Growing Up Travelling

When Los Angeles–based photographer Jamie Johnson first stumbled upon the Ballinasloe Horse Fair in Ireland in 2014, she had no idea that the encounter would grow into a five-year-long project and, eventually, a book. Among the caravans, ponies, and bustling trade, what captured her lens most powerfully were the children of the Irish Travellers - curious, resilient, and brimming with stories rarely told beyond their own community.

Her photobook Growing Up Travelling, published in 2020 by Kehrer Verlag, is the culmination of those years of returning, listening, and documenting. With 86 striking duotone images, paired with candid quotes from the children themselves, Johnson offers an intimate portrait of a community too often reduced to stereotypes.

The Irish Travellers, a traditionally nomadic ethnic minority, have long lived on the margins of Irish society. Misunderstood and discriminated against, they face systemic challenges in education, health, and housing. Yet Johnson’s work resists framing them solely through struggle. Instead, she turns her gaze toward joy, style, and childhood itself - moments of play, dreams for the future, and the unique pride of belonging to a culture that values tradition and tight-knit family bonds.

Trust, built over time, is at the heart of these photographs. Johnson revisited Traveller families year after year, forging relationships that allowed her subjects to participate actively in their portrayal. “The kids weren’t just posing,” she has reflected in interviews, “they were collaborating.” Some even borrowed her camera, flipping the gaze back outward.

The design of the book amplifies this closeness: full-page portraits capture children in their sequined dresses, boxing gear, or simply at rest against the caravan’s edge, while the interspersed words of the children - “Traveller kids are lucky,” one declares - ground the work in their own voices. A foreword by scholar Mary M. Burke situates these stories within the larger history of the Travellers, adding context to Johnson’s tender, contemporary vision.

More than just a record, Growing Up Travelling is a challenge to assumptions. It asks readers to see Traveller children not as outsiders, but as kids navigating the same spectrum of joy and uncertainty that defines childhood everywhere. Since its release, the book has garnered acclaim on international photobook lists and secured Johnson awards, but perhaps its greatest achievement lies in amplifying the lives of children whose world remains largely invisible to outsiders.

In capturing their stories, Johnson reminds us that childhood is universal - but also deeply shaped by culture, community, and the gaze of those willing to look closer.