In 2007, a small and beautiful photo book called Ocean caught my eye. The photographer, Martin Bogren, was from Sweden. His subjects were a group of men from Rajasthan, who had travelled the 1,000-odd miles from their inland home by minibus to bathe in the sea for the first time. Shot in black and white, it was a series of small observations that added up to a narrative about surprise, wonder and the ties of friendship.
Bogren first came to notice the previous year with his diaristic book on the Swedish pop group the Cardigans, but it is his work since that has established his signature style: a kind of understated evocation of time and place that echoes the work of his fellow countryman, the great Anders Petersen, but in an altogether softer way.
Bogren's previous book, Lowlands, evoked a strong sense of place though its depiction of a rural Swedish idyll peopled with strange and beautiful characters. With Tractor Boys, the parameters are even more defined: a group of teenage boys who spend their spare time racing EPA tractors – old cars that have been converted for use on farms. It is an oddly specialised form of thrill-seeking, given that EPA tractors fell out of use in the 70s, but the boys are exploiting an old law that permits 15-year-olds to drive them. They have also found ways to push these customised bangers way past their 30km per hour speed limit, which may, in part, account for the blur of movement in many of Bogren's images, though, that, too, is part of his signature.
Even with this kind of subject matter, Bogren is a quiet photographer, which is maybe the reason he so often catches such intimate moments: boys sleeping, open-mouthed, in their cars; girls watching the boys at play with a mixture of tenderness and concern. He seems to blend in, become part of the scene he is recording, which, in this instance, is a semi-secret world closed off to adults and authority figures.
There are moments of excitement here, too, though: a boy spread-eagled on the bonnet of a spinning car; a skidding vehicle sending up clouds of dust. Mostly, though, Bogren turns his gaze on the periphery of the action, catching couples locked into the perpetual dance of adolescent courtship, both primal and tentative. In the dusky light, the boys show off for the girls and the girls feign disinterest. Same as it ever was.
This is a book, then, about a time, a place and a particular mood, which veers between intensity and ennui. It is a glimpse of a world, both strange in its specificity and familiar in its teenage rituals. Photographers have caught this world before – Bruce Davidson's 1959 book, Brooklyn Gang, springs to mind, as well as countless images by Joseph Szabo – but Bogren has an eye that is all his own. In his introduction, the curator and writer Christian Caujolle notes that "the photographer manages to not disrupt the world into which he immerses himself" so that there is "something unreal and yet very present in these image". The sound of a photographer holding his breath, perhaps.
Tractor Boys is available from dewilewispublishing.com
