Child and Adult at the Same Time? How Do We Show Both?

I am going to begin today’s post from slightly farther away, but I will get to the point quickly.

Yesterday was perhaps the first day during the five weeks I have spent here in New York when I could finally breathe and process all the impulses I have received.

The video did not only bring back the conversations with Hungarian role models from 1956.

It also reminded me of the dedication and extraordinary willpower of a talented young dancer whom I have watched grow year after year.

It is no coincidence that one of the advertising photographs I made of her a year ago hangs on my own wall at home.

It is also one of my partner’s favourite photographs because it communicates strength and softness at the same time.

I even used it as the cover image of my Facebook page.

But back to why I began today’s article.

Every parent eventually has to face one simple fact:

Their child grows up.

Young people today have different expectations.

Appearance has become enormously important.

And a strong photograph they can share on social media can give them a significant boost in confidence.

Jázmin is an exceptionally talented fifteen-year-old dancer whom I first met around a year and a half ago here in New York.

She is determined to become a professional ballerina and is moving toward that goal quickly.

Her road is not easy.

Competition is enormous.

Everybody wants to be the best.

This is a capitalist country where constant competition is part of the environment.

We had only one day when both of us were available for the shoot.

The weather showed no mercy.

We had planned to work near the ocean on Long Island.

There was not a single moment of sunshine.

And on top of that, it rained.

Jázmin was not discouraged.

She strongly wanted images that would fit into an artist’s portfolio.

What surprised me was that she did not particularly want to see only “the dancer” in the photographs.

At fifteen, a person is no longer only a child.

Now and then, the adult is already clearly present too.

Our goal was to create a series in which both personalities could appear.

Everyone knows how strongly clothing can influence mood, particularly for women.

So I planned four very different outfits.

Together with Jázmin and her mother, Zsuzsa, we searched through the wardrobe and paired accessories, shoes and clothes she had never worn together before but that supported the idea we wanted.

We set off into the rain and selected three locations according to the atmosphere of the clothes.

Because Jázmin is a dancer and that is still her dominant identity, we chose a relaxed outfit and a graffiti-covered wall for the first location.

The success of those first images made her forget almost immediately that it was raining.

The second outfit was more feminine.

For that, we chose the ocean shore.

One slightly distracting factor was that three young guys were skateboarding nearby.

It is not necessarily easy for a fifteen-year-old girl to settle into a feminine mood while three boys are watching.

Still, I think the photographs speak for themselves.

We managed to create a strong enough psychological bubble around the two of us that the outside world disappeared.

The model could focus entirely on herself.

We did not overcomplicate the search for the third location.

As we walked back toward the car, I noticed a small house, a bench and a tree.

We decided immediately to photograph the final two outfits there.

Nobody except me could yet see how more feminine images could emerge from such a simple setting.

But they trusted me.

There is a straightforward psychological reason why beautiful work can be created almost anywhere.

By that point, the model is already relaxed.

She feels successful.

She likes the previous images.

She is so liberated that almost anything she does naturally produces something attractive and atmospheric.

This pattern appears in almost every shoot.

The strongest images often come near the end.

Trusting that process, we began the final part of the session — by now slightly wet.

After the photographs were finished, we returned to the apartment.

We selected them together and immediately began the post-production together as well.

The raw image can already be beautiful.

But teenagers have their own ideas.

If we genuinely want to create joy for them, those ideas have to be taken seriously.

Because by fifteen, the adult is already present at the surface — and not in such a small way.

Part of the BANHALMI ecosystem

For the professional context and practical side of portrait photography, visit the BANHALMI professional website. Related art series, books and exhibitions are preserved in the BANHALMI ART archive.