All photos are from the book Fast Forward and are copyrighted by Lauren Greenfield, who is profiled in the story.  The poor reproduction is my fault.

If you think illicit drugs are the most powerful influence preying on the  minds of American kids, tune into Fast Forward by Lauren Greenfield. Using her camera (and insider’s status) to study the impact of multimedia-pop culture on Southern California youth, Greenfield has created a work that is vibrant, serious, humorous and ultra-contemporary. On the hopeful side, Greenfield’s book demonstrates that documentary photography remains a cutting-edge tool for social analysis even in the brave new multimedia world. On the dreadful side, Greenfield’s portraits show us that kids who spend a virtual childhood plugged into the electronic village risk an early loss of innocence and premature hardening of the emotional arteries. Perhaps these children who have never been children will grow into productive adults (if they live that long), but few readers will come away from Fast Forward without some anxious thoughts about coming of age around the electronic hearth.

Greenfield’s work is deeply rooted in her personal experience. "She doesn’t have to go to Chechnya or Mozambique like a lot of young photographers," says Peter Howe, who has edited numerous books and served as photo editor at Life, Audubon and Modern Maturity.. "She’s very happy to photograph in her own backyard. I don't think anyone photographs the culture of Southern California better than she does. She is of that culture and has a deep understanding, a deep empathy for it. One of her real skills is that she can be critical without gratuitous cruelty. Her use of color is also brilliant. She understands the layers of emotion that color can add.."

The daughter of two university professors (mother in psychology, father in medicine), Greenfield grew up in the affluent environs of LA. She discovered photography while attending Crossroads High School, a private institution where the children of the Hollywood elite are amply represented. After graduating from Harvard in Visual Studies, and earning a coveted photography internship at the the National Geographic magazine, Greenfield returned to her former high school to begin what evolved into a three-year study of youth, pop culture and media in the Hollywood. The teens at Crossroads High not only enjoy the privileges of health, wealth and driving BMW convertibles in the California sunshine, they also have a privileged relation to the media and the culture it disseminates. Their parents tend to be movers and shakers in the movie industry, and the kids themselves are aware of their role as trend-setters for youth around the country and around the world. They even have a popular TV soap opera (Beverly Hills, 90210) based loosely on their lifestyle.

The first pictures from the project appeared in the LA Times Magazine. "They gave it a spin as a ‘rich kids’ story," says Greenfield. "But it’s not just about rich kids. It’s about how all kids are influenced by growing up around Hollywood. At Crossroads, you can’t tell the difference between a rich kid from Beverly Hills and a scholarship kid bussed in from the other side of town because they’re all influenced by MTV, hip hop and rap. They’re all wearing gangster clothing. The affluent kids want to look like gangsters and the gangsters want the trappings of affluence. The project is about the homogenization of youth culture under the influence of the media."

To get behind the stereotypes, Greenfield began to make contact with black and Latino kids from East and South Central LA. She gained entry to tagging crews (graffiti artists/vandals depending on your viewpoint) and to party crews (kids who tried to distinguish themselves in a non-violent way by hosting wild parties). Mistrustful of outsiders and of adults, the kids in these groups accepted Greenfield because she carried a camera, because they saw her as representing the media, because they were desperate for attention and she offered a form of recognition.

Two of the ‘mean-streets’ youngsters she worked with died violently during the course of the project. "One was a really beautiful 16-year-old girl," says Greenfield. "I photographed her just as she was about to go out tagging. She was dressed in a really trendy way that any of the kids would admire and wearing a bandanna over her face. She was killed at a party about six months later. A drunken gang member shot her in the head at point-blank range. He was playing around with a gun that went off accidentally."

The other victim of gun violence was even closer to Greenfield. Ennis Beley was 12 when Greenfield met him for the first time. One of her first contacts on the ‘wrong’ side of town, he became a friend and an invaluable guide to his harsh world. Under Greenfield’s influence, he was also developing into a talented photographer. His life ended at 16. "He wasn’t actively in a gang," says Greenfield. "But he was wearing gang colors on the wrong street. He got killed in a ‘walkby’ shooting. The ‘drive-bys’ aren’t brazen enough anymore, so someone got out of a car, walked up to him and shot him."

Greenfield’s sad and ironic message is that Ennis, the gangsta who shot him, the beautiful young tagger girl and the affluent prom queens from Crossroads High are all driven by the quest for status, celebrity and fame. These values have been present in Hollywood culture for a long time. But through a combination of absent parents and omnipresent media, they are now delivered to impressionable minds with unprecedented force.

Greenfield’s experience in publishing her work also inspires a mix of hope and dread. Hope comes from the fact that the work has been recognized in a big way. Alfred Knopf, one of the most prestigious names in publishing, is bringing out a first edition of 15,000 copies (three times the normal run for a "serious" photo book). Greenfield also has a publisher in Britain, Booth-Clibborne, which is printing an additional 3,000 copies. US News and World Report has snapped up first serial rights.

Even before publication, Greenfield earned three high-profile awards for the body of work. The NPPA gave her its 1996 Pictures of the Year award in the Community Awareness category. The International Center for Photography honored Greenfield with its Infinity Award for young photographers in 1997. Greenfield also received a Nikon Sabbatical award which she will use to work on a new project about aging in America. To round out the list, the ICP will mount an exhibition of photos from Fast Forward at its downstairs midtown gallery (April - June 1997). Upstairs, ICP will be showing the work of Helen Leavitt, winner of its lifetime achievement award. The idea behind the joint exhibition is to show images from an old master and an emerging master, both focusing on childhood in urban environments.

When a photographer achieves this level of recognition before the age of 30, it’s tempting to talk about quick and easy success. Neither adjective applies to Greenfield’s experience in bringing her work to the public. The dreadful fact is that the now-celebrated photos in Fast Forward had to pass through the hands of 50 publishers, during a three-year period of trial-by-rejection, before anyone took the "risk" of publishing them. One might understand this caution if Fast Forward were full of gory photographs showing gang violence, drug orgies and teen mothers undergoing late-term abortion. But it’s genuinely tough to accept the industry’s timidity about publishing a book populated by good-looking young people, photographed by a rising young talent, championed by an insider with all the right connections, and touching on subjects of wide-spread cultural concern.

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