The photographic portrayal of youth has undergone a significant transformation, evolving from formal studio portraits to intimate and authentic representations of their social lives that are often self-directed in the age of social media. In the early years of photography, youth were rarely treated as a unique subject and were portrayed alongside adults in the same stiff manner. Only very few photographers like Julia Margaret Cameron used a less formal approach hinting at their individuality.

In the 1930s and 1940s Dorothea Lange, Helen Levitt and Lewis Hine among others started capturing youth in their social settings giving them equal importance to their adult counterparts.

The 1950s are widely considered the birth of the modern teenager as a separate social and economic group. The post-World War II generation grew up in an economic boom that was accompanied by the music of rock’n roll and created the idolisation of musicians like Elvis Presley and Little Richard. Hollywood began specifically creating movies for this new demographic, one of them Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean. The photographers Alfred Wertheimer and Dennis Stock became famous with the portraits of the two young protagonists Presley and Dean, and both covered the American counter-culture in the 1960s. Bruce Davidson's Brooklyn Gang series (1959) and Danny Lyon’s The Bikeriders (1968) are outstanding examples of documentary photography on the subject. 
In Berlin, Will McBride’s images revealed what it was like to be young in post war Germany in the 1960s. Portraits of his pregnant wife and his unconventional portrayal of sexuality in his images of children and teenagers challenged the conservative social norms of the time.

From the 1960’s to the 1970s photography content moved from an objective detached style toward a deeply subjective, autobiographical approach. Young photographers documented their own experiences with their friends from an insider perspective and added new layers. Identity politics came to the forefront, giving rise to movements for feminist, gay and racial rights. The decade equally saw a dramatic rise in the use of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine.
Larry Clark documented youth drug culture with his project Tulsa (1971) and young Nan Goldin photographed her roommates in Boston, a group of drag queens, and later, her friends in New York’s underground music scene chronicling drug use, love, and violence.

Music has always been a driving force in youth culture. Towards the end of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s there was an explosion of different music styles such as Punk, Disco, New Wave, Ska, Hip Hop, House and finally Techno, creating different fashion styles and nightlife venues. The era saw the rise of street style, fashion and nightlife photography. With it came the birth of the zine culture and numerous youth magazines like The Face, Blitz and ID in the UK and New York’s Paper Magazine. Jamel Shabazz documented New York’s emerging hip hop culture, and in the UK, Jamie Morgan, Derek Ridgers and Nick Knight were contributors to the new magazine culture. The 1980s also marked the next level of the sell-out of youth culture.

For many photographers like Nick Knight, youth magazines provided a gateway to their careers, especially in fashion photography. In summer 1990, Corinne Day’s fashion story for The Face, titled The 3rd Summer of Love and featuring teenage Kate Moss, perfectly captured the essence of a new spirit that embodied rave culture. At the same time Wolfgang Tillmans captured the zeitgeist of the new generation in his early works which were featured in ID magazine.

Drug use has always been part of youth culture. With the emergence of house music in the 1980’s, ecstasy and acid had became more prevalent, largely replacing the use of cocaine and heroin. However, the 1990’s saw a significant comeback for heroin, a trend that was reflected across the cultural landscape with grunge rock as well as with films like Basketball Diaries, Trainspotting and Kids, all addressing young audiences. In fashion photography the aesthetic of drug use was glamorised, featuring underage and underweight models who embodied a look associated with addiction. “Heroin chic” made the headlines in mass media, stirring outrage. The trend ended with the sad death of young photographer Davide Sorrenti who died at the age of 20 from drug use combined with a blood disorder.

In 1999 Ryan McGinley self-published his handmade book, The Kids Are Alright, a visual diary documenting life with his friends in 1990’s downtown New York. His raw, unfiltered images of sex, drugs and nudity bridge queer culture, graffiti and skate culture. The book is a portrait of a carefree, self-confident yet messed up youth just before the turn of the millennium.

