In 2005, Teenage Stories marked a decisive moment in contemporary staged photography. Conceived and directed by Julia Fullerton-Batten (@julia_fullertonbatten), the series examines the fragile, often misunderstood terrain of female adolescence. Rather than sentimentalising girlhood, Fullerton-Batten constructs a psychologically charged visual language that renders teenage experience monumental, literally and metaphorically.
Set within meticulously selected model villages, the photographs depict adolescent girls who appear to have physically outgrown their suburban environments. The choice of location is not a digital illusion but a practical intervention: the models are placed in scaled-down architectural settings, creating the uncanny impression that the girls tower above their own worlds. This strategy becomes an eloquent metaphor for the disproportionate emotional reality of adolescence. At this stage of life, interior worlds frequently feel more expansive and authoritative than the domestic routines that frame them. By enlarging her subjects against miniaturised surroundings, Fullerton-Batten gives visual form to that psychic expansion.
The girls in Teenage Stories were street-cast, deliberately selected for their lack of professional polish. Their stillness, carefully directed and emotionally restrained, rejects glamour and theatrical expressiveness. Instead, they embody uncertainty: self-conscious, inward-looking, and suspended between childhood and adulthood. The aesthetic of emotional neutrality intensifies the narrative tension. A broken carton of eggs scattered across asphalt, a bicycle accident paused mid-aftermath, a girl attempting to pick gum from her shoe; these banal episodes acquire a monumental gravity. The ordinary becomes operatic.
© Julia Fullerton-Batten
Yet the series also traverses dreamscapes. Some figures float in water or lie beneath a bridge. These surreal insertions are not escapist fantasies; they articulate the importance of daydreaming as a formative act. For young women negotiating bodily change, shifting social hierarchies, and new forms of visibility, imagination becomes a site of agency. Within fantasy, one can rehearse power before claiming it publicly.
© Julia Fullerton-Batten
Aesthetically, Fullerton-Batten's work is distinguished by cinematic lighting, controlled composition and an almost theatrical mise-en-scène. Her images operate at the intersection of photography and staged tableau, drawing on traditions of narrative painting and film stills. The colour palettes, often cool, controlled, and subtly heightened, create emotional distance while simultaneously inviting prolonged contemplation. This duality is central to the series' impact: viewers are compelled to look closely at scenes that feel both familiar and disquieting.
© Julia Fullerton-Batten
The cultural resonance of Teenage Stories lies in its refusal to trivialise teenage girls. Rather than depicting adolescence as frivolous or hysterical, the series insists on its psychological depth. The girls are not passive subjects; they are protagonists occupying transitional space. Their vulnerability is not weakness but evidence of transformation. In magnifying their presence, Fullerton-Batten symbolically restores scale to experiences that society frequently minimises.
The outcome of the series extends beyond its publication as a monograph in 2007 and its international exhibition history. It established a template for Fullerton-Batten's subsequent large-scale projects and contributed to a broader conversation about women behind the camera, shaping narratives about women's lives. By reclaiming adolescent interiority as worthy of monumental treatment, she repositions the teenage girl not as object but as architect of her own evolving identity.
In this sense, Teenage Stories is both an aesthetic achievement and an act of empowerment. Fullerton-Batten reframes girlhood as a site of imaginative sovereignty, where dreaming is not escapism, but rehearsal for becoming.
*Julia Fullerton-Batten will be hosting a lighting workshop in London on Friday, the 24th of April 2026. Limited spaces are now available. If interested, please email: julia@juliafb.com
