Scott Schuman: The Sartorialist

It repeatedly occurred that some photography colleagues of mine used my computer, and inevitably, after looking around my internet browser for a while, noticed that I have the Sartorialist blog as a bookmark. Enter the patronising look and the saucy undertone: "The Sartorialist, eh...?" With just a few words, they make clear what they think: Scott Schuman's street fashion photography is unworthy. In their eyes this little cretin of a blog by a rich guy who shoots whoever he wants and still is not more than a puppet of the devouring fashion industry, shouldn't be anywhere near an aspiring young documentary photographer's bookmarks.
But give me, and him, a break, people!
Sure, that blog is a bit of weird place. Schuman seems to be one of the privileged people who has unlimited access to fashion shows, expensive shops, and industry connections. Yes, he is one of those who think that a jacket for $149 is "cheap". Given the popularity of his blog, he is certainly one of the main players in fashion when it comes to dictating taste and trends. He rolls along with the rich, splendid and spoiled - not everybody's cup of tea.

But when it comes down to his pictures, it is a different thing. The pictures on his blog are nice, simple as that. They look good. They have nice colours, good lighting, interesting framing and setting. You cannot deny that Schuman is a talented photographer, and he's got a good eye. Also, most important to me, he is very open in what he photographs. He doesn't go for one type of people, he is interested in many different styles and self expressions. Therefore, you can sometimes find a "gem" on his blog: A character who captures you, who makes you look twice. It is a wonderful resource when I'm on my regular hunt for gender expressions in photography - because there are these androgynous, playful subjects, and Schuman snaps them so well.
So don't judge me on my bookmarks. You never know what you'll find.

All images by Scott Schuman, found on The Sartorialist.

HIV/AIDS in Photography: Nan Goldin, Albert J. Winn, Edo Zollo

Nan Goldin: Gilles' arm, 1993

"I think AIDS changed the visual arts and that art can change lives." (Albert J. Winn)

It is still a month before the World AIDS day so there's time enough to have a look at HIV/AIDS and photography. My twitter feed, my Facebook page and some other news sources have been bursting with HIV news recently - whether it was about rising infection rates in China, a new HIV strain discovered in Russia, further vaccine trials or the intriguing-looking documentary film How To Survive A Plague coming to the UK (watch the trailer below)...

....therefore I rummaged through my little photo collection and rediscovered a few of my favourite photographs on the topic. Photography has played a vital part in the fight for visibility and acceptance, and experienced a significant change with the emergence of AIDS activism.

After 1981, when the immune disease was discovered, photo journalists hit on the mysterious 'plague' with the same sense of sensation and insensitivity as the physicians and the public, where it soon became known as the 'gay plague' or 'gay-related immune deficiency'. Ill persons were portrayed as outcasts, stigmatised, victimised, singled out by cruel fate. Popular photographic methods included the prominence of visibly ill bodies, the subjects avoiding the camera's gaze, a deliberate play on harsh light and shadow - often backlighting - not unlike the way criminals are depicted. It was a brutal look cast from the outside on the 'victims', going along with the zeitgeist of the early 1980s, fueling fear and discrimination.

Nicholas Nixon: Donald Perham, Milton, N.H., December 1987

These pictures surely have their place in history. However, I prefer looking at pictures that were produced a little later - when communities started to build, and pictures were taking within the structures of support and empowerment; basically, when the gaze changed its direction, when it became the point of view from within the community.

There are wonderful examples of photographs - mainly self portraits - taken by persons with AIDS. There is the warm-hearted, outspoken project My Life Until Now by Albert J. Winn - he decided not to be defined solely by his infection and photographed himself in his environment - with his partner, in his kitchen, in front of the TV. You can play a little "I spy with my little eye..." game with his pictures, spotting all the different elements he deliberately included in his pictures to show that he has a life beyond AIDS: the Jewish candleholder, his books, his dog... very simple, but very effective. Suddenly the pictures of AIDS are not about death, but about life.

Albert J. Winn: Hanukkah 1995

There are also the pictures of people supporting their ill friends. These pictures are more occupied with death and suffering, due to their nature as testimonies of the survivors. Nevertheless they are made with so much more sympathy than any of the early photos. One of the most notorious photographers in this context is, of course, the brilliant Nan Goldin who saw her friends dying and still had her camera always with her. Her pictures immediately evoke an emotional response, the deeply personal relation between Goldin and her subjects affect the audience, even today, twenty years after Gilles' death.

