Prague's rogue teens pose for fashion photographer SIX.

The sharp-cheekboned young men in Simon Barker's (aka SIX) photos casually slouch, smoke and either ignore the camera or pose for it topless, showing off their DIY biro tattoos and declaring allegiances with house and hip-hop. Displayed as tinted prints in tones of red, green, orange and blue, the images could be part of a style-mag fashion shoot. Instead, they depict ordinary Prague adolescents whose lives revolve around a cheap speed-like drug called Pervitin, believed to have been invented by the Nazis to perk up their troops. The prints themselves are laid out in the shape of letters that spell out the punning title of the exhibition, Pervateen, on show at London's Chamber Of Pop Culture.

"Some of the boys were homeless and some were involved in petty crime, but I wasn't interested in making straight documentary images, or styled and packaged fashion ones," Barker explains. "I felt these people deserved to be photographed because what I wanted to show was that they were essentially still ordinary teenagers whose looks, character and natural youthful spirit could also make them extraordinary."

As a teenager in the 70s, Barker was one of the proto-punk Bromley contingent who hung out with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren in their Kings Road boutique. Continuing to work with Westwood as she moved into the high end of fashion, Barker preferred the energy of the early years to the competitive commercialism of couture, so he left in the mid-90s. After time spent travelling and working in Japan and Europe, Pervateen is his first major solo project.

Aware that some people may see the work as glamorizing or exploiting the boys' lives, Barker is keen to point out that after spending over a year getting to know and photographing them the relationship was more about friendship and respect. "I did pay them small amounts of money for their time, but in a lot of cases just the fact that someone wanted to take a photograph of them boosted their sense of self-worth," Barker explains. "And the boys' names and brief biographical details also appear with the prints," he continues. "I feel it's important that people not only look but find out something about who these boys are." HS 25 July 02

Pervateen is at The Chamber Of Pop Culture at The Horse Hospital from 22 July-22 August 02. Tel 020 7833 3644 Admission free.

useful link: www.thehorsehospital.com