It’s a year since we launched People Like Us last December!
This year has been very different, following years of regular shoots and chats with participants, finding more people, chatting and shooting some more, and some more, doing community events, fundraising, then a year of collating the material from thousands of photographs, reams of writing and hours of audio to create the book, it all stopped for a bit this year. Until, I found the energy to work on trying to get the book out into the world – book shops, doing talks, photo-book fairs, queer art markets, exhibitions and archives… a very different and ongoing process.
I had high hopes for the photobook – I know it’s a brilliant project; the book is an archive bursting at the seams with rich and meaningful content, so I wanted it to reach more people, but it’s felt slow since the heady heights of reaching the Kickstarter goal and an amazing launch. I fantasized about the project being featured in publications like Dazed but never did anything about it; didn’t know how to, but also didn’t try! I’ve submitted images from the project to various photography open calls and journals over the years but never had any of this work selected. Me / my work still don’t seem to fit in.
Recently, however I’ve been reflecting and remembering what the project set out to do and why we started it in the first place. It was never about making work for public consumption, it was for the participants and others like them, it wasn’t staged or posed to grab attention and sensationalise, it was quite the opposite in fact. The feedback I get so often is how RAW, unapologetic and naturalistic the photos are, which is exactly what I wanted, so I’m very happy that people see that.
What I’m recognising more and more is that People Like Us includes people who still don’t tend to get represented, even in queer projects, which is what makes our work stand out I think, and is about who I am too. With themes around trans masculinity becoming ever more fashionable in the arts, there are trends to certain narratives and body types which we set out to dismantle; our ethos was always to find a broad spectrum of gender-diverse folk.
All 58 participants featured throughout the book.
It is frustrating though, when you know you’ve made something great; I even described the book as ground breaking at the launch, and it’s not getting as much attention as you think it deserves! However, saying that, more ‘people like us’ do actually keep finding the project, which I find pretty amazing! I’ve done some lovely talk events with intimate audiences who fill the room completely, with folk who see themselves in my work coming up and telling me how meaningful the project is to them, this is the best feeling and reminds me that the work is doing something.
In Conversation with Caleb Roberts - Outburst Queer Arts Festival
One such event was at Outburst Queer Arts Festival which took place in Belfast last month and was just the tonic I needed, leading me to more positive reflection and gratitude. I felt so seen and understood by Ruth McCarthy and Caleb Roberts at Outburst Arts and it was really uplifting and energising to have the work so well received over there.
It was exciting and affirming to find that the work resonated so much with Caleb, who is a trans filmmaker ‘focused on grounded queer storytelling and settings’, and was seeing the work for the first time. He really picked up on the nuances and issues I had considered when starting the project such as, ‘de-sensationalism of trans bodies’ and the gaze, not being sexual or voyeuristic but ‘JUST IS’…
“I felt seen in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt, and that has a lot to do with the setting and positioning your subjects in the natural world as well as in the studio.” Caleb
He’d never pictured himself just BEING in public / outdoor spaces; “It’s like they’ve taken a breath – there’s no tension”.
Double page spread from the book
Amongst many things, we talked about ‘the process of creating a piece of work like this; how the act of photographing transforms it’s subject’:
I’ve always been interested in PROCESS when it comes to photography – how the medium has the power to facilitate and make things happen – from my DARKROOM installations of the 2010s to these intimate studio sessions, participants have felt liberated to reveal more than they thought they would or could of themselves. The magic is in the process, collaboration, deep conversation, play, silliness and the building of trust.
Participants have told me how much they got from being part of this project, not only making photos where they recognised themselves and liked what they saw but a big thing for some of them was feeling like they belonged to something. They also appreciated the ongoing conversations with me and with each other, the building of community within the project.
Over the years many were photographed multiple times and they love how they’re not fixed into one image or how they felt at a particular time, that we kept exploring and documenting their growth, both in terms of their various stages of transitioning and their relationship to the camera, building in confidence, from for example, only feeling comfortable being photographed from behind in soft shadowy light to loving it and baring all!
Double page spread from the book
We also discussed my dilemma and decision to inform the reader that all participants are transmasculine, be that identifying as transgender men, non-binary, genderfluid, or beyond it entirely. This is something I’ve been asked a number of times since publication:
The project started in 2017 with a friend who was transitioning, learning their story and seeing others around me popping out – it felt like something was happening and there was lots of appetite to talk about this stuff; no-one had really paid the people I was speaking with much attention before and they were hungry!
I was really conflicted as to whether or not to acknowledge the fact that they are all AFAB (assigned female at birth) in the book as it felt very binary and who’s business is it anyway, but speaking to participants, it was clear that this was an important part of their identities and journeys, how they are or have been perceived and how they were socialised growing up. However, I’d never be so bold as to ask anyone outright about their gender and strange as it might seem, it wasn’t really about that.
