Finalist
Photographer and filmmaker Jona Frank focuses primarily on adolescence in different communities. This portrait comes from her work The Modern Kids, which was created over a three-year period at an amateur boxing club in Wirral, a suburb of Liverpool, England. The resulting body of work shows these boys slipping into the role of the boxer while also grappling with their adolescence. This reminded Frank of Arcade Fire’s popular song about young people who “seem wild, but … are so tame.” This portrait shows James just after he suffered a difficult loss. Frank notes, “he is trying to look tough while fighting back tears. It was his first and last fight.”