holding the skateboard could be in attempt to show it off, and so we can assume that this is a keen interest of his. This conclusion can be further supported by the Thrasher posters that cover his walls as this is a popular skateboard magazine. The fact that he dos not have a bed but just a mattress on the floor could suggest that he is not bothered by material items and only cares about basic needs.

This image shows another young person who's life is influenced by music. Not only is this evidenced by the ACDC poster on his wall, but also by the multiple guitars seen around the room - one of which he is playing - and the stacks of CDs that can be seen in the centre of the image. The way that he is playing the guitar and not focussing on the camera shows how he is immersed in music.

Whilst the decorations in this image are minimal, we can still get an insight into the personality and interests of this person as we can see that they are surrounded by animals. This tells us that they have a strong interest in animals and care for them.