“From Girl to Girl”: The Story of Growing in Photos

EVERY DAY PHOTOGRAPHERS AROUND THE WORLD looking for new ways to tell stories or to capture what we previously did not notice. We choose interesting photo projects and ask their authors what they wanted to say. This week we are publishing the project "Julia Wannabe" by photographer Anna Grzhelevskaya from Warsaw. Over the years, she filmed how her daughter Julia was growing up and changing, and she tried to capture the universal process of becoming a girl woman. The name of the project refers to the so-called Madonna wannabe - fans of Madonna, who in the mid-80s dressed, painted, tried to look like a singer and adopt her frank femininity in everything. According to Grzhelevskaya, such behavior "paradoxically helped the girls find themselves."

Now my daughter is almost sixteen, I take pictures of her from the cradle. In the project "Julia Wannabe" I tried to catch the signs of femininity in her, as a child, still gradually appeared. The general mood and tone of the photographs are explored by this aspect of Julia's growing up, including in the pictures where she is only six years old. In the final version of the project in the earliest photo of her daughter ten years.

The project "Julia Wannabe" was born on its own, I just started shooting and that's it. When I was just fascinated by photography, I dreamed of becoming a war photographer, but I got pregnant very early - I was 22 years old. Then it became clear that with a child in my arms I could not put my life at risk. Realizing this, I was terribly disappointed for a while. It seemed that I was permanently stuck in four walls and now I will only feed the baby and change her diapers. I thought my life was over. I could not leave Julia for a minute. On the one hand, I really wanted to be around all the time, take care of the family and do the things that mothers do. On the other hand, I could not concentrate on something that does not concern homeworkers That's when I started photographing my daughter.

At first, she simply documented her every step, as all mothers do, but soon focused on the sensations she remembered from her childhood. With the advent of the child, you begin to understand yourself better: you look at it and re-experience your experience on a deeper level. All the memories seem to come to life and become very real. Over time, I began to take such photos intentionally. I sent Julia lightly to recreate the moments that I myself had once experienced or that happened to my daughter earlier. I decided that it would be much safer than if I were shooting the real life of Yulia. So I will not break her personal space. In the end, the project became a story of my life rather than a daughter.

I still have the feeling that I have not yet matured. This is a long process, at one point this does not happen. I am sure that some children's habits and character traits will remain with me forever. At least, I want to believe in it. So I will not even bother to advise young girls. The only thing I will say is that this transitional period of life is really very important. This is an incredible, amazing experience, even if it seems to you that everything is terrible right now.

While working on this project, I noticed that transferring all my fears and anxieties to a photo is a great way to deal with them in real life. Of course, I was worried and doubted whether it was necessary to put these photos on display for a wide audience. That's exactly why I waited until Julia grew up, and the girl from the pictures would cease to exist. And this moment has come.

When the daughter was small, she loved to be photographed, for her it was a game. But as soon as she realized that it was a job for me, she immediately lost interest. I ask Julia for permission to use photos before each exhibition, and she always approves all the pictures. Despite this, there are a few photos that I will never exhibit, because I think they are too personal. I also prefer not to take her to the exhibition - I think she will be uncomfortable under the views of strangers.

When Julia was thirteen, she hated being photographed and did not allow me to take a single frame. Everything changed when she was fifteen. Now she again fell in love to pose and refers to this project as to our common cause. For the first time, her daughter saw her portraits in the same hall with other spectators this year - in May at the International Festival of Photography in Lodz. She was very touched and excited. She likes my photos, some of them she even wants to hang in her room. But, of course, Julia loves to take selfies with this strange facial expression, which today can often be seen on instagram girls.