Young Love
Young Love begins with a memory that never found closure. At seventeen, Sean lost a classmate, Esther, to a sudden illness, an absence that lingered not only in grief, but in the quiet incompleteness of youth interrupted. Years later, this unresolved farewell becomes the emotional undercurrent of the work.
Photographed over six years, Young Love gathers intimate portraits of young people in pairs, either best friends, lovers, or something in between without imposing definitions.
Working primarily in black and white film, Sean suspends his subjects in a fragile in between: a space where adolescence is still unfolding, yet already slipping away. The images resist narrative certainty, instead holding onto gestures, proximities, and fleeting expressions that often go unnoticed in the immediacy of youth.
There is a tenderness in how these photographs look not only at young people, but at time itself. Sean’s camera becomes a quiet act of preservation, a way of holding onto relationships before they inevitably shift, dissolve, or transform into memory. Beneath the surface, the work carries a deeper impulse: a belated goodbye to a friend, and to a version of the self that no longer exists.
As Sean reflects, youth is not a fixed state but a temporary enclosure one that we all pass through, often without realising when we’ve left it. Young Love lingers precisely in that threshold.
The work was shortlisted for the Hellerau Portrait Prize in Dresden in 2022. It was also selected by artists Mona Kuhn and Alejandro Cartegena for the LA billboard project and features a short dialogue between Sean Lee and his editor Zhuang Wubin.
Who this book is for
This book is for readers who are drawn to quiet, emotionally resonant photography those interested in themes of memory, adolescence, and the passage of time. It will especially speak to:
-Photobook collectors and students of contemporary photography
-Those interested in portraiture and long form photographic projects
-Anyone reflecting on their own youth, friendships, and first intimacies
-Readers who appreciate understated, poetic visual narratives
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Language: English
Format: Hardcover | 84 pages
Dimensions: 215 x 260mm | 640g
Publication Year: 2022 | First Edition
ISBN 978-981-18-4620-5
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