No One and Everyone

As some of you may know, I do a lot of senior portraits. Most of my client work is from graduating seniors in high school and college. Recently, a lot of other trans people of color have been asking me to do their portraits because they expressed concerns of being in the closet but still wanting to present the way that makes them feel comfortable. This is an issue I have experienced both as a photographer and as a subject of a photo shoot as well. Often times, many white cis male photographers can perpetuate racism, the male gaze, and also make many people who are questioning their gender or gender presentation uncomfortable. This leads to people not really feeling celebrated and also just creating a bad environment for the photo shoot. 

Recently I had a really great portrait session with my friend Castro. Castro is also a queer, non-binary person of color who is graduating from Saint Mary’s College of California, the same college I graduated from last year. It was a really beautiful seeing someone who has a very similar lived experience as me. During this shoot, I realized how rare of an experience that is getting commissions from people who walk through life like me.

So this is dedicated to the people who aren’t seen, the people who live in the grey areas, the queer, trans, people of color.

Here is Castro’s film they made about the feeling of being non-binary and what it feels like to have histories erased.