Nan Goldin: Gotscho Kissing Gilles

AIDS has gone a long way, from the 'gay-related immune deficiency' to the scourge for Africa to a highly mystified STI. AIDS is not necessarily fatal anymore, but living with it is everything but easy. I think it is important to keep the awareness up, to make the disease visible - not in a Nicholas-Nixon-way, but in whatever way is appropriate and helps to end the stigma. The pioneers from the AIDS communities have paved the way. 

I will leave you with a picture from a pretty recent, committed and in-depth project by the London-based photographer Edo Zollo, Stand Tall, Get Snapped: 30 HIV+ people, which combines beautiful, positive portraits with the personal story of the photographed individual.

Edo Zollo: Anca, 29, 13 years HIV+

I think it's this dreary weather that makes me think about death (or last week's lecture). Ugh. I'll stop, for now.

Genderbending: JJ Levine, Hana Pesut, and Ali Mahdavi

JJ Levine: Alone Time 7

Lately I've come across quite a few projects that interestingly play with gender and the performance of it. Performance in connection to gender is, in a way, a pet subject of mine, because I believe that traditional gender roles can be easily challenged by body posture, clothing, make-up. We can be what we want to be, and many people actually choose not to confirm to social expectations but express their gender identity in complex ways - legible from their appearance and their performance.

JJ Levine's Alone Time features one model performing both male and female in the same frame. According to Levine, a queer and trans artist, the work is immensely personal and draws from own experience as much as from the queer community in Montreal. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Levine said: "I want to convince the viewer of the many possibilities that may exist within a single surface perception or presentation. Ultimately, I aim to destabilise the notion of gender as singular and predestined by the sex we are assigned at birth." The project is effectively breaking up the notion of the binary gender, the boxes we are often assigned to  - it acknowledges the fact that there is a wide spectrum between male and female for every individual to explore, and it makes you stop, look closer, and think.

Less political, but nevertheless interesting is the Switcharoo project by Levine's fellow Canadian Hana Pesut. She made couples swap their clothes, and photographed them in each outfit.

Hana Pesut: Switcharoo

It is a easy going, fun project and very successful in its simplicity. In an online interview Pesut stated:"Now it seems that almost anything goes. And in fashion now there are men modeling women's clothes and women modeling men's clothes." It shows that gender is not a dead-serious subject - you're welcome to play, to express yourself.

She's right about the development in fashion. My last example is a picture from Ali Mahdavi's editorial Body Double series in which he worked with the androgynous model Andrej Pejic. It works on the same principles as Levine's pictures, although it is much more stylised. Fashion is arguably one of the biggest influences of our time. So, maybe, if fashion has realised by now how easy it is to be whatever you want, if fashion enables us to perform... why don't we just go for it? 

Ali Mahdavi: Body Double

Hollywood

P. Lorca diCorcia: Marilyn, 28 years old; Las Vegas, Nevada; $30

Last night I came across an interesting interview with Philip Lorca diCorcia in which he - whilst casually having a haircut - talks about his long-time photo series Hustlers. One of the moments that got stuck in my head was when he talked about the picture above, Marilyn, 28 years old; Las Vegas, Nevada; $30 [their name, age, place of origin and what diCorcia paid them].

The picture is outstanding from the rest series, as diCorcia admits, for being "fully front-up and clearly the imitation of an actress" - the latter struck me in particular. Apparently, diCorcia had no influence on Marilyn's pose, the prostitute chose it. A certain resemblance to Marilyn Monroe is undeniable. This reminded me on an article I had read earlier, an examination of Indonesian trans women living in Europe. They, too, were majorly influenced by Hollywood movies and actresses: in the way they presented themselves, in they way they imaged romances - basically, Hollywood shaped their entire lives and hopes. The Indonesian women, trying to survive in the Netherlands, seemingly share their dreams with diCorcia's Marilyn - is it, in the end, the beginning of the American Dream?

Hollywood is, inarguably, the big thing. We're being flooded with images from Hollywood every day, there's no escape. No other industry has promoted the American Dream more successfully - the idea that you can change your life, your identity, if you only believe and work hard enough; tempting particularly for those struggling with gender dysphoria, or unrequited sexuality. But what diCorcia and the story of the Indonesian women show and Hollywood conceals: Only few can make it, and the rest remains a hopeless imitation, an empty performance.

Phil Bicker sums it up perfectly in his LightBox article about Hustlers: "Masterfully depicting the bleak underside of Hollywood, they also capture the town's unfulfilled dreams and its fake intimacy." 

A. Eisenstaedt: Marilyn Monroe, 1953

Found this on little rant by @Wiscodiz on Twitter just now: "Fuck the American Dream. Its a white cishet capitalist dream. Its a nightmare for poc, trans/queer folks, the poor, and the disabled." I am not sure whether Marilyn Monroe would approve, but for me, it's true.

Brassaï, Lulu and the punctum

Lulu, at Le Monocle, c. 1932

The picture above was taken by the Hungarian photographer Brassaï in an underground club in Paris in the 1930s. I came across it earlier while researching black and white night photography, and in a seminar today we've had quite an interesting discussion about it.

We talked about Lulu when we discussed Roland Barthes' theory of the punctum. The punctum, according to Barthes, is - very roughly and generally - the one element in a picture that sparks your interest and, more importantly, an emotional response; it's the one bit that really hooks you to the picture. The punctum can be a very personal thing, e.g. if you have a habit of drinking Lanson Brut champagne, the bottle in the picture above might be the one thing you will respond to immediately.

Now, what I realised today is that not only is the punctum a personal matter and your emotional response might be different from someone else's, but it can also influence your interpretation of a picture majorly. Maybe it was because I am dealing with gender in photography on a daily basis, but when I saw the picture for the first time I wasn't too fussed with the fact that Lulu presents herself in a really masculine way. My punctum was her eyes: the quite sad, introvert look into the distance. This picture makes me feel loneliness in the first place - particularly when you take the sole place setting, the single glass, the unshared bottle of champagne into consideration, too. 

However, my seminar group disagreed with me on that point. Someone took the eyes as a punctum as well, but connected their longing gaze then to Lulu's masculine appearance and the scenery of an Parisian lesbian underground club, and said that the picture was talking about sexual desire and frustration. Someone else was drawn to the mural behind Lulu - which is unfortunately not visible in this slightly cropped version, but the original version shows a part of it, and you can see female legs and high heels. All of the sudden the contrast between the female characteristics in the painting and Lulu's appearance made the picture tell of gender difference, gender expression, self identity - a pretty superficial, but nevertheless valid point, in my eyes.

I think it's pretty cool how details can change the perception of a single picture in completely opposite directions. Also I like the way it shows how personal experience feeds into your interpretation - if I wasn't used so much to seeing crossdressers and drag and genderbending, maybe my initial response wouldn't have gone beyond the gender tension in Brassaï's picture, either.

Christer Strömholm: Les Amies De Place Blanche

Jacky, place Blanche 1961

"This is a book about the quest for self-identity, about the right to live, about the right to own and control one's own body.

(...)

These are images of women - biologically born as men - that we call 'transsexuals'.

As for me, I call them 'my friends of place Blanche'. This friendship started here, in the early 60s and it still continues."

Christer Strömholm, 1983

I could have titled this blog post: "Why Les Amies De Place Blanche is my favourite photo book in the world", or "Why I am completely in love with Christer Strömholm's photos". But no - let's keep up at least the weak pretence of neutrality, shall we?
(This mere semblence of an unbiased photo book review won't last for longer than a few lines, I fear. I'm way too much in awe.)

Published in 1983, Les Amies De Place Blanche regained quite a bit of attention lately when the popular website BuzzFeed picked it up and the photos subsequently circulated on Facebook and Twitter. The book has been on my bookshelve for a while by then, and it was a lovely surprise to see the new attention to it.
The pictures are Strömholm's record of his time in Paris, when he lived in the red light district of Pigalle and became close friends with many of the trans women - some post-op, some pre-op -, the so-called 'nightbirds' who mainly earned their money by prostitution. The Swedish photographer and the girls lived on the same floor of a cheap hotel, and shared their lives in the night.

"Often, around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I heard knocking on the wall of my room. It was Cobra, telling me coffee was ready. We had coffee with milk in her room on the 5th floor of the hotel Chappe. There were breadcrumbs in bed. We had been sleeping since dawn and it would soon be dark."

Nana, 1959

It is a lovely book, the 2011 edition printed extraordinarily well by Dewi Lewis. The pictures are of astonishing quality - beautifully lit and framed, great portraits and observed moments. But it is not the quality alone that makes the book outstanding to me. It is the story that the pictures tell.
Unlike many other projects (particularly from the last ten years, surprisingly) the subjects in Les Amies De Place Blanche are not treated as outcasts, as curious struggling individuals defined by their fleeting gender alone. They are not exploited, not photographed solely for the sake of the spectacle or a political agenda. The pictures tell the story - the title gives it away - of a deep and lasting friendship in the first place; the gender plays only a secondary role. In the 2011 book, you'll find a short introduction to all the girls and their stories, the so-called 'family album', and the personal accounts of Nana and Jacky, two of Strömholm's closest friends and favourite subjects.

