This project is about classic portraiture. It started after a traumatic breakup. I wanted to photograph happy queer couples. It made me feel better. Mostly these were my friends, middle aged women that are just as invisible as I am. I wanted to bring visibility to queer families like mine, to be seen as normal. This work seemed important since we have been under attack in the public sphere, especially trans kids like my son. As a multi-racial queer woman who doesn’t fit cleanly into any category, I have been interested in ideas of identity and community. But identity can be hard to see, so can it be photographed? My work quickly morphed into photographs of anyone who would stand in front of my camera. It became clear that I had a diverse group of people around me and the photographs became about seeing all people, sometimes people we wouldn’t necessarily look at in passing, seeing the beauty in the other. Since then, I have made several series of portraits, some formal, some not so formal. I have photographed those around me and have been pleased that I have a range of beautiful people to sit for me. Richard Avedon said “...you can’t get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface. The surface is all you’ve got.” I let them be in front of my camera and try not to manipulate, which is of course impossible. I see what they want to show me, the essence of who they are, their identity. But you can’t photograph an identity, only surface. In some ways this is the great equalizer. I want my photographs to normalize. Underneath we are the same; we love, we hate, we want, we are happy, we struggle. It is only the surface that changes. I photograph people of different identities not to see the differences, but to see the beauty in their sameness.

These photographs were made on black & white film stock with a 4x5 view camera and are printed as 16x20" silver gelatin prints.