Lewis Chaplin is 17 and not feeling festive.

MOSSLESS: Is there a theme behind your new book “Variations On A Theme”?
LEWIS CHAPLIN: I guess the ‘theme’ I was referring to is the continual chronicling of my existence - I had just released a book before that on a very specific documentation of a place and time, and so I wanted to make something a bit more loose - so in a sense, each image is a ‘variation’ on the idea of simply documenting reality and what goes on in front of me. It’s also the name of a really great Om album.

MS: What gives you inspiration ?
LC: Competitiveness. When I see really great work made by people I know or I really respect I get massive competitive urges to do better and try even harder, it’s a bad way of looking at stuff.

MS: Aside from photography, what do you do?
LC: I go to school, I ride my bike, I play the drums and make crappy electronic music, I write down silly things, I skate nowhere near as much as I used to. I guess I make art aswell. Oh yeah and I co-run a site called fourteen-nineteen.

MS: How is Fourteen Nineteen coming along? What would you like to achieve through this exhibition ?
LC: Really great! We are trying to get an exhibition comprising forty of the best images from the site, showing the real raw power of young analogue photographers together for around March 2010 - we have already got some money coming through and a feature in Dazed & Confused, which is awesome. It is gonna be hard work to get the whole thing off the ground, but it will be so great if we do!
I guess the point is exactly what I said above - it is all fine and well to be featuring stuff we adore online, but to physically create something that brings all that together, and hopefully opens a few eyes about the impressiveness of young creativity at this age would be a great achievement.