This started as a project with my daughter and her friends, who are all part of the smartphone generation. They were 14 years old at the time and I wanted to learn more about the relationship they had with their mobile phones. In 2022, a study by Ofcom showed that nine out of 10 children owned one by the time they reached the age of 11, and that 91% of them used video platforms, messaging apps and social media by the age of 12. I spoke to my daughter and her friends about how they use their phones and the negative reputation that surrounds teenagers and their screens. They told me the positives as well as the negatives, such as how social media can raise confidence as well as knock it down.
I asked if I could photograph them. There was very little direction from me and – rather than photographing them in a controlled portraiture style, as I would usually have done – I simply observed them doing their thing. The energy was high: they moved so fast, dancing to short music reels, filming each other, laughing, scrolling, chatting, taking selfies, and back to making TikTok dances again. It was so hectic, I struggled to keep up. This image, called TikTok, came out of that session. I found this composition and asked Lucy to quickly look up at me. I had about two seconds before the moment was broken and they moved on to the next thing. As a portrait photographer, you get a feeling about certain shots, and I knew this was the one.
They moved so fast – dancing to music reels, filming each other, laughing, taking selfies – that I struggled to keep up
Back in the edit, I reflected on how the girls use their phones as a form of visual communication, or as the theorist Nathan Jurgenson calls it, “social photography”. This means the result of the photograph is social, rather than an object as it would be in traditional photography. Social photography is less about making a document or archive, and more about taking a picture or video and sharing it, basically having a visual conversation.
The more time I spent with the girls, the more I learned about the darker side of their phones – the sexism and misogyny online. I shared the project as a work-in-progress exhibition in Oxford, and I worked closely with other focus groups of teenage girls who shared their experiences of online sexism and sexual harassment. I was shocked at some of the things I learned. The final project includes photographs of their handwritten testimonials.
To further my research, I was reading activists Laura Bates and Soma Sara’s work – and the original title of the project was No Big Deal, informed by Sara, who says sexual harassment happens so often it becomes seen as “no big deal”. But as the project progressed, I changed it to Once a Slag, which refers to a TikTok soundbite my daughter played to me. The acceptance and ownership of the lyrics made me feel protective and frustrated as a mother and feminist. It’s not a comfortable title, but the shock factor is important to get attention and raise awareness.
This photograph has many layers, but it’s also striking. It is beautiful and alluring and I think it has captured a wonderful moment. It’s a celebration of the joy of girlhood, and of a group of girls in their own world. And just like social photography, these teenage years are ephemeral. In this image they are having so much fun together – it’s so important to capture this confidence in a safe place.
This image has also made me very conscious of the triangle of three gazes: Lucy gazing at the viewer, performing for the camera but also confronting the viewer with that look, that attitude. Then my gaze as the mother and the photographer – which changes the more research I do on the subject. Then the gaze of the viewer, who might be transported back in time to their own teenage years. I find the tension between these really challenging with this subject matter.
The girls in the image are now 17. A lot has come out since it was made. People such as Andrew Tate have become widely known – even though the kids knew all about him years before us adults did – and more recently the Netflix series Adolescence prompted wide debate.
This week a mum got in touch with me and said: “I need to talk to you about short skirts.” Where I sit as a mum, and where I sit as a woman, are often totally at odds. As a mum, instinctively, you want to be protective. But if you zoom out of it, why should a woman not wear what she wants? Unfortunately, young women today are at risk, just by having a phone. That’s the world we don’t know as parents today.
Philippa James’s CV
Photograph: Philippa James
Born: Bath, 1978
Trained BA in art and moving image at Maidstone, Kent (2000); MA in photography at Falmouth (2023)
Influences “Rineke Dijkstra, Miranda July, Lynne Ramsay, Tracey Emin, Abigail Heyman, Cindy Sherman, Samantha Morton, Catherine McCormack, the film Short Cuts by Robert Altman, and Lisa Taddeo’s book Three Women.”
High point “Being selected last year for the Taylor Wessing portrait prize and exhibiting at the National Portrait Gallery. Receiving funding from Arts Council England to develop my practice – it’s given me the confidence to develop my visual language. And winning LensCulture’s Emerging Talent award.”
Low point “In 2020 I was publicly criticised for including a trans women in my very first personal project, 100 Women of Oxford, and protesters threatened to sabotage the exhibition. I learned a lot from that experience about responsibility, representation, and the emotional weight of photographing real people.”
Top tip “Keep making work, reflect on what you made, then make more work. Photography can look easy, but it’s hard – and consistency really matters.”
