JAMIE JOHNSON | Growing Up Travelling

Growing Up Travelling
By Jamie Johnson

In Growing Up Traveling, Jamie Johnson presents an intimate, deeply personal portrait of childhood within the Irish Traveler community. Returning to the same families over many years, she has documented children as they grow, capturing the rhythms of family life, traditions, relationships, and the changing experience of growing up.

Through her sustained connection with the community, Johnson moves beyond the fleeting encounter of documentary photography, creating a body of work that reflects both the individuality of her young subjects and the enduring bonds of family, culture, and belonging.

“I have spent my entire career photographing children all over the world. Over the last several years, I have focused on Irish Travelers who live in caravans on the side of the road or in open fields throughout Ireland.
The Traveler community is an Irish nomadic indigenous ethnic minority. There is no recorded date as to when Travelers first came to Ireland.
This is lost to history, but Travelers have been recorded in Ireland as far back as recorded history. Even with their great history, they live as outsiders to society and face unbelievable racism growing up. As a mother of two daughters, I became deeply interested in these children’s culture, traditions, and lives.
I have spent many years traveling back and forth to Ireland to document these incredible children.
Photographing the grit and beauty of a Traveler child’s everyday life inspires me every day. Their deep respect for family and cultural values is refreshing, one that can be quite difficult to find in an age with the convenience of social media. Not always immediately accepting of an outsider holding a large camera, I took my time getting to know and understand these faces that represent the new generation.

My ever-growing fascination with the children of today has led me all over the world, capturing their innocence or, in some cases, loss of innocence, in its most raw form. Unlike most children, they can’t refer to a history book to learn about their ancestors; part of this journey was being able to document an era so different from any other I have photographed.
It is and will always be rapidly changing; every time I visit, it is a whole different world, yet with the relationships I have been lucky enough to make, it feels like I never left. I am exponentially grateful for the young people I have documented and encountered over the years.
With an honest heart, I want to show that these beautiful children have great hopes and goals.
With an honest heart, I hope to show that these beautiful children have great hopes and goals and work every day to reach their dreams, no matter how hard they must fight racism and stereotypes placed on them for centuries. A child is an innocent, happy, precious part of the world who should be loved, accepted, and encouraged no matter where or how they live rise.”

JAMIE JOHNSON

“My ever-growing fascination with the children of today has led me all over the world, capturing their innocence or, in some cases, loss of innocence, in its most raw form.
Unlike most children, they can’t refer to a history book to learn about their ancestors; part of this journey was being able to document an era so different from any other I have photographed.”

• Jamie Johnson

Jamie Johnson is an American photographer born in Brooklyn and raised between New York City and San Francisco, whose four-decade photographic practice has been deeply connected to childhood, family, cultural identity, and the relationships that shape communities.
Working across fine-art and documentary photography, she has traveled extensively to photograph children and childhood in places ranging from Laos, Cuba, the Amazon and Mongolia to India and Ireland, finding a remarkable universality in the experience of growing up despite profound differences in culture and circumstance.
Her photographs examine the traditions, environments, and everyday realities that shape childhood, while her long-term relationships with the families she photographs have become essential to her practice.

One of Johnson’s most significant long-term projects is Growing Up Travelling, an intimate documentary study of Irish Traveller children and families developed through repeated visits over many years. Rather than creating a single momentary portrait of a community, Johnson has returned to the same families as children have grown into young adults and new generations have entered the frame.

The resulting body of work explores childhood, family, cultural continuity, and the experience of growing up within a historically misunderstood community.

The project became her first monograph, published by Kehrer Verlag in 2020, and has received multiple international photography-book awards, including Gold in the Documentary/Book category at the Budapest International Foto Awards.

Alongside her documentary practice, Johnson has developed an important body of work using historic photographic processes, particularly wet plate collodion. Her acclaimed series Vices combines large-format cameras and a nineteenth-century photographic process with contemporary children, creating a striking dialogue between innocence, humor, childhood behavior, and darker aspects of human nature. Created over several years, the series has been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, including venues in Los Angeles, London, and Paris, and works from the series have entered permanent collections. Johnson’s use of the historic process is not merely nostalgic: the stillness and concentration required to make each unique plate become integral to the relationship between photographer and subject.
Johnson’s work has been exhibited internationally and published extensively, with photographs appearing in numerous magazines and collections. Her documentary work was selected for Critical Mass Top 50 in both 2017 and 2019, while Growing Up Traveling has continued to receive recognition through exhibitions and awards.
Her work with Irish Traveler children also earned her Photographer of the Year honors in 2021. More recently, Leica Gallery New York presented Growing Up Traveling in 2026, continuing Johnson’s long-term engagement with the families and communities she has photographed.

Johnson’s photographs have been shown in galleries and museums including the Norton Museum of Art, the Irish Cultural Center in London, and the Cooper Design Space in Los Angeles, and are held in museum and private collections. Her photographs have also appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Sun, and LA Weekly.

Now based in Los Angeles, Johnson continues to work across documentary and fine-art photography, maintaining a practice rooted in curiosity, long-term relationships, and a profound interest in the lives and faces of the next generation. Her work ultimately asks us to look beyond the surface of childhood—to consider the families, cultures, histories, and environments that shape who we become.

Visit: jamiejohnsonphotography.com
Instagram: @jamiejohnsonphotography