Go to any corner of any inner-London council estate, pull up any angry young rapscallion and ask them what their priorities are and I promise you their response would be ‘What am I gonna wear this weekend to Twice As Nice’ or ‘That fool only gave me an eighth instead of a quarter’ or if you’re lucky, ‘Trying to jack dem’ new Air max’ from my work’. How ironic that the bad he or she is doing derives from the one good thing they represent! Part of what puts the ‘Great’ into Great Britain is the phenomenal youth culture grown and constantly replenished.

I’m the Co-Editor of youth publication LIVE Magazine, a pioneering community youth magazine based in Lambeth, South London. The magazine is run, edited, written and designed solely by the young people of Lambeth. LIVE gives young people relevant experience for future media occupations. Whether in or out of education, London’s youngsters are encouraged, mentored and given the opportunity to pursue a host of careers.

Over the past few months our Olympus supported photographic workshops have paired excluded teens from the local area with professional photographers. The results have been remarkable and have already produced some great photographers in the proccess.

As editor of the magazine I’ve been responsible for co-ordinating the Photography Workshops where young and enthusiastic snappers can be coached into being the next generation of photographers for LIVE and beyond. Solomon 17, Leanna 21, Manray 16 and Laura 20 are proving that with the right attitude, mentoring and resources, young people can gain experience in whatever career they want. The four of them are budding photographers and under the guidance of former SLEAZENATION photographer and founder of youth photography library PYMCA, Steve Lazarides in charge of the classes; all four photographers feel their skills have risen a level.

Photos taken by Leanna, Manray, Solomon and Laura have the quality they do because these are four extremely talented and determined young individuals with untapped and raw passion for taking pictures. They haven’t been briefed, persuaded or told what to shoot they’ve just let their natural passion go with the flow.

‘Just taking pictures on the spot results in better pictures, as it’s more natural’ says Solomon.

They also have a platform and confidence from LIVE Magazine to display their talents and our resources have helped them to explore their abilities. 

'I’ve enjoyed the classes’ Manray tells us.

These aren’t thieving, unmannered school dropouts from Brixton with no desire or ambition to pursue anything positive. they’re four teenagers with dreams and aspirations beyond causing havoc to their communities. Live and Olympus have given the quartet and hopefully some other young people in the future the chance of a lifetime.

‘More people should join the class as it will improve their skills’
Solomon goes on to say.

They’ve been given access to the latest cameras and knowledge regarding how best to use them. How many young kids from communities such as Brixton will be given the opportunity to take part in a workshop, doing what they love doing. In the acompaning slide show Solomon takes us down to the centre of London with his crew and camera for a night of fun; Brixton-style:

‘Most of the youth from my generation, area and school did that thing of boarding the bus 3, 12, 159 down to Oxford Circus, every other Saturday, with not a great deal of money. But that didn’t matter as we had other agendas on our mind. Marching down Oxford Street popping into J-D Sports, Selfridges, FCUK and every other trainer and mobile phone shop between KFC and the Oxford Circus Tube Station, telling our bredin’ -we’re getting those new Nike 100’s or latest Nokia when we blatantly knew we weren’t. Making the late afternoon/ early evening trek down towards every teenager’s playground - The Trocodero, Regent Street, where the slightly more adult, classy, touristy, alright expensive shops are. These shops we wouldn’t even give a second look at and on first glance think to ourselves - you wouldn’t catch me in those stiff old man looking Gucci’ or Tye Dyed pair of jeans. Yet these are the exact same shops that just two, three, four years time we’ll be giving our hard-earned cash to by the bucket load.

You’d get caught up in the West End’s version of a Rugby scrum from about Burger King on the corner of Piccadilly Circus; this is definitely a spot for a photographer to complete a whole portfolio. With all the colours, personalities, different cultures, buildings, atmosphere and general hustle and bustle, there’s plenty to soak up with a camera. However once you get through the hordes of tourists and reach the entrance that is Trocodero you’re guaranteed to find peeps you know from school, area, football team etc, just hanging around on the railings, with one of two things on their mind. They’d either be looking for one dude or crew to beat the shit out of, or they’d be there for the same reason as most. Draw gyal. This was the place you could go to, every Saturday and fill your phone up with numbers from the opposite sex and what made it that much easier, was that the girls knew this too. So everyone knew where they stood'.

That’s the thing of being young to want to hang with your boys or girls. You want to do shit together, share experiences and enjoy each other’s best moments, but how many of us actually think to carry a camera about with us to capture those great, one-off occasions. Well these guys do and just for the love of taking pictures. This surely is the best way to catch those great shots. Spontaneous and random shots in the mix, as demonstrated, must be the way for these youngsters to go about taking their snaps in future.

Jordan Jarrett-Bryan - Live Magazine Editor