These images reacquainted one woman with her missed youth

“Have sex; smoke that cigarette; don’t sleep for 24 hours; show your weaknesses and strengths. Imperfections make us human. That is what I aim to portray in my pictures,” says photographer Ramona Deckers. Based in Amsterdam, it was when she was working at the Stedelijk Museum when her love for photography really came to fruition – after viewing work by Nan Goldin and Larry Clark, side-by-side. “At that point I knew this is my calling: those works translate innocence, sexuality and violence so beautifully there are no words needed. I felt I was never good with words really so this might be the way to express myself.”

Hailing from a working class neighbourhood in south Holland, Deckers partially grew up in a brothel, surrounded by depression, alcoholism and suicide attempts. “The pain in those pictures (Goldin and Clark's) felt familiar to me – and I loved it,” she tells us. “Communicating through an image – back at home we never talked, Most of time I was alone anyway – these images taught me to embrace my upbringing and have peace with it.” Here, we explore her series “The Right Kind of Dazed”.

To see more of Deckers’ work, click here