Joseph Szabo is a teacher, photographer, and author. His 1978 book Almost Grown was acclaimed as one of the "Best Books of the Year" by the American Library Association and attained cult classic status in the fashion world. In 2003, Szabo released Teenage.

Szabo is the recipient of a photography fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and his images reside in the collections of the Bibliothèque National in Paris, The George Eastman House Museum in Rochester, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Art, among many others. His photographs have been published in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The London Times, and French Vogue, and he has exhibited at galleries in Paris, London, Japan, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles.