Taken with a 4 × 5 inch view camera after she had emerged from a swimming pool — therapy to recover from a bicycle accident — it presents her in a state of near-collapse.

[11] This project resulted in Beach Portraits (1992–94), a series of full-length, nearly life-size color photographs of teenagers and slightly younger children taken at the water's edge in the United States, Poland, Britain, Ukraine, and Croatia.

[17] Thus began Dijkstra's serial project, tracing her subject's transitions through both adolescence and relocation from East to West Europe.

[21] For the series Park Portraits (2003–06), Dijkstra photographed children, adolescents, and teenagers momentarily suspending their varied activities to stare into the lens from scenic spots in Amsterdam's Vondelpark, Brooklyn's Prospect Park, Madrid's El Parque del Retiro, and Xiamen's Amoy Botanical Garden, among others.

[11] Filmed in Russia and commissioned by Manifesta 2014, the video portrait Marianna (The Fairy Doll) shows a young classical dancer rehearsing in a St Petersburg studio as she prepares to audition for a place at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet.

Even when she photographed children on the beach she used this same setup, with a portable flash to reduce contrast and bring the faces slightly out of deep shadow, modulating the sunlight.

[23] She set up studios in the clubs and asked volunteers to dance one at a time in front of the camera, the contrast between the girls and boys, each assertive and vulnerable in equal proportion, being a subject of the video.

[13] She made another video in 1997, Annemiek, which showed a shy, Dutch teenager singing a Backstreet Boys song karaoke style.

[24] For Ruth Drawing Picasso, Dijkstra simply trained the camera on an English schoolgirl as she sat on the floor, intently sketching a portrait of Dora Maar at Tate Liverpool.

In 2005–2006 a travelling exhibition Rineke Dijkstra: Portraits was shown at Jeu de Paume, Paris and at Fotomuseum Winterthur, La Caixa, Barcelona, and Rudolfinum, Prague.