To Shop or Not to Shop? (To L&G and Not TB?) - this (or that) is the Going Question … a post by Luc(e)

Being part of a group is often challenging for me as a person with Asperger Syndrome.  It has been easier for me in this NGS photo-group knowing a couple of transgender folk from elsewhere/beforehand, and not being the only ‘T’ person* in attendance - as has transpired(!) in other Queer-in-Brighton groups… However, having photography fun / making photographic art is something that comes easily to me, and offers me relief when stressed, and enjoyment when alone.  I’ve been keeping a fotografic journal over the past 3-years -or-so of owning a mobile-phone-with-camera.  “Snapaholism: cheaper and more cheerful than Shopaholism” says I…  [* Person is Not a Rude Word – do use it! ]

After the first evening get-together at New Writing South(on 30th July), I needed to de-stress with a photo shoot of night-lit shop windows and pubs in the North Laine.  These created pleasing ‘mosaics’ in my Samsung Galaxy SIII mobile photo ‘Gallery’ (camera:12megapixel) – which Anthony L recommended that I continue to ‘create’ for this QinB project (no chance of my not doing so…)

I’ve also continued snapping - for the duration of this project & beyond - my theme of flora&architecture-around-the-City and my Trans*-related own-project of photographing the interiors&facilities of access toilets as (usually) gender-neutral / unisex spaces in our society’s infrastructure. Also, and gladly, from Anthony’s suggestion, I’ve added more self-portraiture with mirrors in same venues – only now wearing my “Trans* Person” lanyard (‘tranny lanny’) as fashioned for Brighton & Hoves first Trans* Pride (26-28th July).

Coming out of the 1st-of-four Saturday workshops, I espied (and snapped) a TKMaxx shopping trolley (all red to totally dominate a pic!) and found myself de-stressing by going shopping at said bargain emporium for stripe-or-otherwise socks (sometimes the shopping just has to be done…)

   

I have enjoyed much of the group interactivity: our scrabbling for and then choosing our group name from suggested scrap-paper-scribblings (see action shot below); our self-portraits snapping at the PhotoMatic/FotoMagic booth in the Laine’s Snoopers Paradise; and  - not least - and our quaffing of coffee and cake/pastry…

     

[see my own ‘Person is Not a Rude Word’ blagspot for shots of refreshments and other assorted NotGoingShopping offerings…]

http://offthetrolleyproductions.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/acronyms-can-be-subhumane/

[More comfort items & activities required after my mobile’s external SDcard went rogue and ‘ate up’ whole series of snaps (100+)… PhotoMatic’s ‘Fear & e-Smoking in Las Vegas’ half-survived at least]

Being social on NSG’s F’bk page turned out to be pretty hyper-angst-inducive… After the second of two Sunday mornings’ downloading images and wordplay tumbling about in my non-neuro-typical brain, I found myself destressing again with 21-shot-mosaic-snappery - around the Duke of York’s cinema - which then became a fotovideo [which can be viewed via blog link above].  This I entitled “ID-(e)-a-List” as I found the images to be indicative of the 3rd week’s ‘homework’ of exploring self-identity; it was also an experiment in iMovie with adding multiple title texts (as my ‘fibrofogged’ mind had forgotten how to overlay text - plus how to online-search how to do that…)

We went off into our 4th week of exploration with the question of being ‘queer’ versus being ‘LGBT’ community/persons.  I don’t have a sense of LGBT community – and find the acronym limiting and ‘PC’ convenient; for me, even if appropriate, the acronym would be more accurately written as GLT&B for the amount of utterance and recogition of the component ‘parties’ within the so-called community – and reflecting the current & continuing state-of-play of gay-cis-male & “pink£pound” dominance in society. [Plus U R more likely to hear “ladies” than “lesbians” spoken these days: eek…]

As others have reflected in their photography and interests within the NGS ‘camera club’ (and on this blog), we all are loosely-connected persons living as individualistic lives as heterosexual and/or cisgendered persons do within the wider community of Brighton (&Hove), England, GB, UK, etc…

I definitely fit into the “queer”  or - more suitably as transintersexual person? – “qwe’re” defining-label on every front of my being: as emotionally pan- but physically A-sexual, I express myself outside LGB; as Aspergic I experience myself as not neuro-typical; as fibromyalgic and bi-polar I qualify as ‘disabled’ and, thereby, outside the ‘able-bodied’ and 3-in-4 ‘able-minded’ population; as hormones+surgery-transitioned transintersexual I’m not yet generally acknowledged under the Trans* umbrella… Being (ethnically) white and (by upbringing) middle class I do otherwise ‘anchor’ to the mainstream and dominant!

- see more of my take on sexuality-versus-gender acronym-ing in my blog’s intro pages1&2

http://offthetrolleyproductions.wordpress.com/about-this-tgqi-person-pt-1/
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And so… back to not-going-shopping: yay!

Luc(e)Rs

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.