“I’ve all the time used my practice as a option to cope with my very own feelings,” explains Fryd Frydendahl, the Danish photographer whose work exposes the innocence, trepidation, chaos and cruel optimism of being young. In a recent photobook titled Salad Days [published by Marrow Press] – an ode to the Shakespearean phrasing that symbolises the vulnerability of youthful ignorance – Frydendahl opens up her archive of deeply intimate portraits from the last decade.

Salad Days traces Frydendahl’s development as an artist, from a few of her early unpublished work to newer images produced exclusively for the book in 2022. These photographs are punctuated by the will to capture the sincerity and connection between the topics of her gaze and herself. “Earlier in my profession, I created an enormous body of labor on my nephews to recover from a traumatic loss. That project deeply influenced the way in which I view photography,” explains Frydendahl in a conversation over Zoom. “The portraits which are a part of this collection embody that have and my artistic practice, where every part is deeply interlinked to the following. Once I have a look at these photographs, I can see exactly where I used to be in my life after I shot them and unexpectedly how I felt.”

“I don’t ever use the word documentary to explain my work because my photographs are a skewed version of reality” – Fryd Frydendahl

While Frydendahl’s visual language has evolved over ten years, she possesses a novel ability to take control of a portrait from behind the camera. Frydendahl says, “I’m enthusiastic about how I can influence my subjects by forming a relationship with them, merge myself into the photograph, and create work that’s distinctively me.” Through this personal approach, her portraits turn out to be intimate sites of memory that invite the viewer to look at themes of loss, friendship and selfhood.

Flipping through the photobook, it is difficult to pinpoint what area of interest the photographer falls into. Frydendahl’s style shuttles from industrial to editorial to documentary, knowingly veering away from a label to be slotted into. As a substitute, she asserts that, for her, photography is a skewed type of reality that’s comparable to youth in its ephemerality, “I don’t ever use the word documentary to explain my work because my photographs are a skewed version of reality. Once I take portraits of individuals, I all the time have a look at them otherwise than I did before because we share this frozen moment that we made together. Photography, then, is a mirror of what you’re thinking that is real and reflects time otherwise.”

Although Salad Days has existed in previous iterations, corresponding to in the shape of an exhibition on the V1 gallery in Recent York, Frydendhal’s kinship with print has allowed the project to tackle a recent mode. The permanence of a photograph book, specifically, was appealing to the photographer; she reflects, “A book and a photograph are each so much like me. Unlike an exhibition that’s experienced a few times, you’ll be able to all the time return to a photograph book, and every time you have a look at it, it has a distinct meaning and holds different value.” 

Salad Days by Fryd Frydendahl is published by Marrow Press and is available now.