Ella Knez

Through a recent conversation with a friend, he asked me when I decided that photography was what I enjoyed doing the most.

I couldn't come up with an answer, for me it was never a decision. All my life I had spent it taking photos, I never had a realisation or discovering, it was something that just was. 

Fashion Photography over the years grew into something that excused my need for discovering and human connection within a generation who does most of their discovering online.

Blending youth culture, reality, emotions and fashion all together became a space of creativity where the need to pick up my camera became irresistible. Trying to chase the past became the root of my project “Young buds”.

London gave me the distance and time to understand where I needed to look, my journey on the hunt for youthful passion became a trip back to my hometown “Halmstad” in the south of Sweden. A small town placed on the coast,, a place where most people never go except if you happen to own a small cottage house that you visit during the summers. Growing up I spent most of my days fantasizing about more, my young body had a continuous overspill of emotions. Often leaving everyone around me feeling overwhelmed by the seemingly too angry, happy and sad sixteen year old girl. 

The years passed and watching people around me fit into the perfect mold of quite enoughness. My emotions continued growing larger and my fantasies became too loud.

Every time I overspilled it was quickly swept away, just like the shores cleaned the sand. 

Young buds was born from the idea of emotional too-muchness. Exploring the shadowed inner world and dreams of teenage girls in my small town. It aims to capture the moment when girlhood spills beyond its limits.

Through a series of images and a small and private selection of diary notes, and poems collected from my sister and myself, I want to recollect what the shores swept away.