Exhausted or relaxed, perhaps both, they are asleep inside the car, caught unawares by the photographer. Filtered grey light, grainy texture, reflections playing off the car windows: everything in the image is soft and tender. Left to themselves, they seem even younger than they really are, off in a world of their own and separated from ours by the glare even more than by the glass. The reason for this becomes clear in other images, which set the stage: the field of vision expands to include a softwood forest that seems to be aglow with light, wide swaths of empty wilderness, and those Northern expanses stretching as far as the eye can see and whose nakedness, while perhaps exhilarating, is hard to bear for bored teenagers. They are bursting with energy that needs an outlet to kill the boredom gnawing away at them. So they get hold of those “car-tractors,” or hot-rod farm tools, and tinker with the engines to beef up the horsepower. They make the tires screech and burn oil to get high on the speed and acceleration.
Christian Caujolle
An independent curator, Christian Caujolle worked formerly as director of photography at Libération, founded the agency VU’. He also teaches at the École Nationale Supérieure Louis Lumière in Paris.
Martin Bogren, Tractor Boys
Published by The Eyes Publishing
Second edition
€ 28
