End of an Age

Paul Graham is one of the best photobook makers ever (Beyond Caring, Troubled Land, A1: Great North Road, a Shimmer of Possibility, New Europe). In End of an Age, British photographer Paul Graham captures the threshold moments that mark the ending of adolescence – the small slice of time between youthful indulgence and the emerging awareness of adult responsibilities. His photographs resonate between these two poles: between full-on consciousness and escape; between staring the world in the eye or shying away; between seeing the world with shocking clarity and the desire to hide oneself from that reality: turn away, get drunk, close your eyes, get stoned. It is a situation that each of us knows and remembers all too well as a traumatic time. And it is often the threshold of a profound psychological transformation – a chartless sea in which one might successfully navigate, get becalmed, or simply drown. Paul Graham’s pictures consider this point in one’s life and reflect upon its trauma