Artboard of pages from the book
We talked about perception – ‘who is perceiving us and having ownership over how we are perceived. Moving beyond the idea of “representation” and into a space where pleasure becomes a central theme…’
Soon into the project I realized it was important to go beyond representation and visibility - making pleasure and the joy of being queer the focus, it had to be positive, the hard stuff is still there but it’s not in the spotlight.
So much of what gets selected by curators to be exhibited in galleries focuses on the painful stuff – sad pictures of trans people seems to be the narrative they’re most interested in, which isn’t representative of the people I know. The one thing I always knew when I started this project was that I didn’t want to add to the existing depressing, low mood, depictions of trans people sitting on beds looking sombre in the nice light!
This project was always about capturing participants’ character, showing them as they really are, vibrant and funny, thoughtful and sensitive, I wanted to get it all across not just focus on one aspect.
Caleb also pointed out ‘the rawness of the naked trans body being the default in the book and that it’s unsexualised’. He wondered how did I find that balance.
We were looking at aspects of the body that gave participants euphoria and emphasizing that, so it was more about how their bodies could feel pleasurable, than thinking about them sexually. We were also playing with different ways they moved such as before and after procedures or with different clothes, or unclothed, holding back, letting go, playing with tension, body bonding as one participant described their relationship to their new chest.
We made some sexy photos, but they were playful and cheeky, with the subjects in control - I just encourage them! I provide a space where people can experiment without worrying about me mis-using their pictures.
Shooting in nature was a metaphor for growth and grounding, I wanted to picture folk just being themselves, at one with the environment; natural, calm, serene, effortless, but also being free and expressive having fun amongst the trees or bushes and being silly outdoors, sometimes bringing camp or cruisy vibes, reflecting my influences and inspiration from my own book shelves which are full of homoerotic photo-books, I wanted to follow in that tradition to some extent.
We also talked about the process of physically making the photobook; “It’s a stunning piece of work and really speaks to the DIY nature of queer approach”.
It was really important to me that the book felt as queer in its design as the people it depicts. I’m a big fan of self-publishing and I couldn’t have handed this over to a publisher, it would have become a completely different book – highly edited down no doubt.
I selected and sequenced all 370 photographs myself, it was important to show as many different faces and bodies as possible so I made lots of grids to contain multiple images on a page. The photos aren’t chronological, they flow as one, being playful with design elements; colour, shape and form, gestures and movement. Individuals keep reappearing throughout the pages, rather than having their own section and being presented more formulaic.
Double page spread from the book
Even our font, ‘Bye Bye Binary’ is queer! Sourced by Sticky Fingers who designed the rest of the book, with beautiful text pages either side of the photography section on different papers. At the front hotpencil press span their individual ‘time maps’. At the back, is the deeply personal participants’ journal of over 18,000 words, stretching across 5 years, with quotes and text, I painstakingly collected and collated from emails, social media posts and dedicated pieces for the book.
I like to play some of the audio we recorded for the project while people are arriving, I hadn’t listened to this for a while and it was so nice to hear those voices again, it’s very emotive and just gets stronger with the passing of time. There is still much to do with the audio and I know that participants have more to say that they want documenting, so there will be more to come.
Another lovely thing for the book this summer was participant Santi’s beautiful, insightful review, which gave me a new excitement for the work. It was published by The BitterSweet Review; a magazine dedicated to new queer art and writing.
Portrait of Santi from the project alongside a quote from their review
So as another year approaches, I feel a fresh surge of energy for this project, to create new work with existing participants and more folk yet to be found. I want to have a People Like Us exhibition one day, so will investigate that with more conviction! I’ll continue to chip away and reach more people with the project, a handful at a time!
In the meantime, here’s a list of shops where the book can now be purchased along with here on my website and places it’s been this year – not bad really – putting it all together makes me realize how much I have achieved in its first year after-all!
London: Burley Fisher, The Common Press, Housmans, The Photographers Gallery
The Folkestone Bookshop, bookhaus - Bristol, Five Leaves Bookshop - Nottingham, Juno Books - Sheffield, Paperxclips – Belfast.
Archives and Libraries - Lavender Menace – Queer Books Archive
Places where book has been so far: Queercircle - book launch, Collective Visions - Proud Gallery group exhibition, Trancestry - 10 Years of the Museum of Transology – exhibition at UAL Lethaby gallery, Sticky Fingers Publishing Fair, Photo London Book Market - Somerset House, Queer Lit – Calling the Shots -Talk with Zorian Clayton, Forest Gayte Pride – Queer Market, Trans Pride Hastings Festival, BOP (Books on Photography) - Bristol, Outburst Queer Arts Festival – Talk and Queer Art Market, Photofusion Winter Book fair
Thank you so much for reading and happy hols or festive times to those who take it!