Morganna Magee

Morganna Magee is an Australian social documentary photographer and educator based in Melbourne, Victoria. Morganna’s work is focused around long term projects in which the relationship between photographer and subject challenge the traditional notion of the impartial gaze of documentary photography. To date, her personal work has explored the issues and complexities around disability, grief, and womanhood. Morganna lectures in Photography at the Swinburne University of Technology.

Teenage Wildlife

I don’t remember much of my early childhood, but my teen years are vivid with the sense of excitement, rebellion, and heartbreak still fresh almost 20 years on. Free from fear of consequence whilst at once weighted down with expectation, growing up has never been easy.  These girls are a reflection of who I was and who I still am.

Shania and Teeya are half sisters, and Daisy is their older cousin. Connecting with them initially through social media, I have become a neutral source for these girls to chat with, text messaging creating a dialogue before meeting. The relationship formed between us becomes integral to the photography, these teens drop the artifice of the ” selfie” and allow me into their lives to photograph them showing incredible openness and vulnerability. In this long form, ongoing series Teenage Wildlife uses portraiture to humanize young and vulnerable women who are rarely given such a spotlight. The girls grow in front of the camera, facing heartbreak, drug experimentation, and ultimately becoming mothers. The innocent hope of youth gives way under the weight of the need to grow up fast, asking the viewer to challenge traditionally held notions around the complexities growing up.

To view more of Morganna Magee’s work please visit her website.