Maybe some things like youth do not change with time. The qualities of being heady and rebellious remain as characteristic of youth today, as they were decades ago. A school teacher, now a renowned photographer, Joseph Szabo, captured the 70s youth in all its rawness. He captured students in their most candid manner and the collection of these pictures reflected their pre-adult years without an iota of pretense. There is insecurity, romantic failures, uncertainties, all just laid bare.
Szabo interviewed with Huck Magazine wherein he mentioned, “always tried to capture these very personal moments, in an honest way, to show people doing exactly what they’re doing. They could just be sitting on the school steps smoking a cigarette or they could be hanging out of a car door waving their hands and saying, ‘This is the last day of school and I’ll never come back here again!’ They could be jumping in the air with excitement because of the music they’re listening to or they could be like one of my all-time favorites Priscilla – the little girl smoking at Jones Beach – who expresses something about girlhood as well as something about a certain kind of maturity and experience.”
Here are some pictures from Szabo’s collection.
Night Owls, 1971.
Anthony & Terry, 1977.
Priscilla, 1969.
Tom on his car, 1977
