From reading the foreword to Catherine Balet's book Identity, you're given her motivation behind the images shown above; the French government was debating a law banning religious and political signs from schools, which she then goes on to define as “signes ostensbies”
She discusses that she finds it paradoxical that these teenagers are the living expression of marketing signs. It was this confrontation of a past ideology and a contemporary world of globalization.
I agree with her in the way that teenagers have become (and have been, for some time) walking adverts. I find it interesting in the way she compares religious symbols of a past era and the modern brands, under the definition of signs.
The book is mainly frontal portraiture, the uniformed composition works well, and makes clear her intention to compare the different teenagers and find similarities, this is the key point, I feel, that she is trying to portray in her work.
She has titled each photograph with the teenagers name, age and location, this along with uniformed composition gives the book a very anthropological feel.
The photo of Tom, 17, Berlin shows a nervous looking teenager with a back drop of what appears to be the Berlin Wall. He is wearing a tee shirt displaying a red star, which given the location he is in has certain connotations of it's own. He is clad in denim with unkempt curly hair, keeping his hands down at his sides, his body language does seem have an innocence about it, her photography is very good at this, displaying the teenager as an almost innocent victim of the marketing, consumerist world.
When compared with an image later on in the book, James, 14, Eton college, we can find similarities.
We are shown James, who is wearing traditional school uniform, placed upon a contrasting red brick wall.
Balet has composed her subject in the same manner, with the arms held down by the side in a very pacified way, this I feel, helps the viewer look in detail to the image without being 'confronted' or 'provoked' by their own prejudices. If the boy in the image was 'striking' a pose, the purpose of the image would be lost, that is, to display this teenagers clothes and not the teenager wearing them, signes ostensbies.
Although the pose is the same, if we look harder we can see a difference in approach by the two boys, James has a much 'stiffer' appearance, his posture is more rigid, which lends to the clothes he's wearing, whereas Tom looks more casual, shoulders slumped which also goes hand in hand with his casual attire.
This all leads me to believe Balet has taken an anthropological approach when shooting her subjects, much like the early photography of colonialism, she collates her imagery in a uniformed manner then displays it page by page, enticing the viewer to find similarities and subtle differences within and between her subjects.
Balet is well travelled and this book show's that. She has found the 'innocence' of her subject through all the marketing signs and at the same time made these signs glaringly obvious, the title of her book 'Identity' is certainly apt throughout, teenagers now find their identity within the signs they choose and don't choose, to wear.
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