Welcome to Wonderland by Fritz Liedtke
From Welcome to Wonderland by Fritz Liedtke
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #62
© 2006 Fritz Liedtke. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer.
Commentary
I'm not certain, but I think this portfolio from Fritz Liedtke may be the most polarizing portfolio in our twenty years of publishing. Readers either loved it or hated it. If there were emotions in between, we never heard them. I loved it and perhaps this is my opportunity to say why.
Life is odd. Life is strange. Life is awkward — and perhaps no more so that for someone who is, say, 11-13 years old. Liedtke refers to these tween years as "wonderland" and tries to show us the emotion of existing in those odd times between childhood and our teens, between confidence/bravado and innocence/naiveté.
As a photographic challenge, think about this for a moment. If you were asked to make a photographic portfolio to explore and visually represent these years, how would you do that? How does one make a visual representation of an awkward state of mind? I'm not referring to an expression, but rather a state of existence that lasts for a few fleeting months or years. This is not an easy task, but one that Liedtke does exceedingly well. That is why I like this body of work — it's an incredibly difficult assignment that he pulls off so successfully yet seemingly effortlessly. The images don't feel contrived, but they are so emotionally charged. This image, for example, is optically distorted in a way that is complimentary to the odd body position and goofy glasses of the young girl. His composition seems out of kilter the same way she must feel out of kilter in her tween years between childhood and young adult. She has the pose of nonchalance, but the swim goggles of a child. The hose behind her describes a circuitous path that can easily be seen as a metaphor for her path through "wonderland." It's simply a marvelous photograph filled with the confusion of adolescence.
The portfolio can be seen in its entirety in our back issues — print (while still available) and our PDFs for computer, iPad, Android, and other devices. Plus, bonus audio commentary about this image is available to members of LensWork Online.
Discussion
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