Katy grannan photography teenagers bedroom

Katy Grannan

Since receiving her M.A. from Yale in 1999, Katy Grannan has been exhibiting her photographs throughout Europe and America to increasing critical acclaim. The Massachusetts-born Grannan produces distinctive, haunting portraits, often using the mundane particulars of everyday lives to heighten our sense of her subjects’ individuality.

In images for the New York Times Magazine, Katy Grannan focuses on such poignant details as the teenager’s imperfect complexion, the sick man’s drooping muscles, a tidy kitchen counter, or a neighborhood swing to make us understand heartrending realities of juvenile imprisonment, end-of-life decisions, or post-traumatic stress syndrome.

For several of her art gallery projects, Grannan advertised for subjects in small-town newspapers. As she gained the sitters’ trust and helped visualize their fantasies, many posed nude or partially undressed. In Grannan’s work for the Times, we recognize similar qualities of risk, vulne