Gina & Nana, place Blanche 1963

The girls in these pictures have dignity, and Strömholm treats them with respect - and because he is so close to them, he is able to look behind the facade. Just look at Jacky's upbeat personality that punches you through the frame, or Nana's subtle sadness. I feel that the trust the girls had in the photographer is tangible. A few of the pictures are snapshots of the girls joking around in their rooms, or meeting their boyfriends. Anybody could be in these pictures - I think its great that neither Christer Strömholm nor the 'nightbirds' let themselves be reduced to photographing/being trans. It is a message to all of us (attention, pathos!): Trans people are having lives that go beyond their gender, they enjoy life as much as others, they don't want to be pitied all the time. Meet them, talk to them, get to know them. Les Amies De Place Blanche serves a splendid example of how portraits are made with respectfulness and love. Given the fact that the project was made in the 1950s and 60s, it is a shame that not many photographers seem to have learned from it since.

Christer avec Panama, 1968

All pictures by Christer Strömholm.

Lindsay Morris: You Are You

(Click to enlarge.)

The first proper blog post is always the hardest, or so they say. So many things to write about, where would you start... I decided to present to you one of my favourite projects of the past few months, Lindsay Morris' You Are You.

You Are You is about with a summer camp for non-gender-conforming boys in the US. There, far away from their kindergartens and schools, from bullying and oppression, the boys can wear dresses, put on make-up and "be themselves" in the sheltered environment of their families and nature. Morris documented the camp over the course of three years and took a number of lovely images, floating dresses, kids on an improvised runway, and a lot of bright pink included. 

The pictures have been included prominently in an excellent article in the New York Times magazine, titled What's So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?. The title already points out: You Are You is not necessarily about transgender children - after all, before puberty gender and sexuality are hardly set in stone. It's more about the fluidity of gender, the courage of some children and their parents not to conform to society's ideas of male and female - and to what these binary opposites are characterised by. You Are You is a fantasy, the utopia of a world in which little boys aren't harassed for heart-shaped necklaces and pink dresses, in which being queer is being accepted, in which, maybe, gender doesn't matter any longer.

Of course, Morris' project is terribly romantic, almost corny - look at that light, the warm colours, that touch of princess life in the waving rose tulle - but then, why shouldn't it be? There are enough bleak, depressing stories about LGBT youth out there, even the most positive of them with that ever so subtle hint of sadness, with a sense of not-belonging. Morris herself states on Slate's Photo Blog: "I'm saying this is a new story. This is not a tragedy." In its own special way, the romanticism is beautiful - just like the depicted kids.

Morris' project inadvertently addresses another, old problem - the whole gender bending only ever catches attention when it is boys dressing as girls. Why do we need a special summer camp for boys who like dresses but none for girls who like cars? Why are drag queens all over the media, but no drag kings? I'd love to see a good photo project on women dressing as men but alas, I haven't found one yet. And hell yes, I wish the world would be a bit more like in Lindsay Morris' summer camp. I'll keep dreaming, looking at her pictures again and again.

All pictures by Lindsay Morris

About Blogging

People's reactions to blog tend to be quite the same, whoever you ask:
"I don't really like blogs. I never seem to get...into them."
"But there are so many of them!"
"I only read blogs when there are pictures of tiny cute kittens on them."
...or...the ultimate response:
"Oh, you're running a blog! That is SO interesting! I will check it out...soon..." Voice fades, eyes move towards the floor - and you know: They don't think it's interesting at all, because they belong to the tiny-kitten-sort of people, too. Secretly, that is.

So why am I starting another blog, and, even worse, my second one? (Find the first one here.) Well.
First of all, this blog is, even though I enjoy it very much and treasure it as one of the most important personal projects I've ever started, for university. It's coursework.
Second, like so many other things, it's all about what you make out of it, isn't it? My thoughts on here won't be entirely original, and neither will the pictures, which I am going to show you, be. But I am determined to try and give my personal twist to it, to find new connections and relations, and so it will be mine and you will never find the same anywhere on the internet. (If you do, let me know.)
Third, and most importantly, I believe in visibility. Let me explain that. I am a photographer and writer, but I am also an activist for gender, LGBTQ and cultural matters, and these vocations go quite well together. Because the first one is all about making things visible, and the second one will only ever succeed if made visible to everyone. Therefore this blog is an attempt to bring my interests together, to build a platform on which I can express my point of view and in this way connect to this weird thing called the internet - there is no better way to make anything visible to everyone.
Fourth, my other blog is in German, and basically addresses to my parents, and a few friends. Do you speak German? Are you my mum or my dad? Many people don't or aren't, you see. I just thought I'd make it a little easier for you to connect to me.

If you are still not interested, well then...