Live... by Edward

After all the weeks of work we put into creating our portraits, it was pretty exciting to finally see them, in all their giantness, up on the walls around brighton.

 

I was kinda surprised that when I found my poster I actually felt very self conscious. There are perhaps levels of being out.

 

Being out as trans to your friends and families is one thing, being out as T in a room of LGBT people who assume you're G is another thing. Having your face on the wall facing the seafront, identifying yourself as queer - thats a whole new world of out.

Taking part in the project was sometimes difficult for me, but only because I was unsure of how I fit the word 'queer' into my life, and how to find images that showed that. I didn't find the idea of being out as queer difficult, until I was on the side of a building.

Not that I regret doing it. I am just extremely lucky, that I have not faced intimidation on a regular basis because of my identity. I came out at my own pace, in my own time. I am unused to feeling exposed.

Fotopostering Brighton - Take 2: the Seafront - by Luc

Plotting a truly city-wide exhibition of the Queering the Photobooth portraits was an interesting concept, but not one based on the reality of constraints: time, budget, permission and weather...  And, so, the portraits - in their 2nd hanging - all converge down at the seafront: at the Thistle Hotel, in the West Street-to-beach underpass - and, hopefully, on Madeira Drive.

Collaborative Portrait of Edward Whelan

Documenting the Photographer... by edward

The first stage of the project has been coming to a close and we have started to return to our regular lives. Anthony and I went out one cold afternoon, just the two of us with the hefty camera equipment and flash and a strip of AA batteries to quickly capture Anthony's final portrait.

We passed through the south lanes, the promenade, the big wheel and kept going down marine parade, away from the crowds until there was just sea. It was only three o' clock but the light was failing already so we had to be quick. Anthony waved down a passerby to take a few shots of us on his phone.

Making The Cut ... by Edward

Photos have been taken, cropped, edited and printed and now laid out across the table we've been making the cull: keeping our favourites and ruthlessly removing anything not up to scratch.

It was a tricky process of first finding themes and connections between eleven different people's photos, all very different in style, all coming at the queer in brighton project from different angles, and then selecting from these the ones that worked best, the ones we loved.

There was, of course, quite a bit of disagreement. Some photos were removed and returned to the keeping this pile a few times before the end of the day. And it was tricky partly because we don't know yet what the photos are going to sit beside, what the text will be, how the page will be laid out, even what size they will appear in the book. But we picked from instinct. What grabbed us, what said something.

Third week already! ... by Edward

Bursting with ideas this week. Not all of them good. Some of them too big of course! How many costumes am I planning on buying for this project? How much new camera equipment? Stop that, I don’t need that. Must remember to keep it simple.

I have started to think about themes of identity and self and representation. Kinda big themes but also nice and open. I’ve got lots of room to explore those things. Lots of ideas, so I reckon I'll just see how they pan out. Take the photos and come back to them later and see what I’ve got. Take them all along to the group and see what the others make of them. It is very easy to edit your ideas in your head until you end up with nothing left.

This week’s theme: family. In our first session we all talked about "friends as family" in the queer community. So I'm thinking about that, and thinking about my own family too.
Who do I call "my family"?
And why?

Plans plans plans after workshop one ... by Ed

I had this plan, after our first meet up, that I would take a hundred thousand photos, every detail of my life would be captured. This has not worked out. And I was having some doubts that I even understood what it was to be queer in Brighton. Queer isn’t a word I have used much to describe myself, although I understood that as a trans man, the broader, open meaning of queer covered my experience.

I didn’t know where to begin. I started taking photos of myself, at random, throughout the day. I let my left arm become detached and roam free, taking photos of myself when I wasn’t expecting it. Let’s just take photos. Let’s just see what comes up. So I took photos of myself, my house, my books, my notes.

Of course, pride is an obvious photo opportunity. Hundreds of things you can photograph at pride. It had been Trans Pride just the week before and I had been running around so much, like an idiot I forgot to take photos. At LGBT pride I didn’t want to take photos of the people in drag and glitter, the half naked men, the floats covered in rainbow balloons and rainbow flags. Brightness and colour and drama is easy to find at pride, but wasn’t my pride experience. So I tried to photograph what pride was for me, our stall, the literature tent, my friends sitting on the grass.

Welcome to not going shopping

not going shopping charts the process of the artist Anthony Luvera working with eleven people to create a photographic work for Queer in Brighton, a project that celebrates cultural heritage of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people in Brighton and Hove. 

The work made by Anthony and 

Jess Bayliss
Raphael Fox
Ten Harber
Sarah Hebben
Harry Hillery
Kelly McBride
Luc Raesmith
Matt Robinson
Kate Turner
Ed Whelan
Charlie Wood

will be shown in an outdoor citywide exhibition in Brighton from February 2014.

On this blog Anthony and the participants will share their experiences, observations, photographs and anything else they find interesting, as a way to document their work together.