In an often openly hostile political climate, defiance can function in more ways than one. “Being outrageous and flamboyant in your personal style can be a kind of armor,” Mr. Sharkey said. “For people that you’re trying to attract, it can also be the entrance to conversation; for people you are trying to repel, it can work very effectively as a weeding-out process.”

For Mr. Sharkey, who has worked as a fashion photographer, the absorption with flamboyance has given way in recent years to a more ardent pursuit. “I’ve became much more interested in character, especially the malleable character of young people,” he said.

We were seated in his studio, a rambling ground-floor loft in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. One by one, Mr. Sharkey displayed images from a selection that would go on view in Exeter the following week. There was Brandon, 18, thrusting out his chest the better to show off his tight, incandescently white dress shirt; Kenny, 21, his plum-tone hair sculpted into a high-rise helmet; and Chanel, 18, leaning suggestively against a mash-up of animal prints in her bedroom, wearing nothing but her skivvies.

There was Hari as well, streaked with multicolored warrior-like markings and gazing directly into the camera; and Mars, flaunting a thatch of straw-colored hair and the twin chest scars that marked the early phase of a female-to-male transition.

“Some of these kids, they’re proud of their scars,” Mr. Sharkey said. “They wear them as a badge of honor.”