How Bradford photographer has captured the stories of the 'inbetween girls'

Carolyn Mendelsohn remembers clearly the inner turmoil as 11-year-old her gathered up the courage to leave her bedroom in a pair of shorts. It was a balmy summer’s day but the warm weather did not to make the choice of what to wear any easier.

“My dad was doing a barbecue and I remember spending a very long time in my bedroom thinking about whether I should put on a pair of shorts because I never, ever wore them,” she says. “I remember literally spending a couple of hours thinking about it, covered in denim and clothes. I decided yes it’s really hot, I’ll put a pair of shorts on. Then, walking to the top of the stairs, my dad came in, looked up and said ‘your legs look so white and chubby in those shorts’.”

She pauses and laughs. “It was a very flippant parental comment and he was just being jokey but I went into my room and changed back into all my layers - I would always be wearing layers.” The feeling of being exposed stuck with her for quite some time. She didn’t show her legs for years. “As I grew older, I realised those little comments that are made at that time, when you’re growing up, between girlhood and young adulthood, really affect how you develop and how you grow and how you see yourself,” she reflects now.

Six years ago, her memories and experiences from that period inspired a project. Shipley-based photographer Carolyn set about capturing the portraits of girls aged from 10 to 12, aiming to celebrate young women as they journeyed towards adulthood, giving them “power” and a platform for their voices to be heard.

“It is about celebrating the beauty that is wholly them, one that is sometimes concealed in silence, attitude, embarrassment and self-consciousness,” she says. “I remember that feeling of self-consciousness that suddenly descended from nowhere. I remember also thinking deeply about the world I lived in, having these big philosophical thoughts in my head. These hopes and fears shaped the adult I was to become.”

Being Inbetween is now a collection of photographic portraits of 91 girls from a range of backgrounds. Many are from Yorkshire, and all but two are from the UK. Over a period of five years, Carolyn has photographed each of them, requesting they wear clothes of their choice. She has also noted the girls’ responses to questions about their hobbies, loves, hopes and fears, exploring their lives, thoughts and feelings and their complex transition between girlhood and young adulthood.

At various stages throughout the project, the work has made up solo exhibitions across the country including in Hull and Saltaire and selected pieces have also toured in group exhibitions internationally.

Now, it is being turned into a photographic book after a kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, launched last month reached its target of £8,500. It will be printed by Bluecoat Press and will feature an essay by Anne McNeill director of Bradford’s Impressions Gallery, where Carolyn is due to hold a major exhibition next year.

“It’s been a really nerve wracking thing doing a kickstarter,” Carolyn says. “In order to get the book published, you have to hit the target. It’s my absolute dream and ambition that this book is beautiful and accessible, that it’s not a big coffee table book but one people can carry with them and give to other people, whether young or old.

“We still have a few days left of the kickstarter campaign and would love it if more people can continue to pre-order and support the book. We know now we can definitely proceed, but the more people who pre-order means we can really create the book of our dreams. It all adds to it.”

Carolyn has enjoyed a 23-year career in the arts, originally as an actor and then later a director and filmmaker before shifting her focus to still photography. “I use photography as a tool for exploring things that I’m interested in,” she says. “I think the way my work is presented when I exhibit, I’m always thinking about the audience. All my theatre background still comes into it as I think about what experience people will get and how the story can come across.”

It’s something to which she has given careful consideration when it comes to exhibitions featuring her Being Inbetween series. All of the girls are looking directly at the camera in their portraits - “I wanted to make the girls look at us rather than us look at them, I wanted to make them powerful” - and Carolyn has worked with composer and musical director Graham Coatman to create a soundscape for the shows, featuring the girls’ voices.

“It’s a huge risk doing an exhibition, particularly on a personal project. But the response has been phenomenal,” she reflects. “A lot of people have been very emotional about it. It’s very powerful seeing these girls and also hearing and reading their words. People of all ages and genders have responded to the portraits. I’ve had young children right through to people in their 80s respond to it and emotionally a lot of them say it’s really poignant and powerful and makes them think about all the potential these young women have.”

Carolyn took the final portraits in February this year - capturing a girl named Becca, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, and her twin Lottie. When Lottie said that one of her fears was the coronavirus, an unexpected outcome of the project dawned on Carolyn.

“Having done the series over more than five years, the interesting thing is, and I hadn’t anticipated this, is that it has also recorded changes in what was happening in society and what young people’s fears were. At first there were fears about hunger, homelessness, loss, and war. As time went on, and last year particularly , it became about the world and the environment. And then it moves onto Lottie and her fears around coronavirus. That has been fascinating, looking at those answers and how they record our history.”

It’s been a learning curve for Carolyn in other ways too. One girl, Olivia, asked at the end of her portrait session if there was anything else Carolyn would like her to say. “ So I said, well is there anything else you’d like to tell me? She proceeded to tell me she had a heart condition, and had had major heart operations and was about to have another one. I was so taken aback. That was a huge part of her life that I hadn’t realised. From then on, because of Olivia, I asked ‘is there anything you’d like to say?’ at the end.”

What started for Carolyn as a look back at her own girlhood has turned into a project that has touched the lives of many other young women. “I’m wanting to give those young women a platform, an agency and space to be who they are,” she says. “I wanted the images almost to be like beautiful artefacts, elevating the girls into importance and giving them a voice. The portraits are really powerful and the project offers an insight into their lives.”

To support the kickstarter, visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/408499994/being-inbetweenFor more stories from the YP Magazine and The Yorkshire Post features team, visit our Facebook page.

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