Between 1986 and 2003, photographer Mark Steinmetz visited more than twenty summer camps across the Eastern Seaboard capturing youth during the dreamy dog days spent outside enjoying the spoils of nature.
His images highlight kids at a critical junction in their development – the brief moment split between the innocence of childhood and the foreboding future of adolescence. For many, it was their first time away from the comforts of home, parents, pets and television.
‘I like that time of age,’ said Steinmetz. ‘There’s a kind of grave maturity developing at around 11-years-old.’ The result of his two-decade long endeavor is Summer Camp – a 92 page monolith dedicated to the great American tradition with nostalgic images of children swimming and canoeing in the reservoir, playing capture the flag, singing songs by the campfire and learning about nature.
Athens, Georgia based photographer, Mark Steinmetz spent two decades documenting life at summer camps across the East Coast. This image of three boys enthralled by the latest issue of Mad Magazine is one of his favorites
Steinmetz visited over 20 different summer camps, he said his pictures are meant to tell a story together as one whole body of work. ‘You take the different parts of each camp and just kind of make one sort of ideal camp,’ he explained
Steinmetz explained to DailyMail.com that ‘Summer Camp’ serves as a ‘pre-digital age time capsule’ where children had time to let ‘boredom set in’
Four girls stand covered in shaving cream for summer camp high jinks. Steinmetz told Vice: ‘…in terms of my own affections, I like something very simple where not much is happening. I don’t really have words to say what’s ‘good’ about it, but I think it’s touching’
On discussing why he decided to focus on photographing summer camps, he explained to DailyMail.com: ‘I just think it’s very evocative of time away and something that a lot of people have experienced. It’s something well known, even if people haven’t gone to one, they are still aware of what they might be like’
‘It took some doing to get into camps, but in those days it was a little easier,’ explained Steinmetz to DailyMail.com. ‘It was before the time when everybody had an iPhone and they could take their own photos. So I offered to take pictures they could use for PR purposes and also taught some photography classes to campers’
Steinmetz explained that the magic of summer camp is that children are forced into ‘real environments where you are actually learning how to canoe or learning how to fish and identifying trees and playing big group games like capture the flag, or dodge ball or there might be some treasure hunts but it’s just very different from the virtual world’
A group of campers sit fireside for evening story telling
A group of boys are pictured rough-housing
Steinmetz was attracted to the timeless appeal summer camp has to most Americans. When looking at his photos he told Huck Magazine: ‘There isn’t much difference between them in 1990 or 1965’
This photograph of a girl with her sleeping bag walking across a suspension bridge covered in spider webs is another one of Steinmetz’s favorite images from the collection, though he admits: ‘I can never really talk about favorite photographs because I honestly don’t really have one, its really about all of them being together that tells a story’
‘Summer camp settings are always very beautiful, there is always a dining hall, a lake, campfires and wood cabins with screen doors,’ explained Steinmetz to Dailymail.com. ‘All of these things can be described very well with photographs’
Two young girls look deep in thought while surrounded by their fellow campers. Steinmetz said: ‘I think a lot of funny moments in the collection but there are also some very poignant, introspective moments as well’
One child yawns while standing on the porch of his cabin. ‘I was just another person that was a part of the camp. Everybody’s pretty focused on their activities, they’re pretty intense, whether it’s some candle-lighting ceremony, or they’re just waiting for their food and they’re hungry’
‘Many of these photos are about the predicament of being a kid put into a certain situation,’ said Steinmetz to Huck Magazine. ‘In one picture, these girls who have been so horrible to each other all summer are now parting – and the depth of their love just gushes out. It’s almost excruciating’
Speaking to the introspective nature of his images, Steinmetz told Vice: ‘They’re full-fledged human beings. But they’re also learning, they’re opening up. They’re in a world of adult rules, and they’re just trying to navigate that. I think they’re in a predicament’
‘I like that time of age, too. There’s a kind of grave maturity developing at around 11 years old. When a little kid laughs or cries, it doesn’t have real resonance, whereas if someone has these emotions between eight and 12, there’s a poignancy to it,’ explained Steinmetz to Huck Magazine
‘These kids are learning, they’re growing, they’re trying to figure things out,’ said Steinmetz. ‘So I’m very interested in that, I’m interested in people trying to make their way through life’
‘I think kids are more transparent on their faces, you see what’s going through their mind and what kind-of predicament they’re in,’ said Steinmetz. ‘With adults, things are much more hidden and masked over’