YOUNG & ANGRY

I do not think that I have ever been so offended or violated in my entire life. Greenfield used my friends and me to resolve her own bad feelings about high school.

I never thought that someone who spent time in my house, talking with my parents, could have the gall to viciously attack me and my upbringing. I consider this a personal attack, for Lauren became part of my life.

I cannot believe that I let her be part of all the special times in my life, whether it was graduation or the prom,because those special memories have all been twisted and deformed to suit her own personal desires.

REBECCA BLOOM

Marina del Rey

Lauren Greenfield replies: Last year, I photographed the rituals of teen-age life within prestigious Los Angeles schools, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine published a selection of those pictures. They are part of an ongoing photo project about kids growing up in Los Angeles, in a diversity of neighborhoods, ethnic groups, families and experiences.

My work in the private schools involved extensive interviewing, as well as developing ideas for the project with the kids themselves. Based on the focus of these discussions, and the nature of the situations I was invited to cover, I am disturbed to hear that some feel they were misled.

The pictures are not intended to be derogatory or offensive, and I hope they can be viewed in the spirit in which they were made, as a window into an aspect of teen-age life within one segment of Angeleno society.