Honorable Mention / 2024 / Portraiture / Children

The Uncertainty of Youth

  • Photographer
    Pamela Hanlan, United States
  • Instagram

My favorite people are the young people who visit me in my studio. They arrive with stories to tell and an eagerness to tell them. What began with my granddaughter and her love of cosplay and pretending evolved into stories of youth, growing up too soon and the uncertainties that accompany this. I raised 5 children but that was before social media. In the telling of these stories I have learned about resilience, acceptance, and the importance of true friendships. And I have become aware of a more positive gaze into the future. The uncertainties still exist but they are finding a voice.

It has taken me a while to consider myself a photographer. In my lifetime I have been daughter, sister, wife, mother, empty nester, grandmother, great grandmother, widow and partner. Never in those years was I a photographer. Frankly except for family memories, I didn't have time. Some might and have said that that I am stubborn. I prefer determined. I have also been described as quirky, but only by those who say they love me. I have always seen stories in the world around me but without a camera didn't have a way to tell these stories. Now that I have a camera, the stories are being told

Awards Two Bronze Awards in Rise Awards, finalist and honorable mentions in Urban Photography Awards, Honorable Mentions in 2020 and 2021 International Photo Awards, two honorable mentions in Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, Honorable mentions in Budapest International Foto Awards, Honorable mentions and 3rd place in amateur portrait awards in Monochrome Photo Awards, Short listed Siena Creative Awards, Ist place self portrait in 16th Pollux Awards, Merit Award Fotonostrum Portrait Awards, overall amateur winner Julia Margaret Cameron Awards 2021, second place product, IPA, non professional, hon. mentions and editor's choices IPA, curatorial choice PX3 State of the World, Silver Budapest Awards, official selection London International Creative, published FotoNostrum Magazine.