Twentieth century photography was dominated by a western narrative and the portrayal of youth was no exception. Only the work of a few non-western photographers gives a glimpse of what it was like to be young in their native countries. Among them is Malian Malick Sidibé, who had his first exhibition outside of Mali in 1994. His photographs of dancing youth in Bamako’s nightlife scene from the 1960s show a side of Africa previously unknown to western eyes.
Australian photographer Carol Jerrems is known for her intimate portraits and her exploration of disaffected youth. Her work on the “sharpies"—an Australian subculture— is a notable example. In Mexico, Federico Gama has been documenting youth subcultures since the 1980s, offering insight into the evolving identities of Mexican youth.
Japan has long held a prominent place in the global discourse on youth culture. In the 1960s, photographers Shōmei Tōmatsu and Hitomi Watanabe documented the student protests, with Tōmatsu also turning his lens toward the sexual decadence of Tokyo’s Shinjuku district. From the late 1960s through the 1970s, Katsumi Watanabe portrayed the flamboyant youth in the same district through his street-style images. 
In the 1990s, Shoichi Aoki, founder of the street-style magazines Street and Fruits, took to the streets to photograph the wild style of young people in Harajuku, Tokyo—a project that spanned over two decades. Around the same time, female photographers Hiromix, Yurie Nagashima and Mika Ninagawa used point-and-shoot cameras to represent the everyday lives of a generation of young Japanese.

With the new millennium came the digital revolution, which changed the way we saw he world. The widespread adoption of digital cameras and editing software like Photoshop fundamentally altered the nature of the photograph itself. Youth, who had been documented in specific subcultures or movements, became a central obsession of the mainstream. Just as cosmetic surgery was becoming more popular, retouching helped everyone to appear young(er). Youth was no longer a subject but an aesthetic, which turned them from individuals to symbols of a marketed lifestyle.

The rise of social media platforms like Myspace, later Instagram and Tumblr and recently Tik Tok created a new kind of space. Young people in particular became the subjects and the producers. Personal photographs, kept private before, became tools of a curated identity. Selfies and lifestyle images created a new visual language that professional photographers quickly adopted. As a result of these shifts, the question of the “objective” image resurfaced and is still the subject of numerous essays and panel discussions. More photographers combined documentary with staged photography in their works, reflecting a contemporary world where all visual reality is a mix of fact and fiction. German photographer Tobias Zielony uses a “staged documentary” approach in his images of young people in disadvantaged urban areas. His subjects adopt roles and pose for the camera, blurring the lines of authenticity and objectivity to comment on social realities.

More and more, fashion photography dominated the visual landscape. While the collaboration between contemporary art and fashion is a long-standing and mutually beneficial relationship, a new era had emerged as fine art photographers increasingly accepted commercial commissions for fashion and lifestyle magazines and campaigns. Young photographers were inspired by fashion photography aesthetics for their personal projects.

The internet and social media also contributed to a more democratic and diverse visibility, making it easier for artists to present their work to a larger audience and providing greater visibility for photographers worldwide.

In the early 2000s, Russian photographer and fashion designer Gosha Rubchinskiy documented Moscovian youth, representing a new Russia. In America, Danielle Levitt documented the subcultures and tribes of American youth. The project, that lasted more than a decade and took her across the country, features a vast variety of the different groups, from goths, punks and emo kids to surfers, prom dates and football stars. Alessandra Sanguinetti, who was born in the US and grew up in Argentina, began a longterm project following the lives of her two cousins in rural Argentina. From the ages of 14 to 24, she documented their journey from adolescence to adulthood.

The 2010s saw the appearance of a young generation of Chinese photographers, among them Ren Hang and Luo Yang. Hang, who died at the age of 29, was known for his playful, erotic photographs of his often nude friends which created conflicts with the Chinese authorities. Yang worked on a long term project “Girls” documenting young Chinese women and continued with her series “Youth” focusing on Chinese youth born in the 1990s.

American photographer Tyler Mitchell’s photography emerged at a pivotal moment in American identity politics, offering an empowering narrative of black life. His work is known for its use of idyllic settings which create a sense of rest and freedom for the black youth within his images. Tajette O’Halloran captures teenagers in rural Australia. Young people are at the heart of her work, where they shape and act out their own world. In her ongoing project, In Australia, she looks back on her own teenage years in her hometown, recreating images from memory.

The selection of photographic projects in this feature below offer a glimpse of youth identity across diverse cultural landscapes. These works show young individuals navigate personal aspirations and societal pressures in today’s world: From Irish youth in Belfast to young Muslims in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, and from young nightclubbers in Beijing to local boys in rural Turkey.