Petra Collins

(Photo of Petra is from this website)

Petra is an eighteen-year-old photographer from Toronto. She takes amazing photos that are magical, colorful, artistic, moody and AMAZING.  She first picked up a camera when she was 15 years old, and since then she has gained a lot of popularity around her work. About a year ago she started a site for teenage girls called Ardorous that is a web-space showcasing the artwork of other young female artists on it, as well as some of hers. In an interview with Fashion TV (watch the interview here) Petra said, "I wanted to create a platform for talented female artists to get their work seen - which I felt our world was lacking... I look for girls/women with work that is not only beautiful but is inspiring and has a message, also someone who is doing something new, something that catches the eye." 
From her photography Petra has also caught the attention of Tavi Gevinson, a fiteen year old style icon and fashion blogger (Who I've mentioned on this blog before) who started a site called Rookie mag (yes I've mentioned Rookie before too) earlier this year, aimed at teenage girls. Rookie Mag is full of articles, artworks, photos, advice and inspiration, and they update 5 days a week, three times a day, and put out a new online issue every month. Since the beginning of Rookie, Tavi and Petra have been collaborating ideas, and every few weeks Petra does a photo shoot for the site.

Through all of her outlets, Petra has been getting lots of positive feedback and attention, though recently there was some controversy on her photography. In a recent MTV news piece Petra talked about the irony of shooting slightly provocative images for a magazine called Jaques. At the time she was only 17 years old and not even legally permitted to buy the magazine that featured her images. From that magazine Petra has got a little bit of media scrutany for capturing the sexuality of teenage girls, but Petra said in the MTV news piece "I wasn't intentionally trying to be provocative, but I guess  a lot of love and sex comes through in my photos because that's what I'm going through right now, and like, that's what every teenage girl kinda goes through." 

No matter what the media says about this girl and her work, all you have to do is look at it and you can see that Petra is very talented, and her work definitely deserves to be celebrated.
If you want to see more of Petra, look on her website and her blog, and don't forget to look at Rookie Mag and Ardorous.