Leif - School Photo Circa Fall 1989 - Highland Park, Illinois - Age 14

In this school photo we cross over into a new kind of portrait. Those taken before this were all the standard "head shots," but this time, there's more of a sense of the rest of him, his posture, his slim stance. This was when he first started to let his hair grow out. I liked this style. I liked his long hair, too.

This was the time when he was starting to outgrow his junior high shyness and stride with confidence. He was getting a sense of himself as someone more mature, not just the kid who had outgrown everyone else in height and was teased with comments like, "How's the weather up there?"

I think this was taken the fall of his freshman year at Highland Park High School. He was fourteen.