NEWS

Photographer RODRIGO OLIVEIRA

Brazilian photographer Rodrigo Oliveira is dedicated to capturing the beauty and power of queer black people from Rio de Janeiro and Barra de Guaratiba, his hometown.

Being raised in Barra de Guaratiba, a coastal suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Oliveira grew up surrounded by burgeoning wildlife. Thus developing a heightened sense of love and respect towards nature. As a matter of fact, his career began with a focus on flora and fauna.

The young photographer studied Biology in Australia and Germany thanks to a scholarship from the former Brazilian government.

He took his first steps in photography by going with a camera to take pictures of insects, plants, and whatever might catch his eye. But it wasn’t until he moved to Australia and went on a trip to South Asia, exploring the urban areas of countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, and Singapore, that he began to be captivated by people.
 

…continue reading at THE NEXT CARTEL.

Photographer VIC LENTAIGNE

When Vic Lentaigne first tried out photography, she was instantly hooked. “I loved it,” she tells It’s Nice That. It was at the age of 14 during school that she was “lucky enough” to gain regular access to a darkroom, which meant she was freely able to work, develop and test out her process; she would enter into her “own world”, as she puts it, with her headphones in, spending hours in the dark “creating and experimenting when other people were doing maths lessons!”.

What’s more, photography served as her own remedial form of therapy; Vic has ADHD, so photography and her stints spent in the darkroom were her own creative outlet and means of letting go, not adhering to any strict tools or sitting at a desk, which was “so rewarding”.

Now, the London-based photographer spends her time taking intimate portraits of the queer community, which includes a recent shoot where she documented the love of lesbian couples in the City over the course of Pride Month, plus various other evocative shots of intriguing subjects and people from the music industry. Her client list is just as impressive as her personal endeavours, including brands such as Louis Vuitton, Nike, Pat McGrath Labs, British Fashion Council, Business of Fashion, Art School London, Wonderland magazine, Hunger, Clash and Notion.
 

…continue reading at IT’S NICE THAT.

FUMI HOMMA for THE FACE

To be a minority, in a society that invented discrimination for the specific purpose of demonising people who are minorities, and then conceived an erratically “integral” system of deprivation, is to bear the strain of a shameful history that many would rather defy. Discrimination, I was freshly reminded, has internalised a vortex of oppression that proves the falsehood of our claims of progress. The outcome is clear, resulting in a vile attempt to walk away from the numbers and statistics and instead focus on the people who endured the brunt – their flesh and blood, hopes and futures.

For LGBTQ+ communities, the indicators of how prejudice works are dismantled by data: a recent American audit found that as many as 1 in 4 LGBTQ+ individuals in the U.S. reported experiencing some form of discrimination in 2016. In Stonewall’s LGBTQ+ in Britain Work Report in 2018, 35 per cent of LGBTQ+ employees said they had hidden the fact they are LGBTQ+ at work for fear of discrimination (a grievous benchmark that intensifies racial disparities). Moreover, figures highlight that 10 per cent of black, Asian and minority ethnic LGBTQ+ employees had been physically attacked by customers or colleagues in 2018, and 12 per cent had been attacked by customers or colleagues because of being trans. Like social justice, race is a system which intersects the affiliation of LGBTQ+ rights and denial. This research is important because, as well as these shocking headline figures, it also examines experiences unique to ethnic groups.
 

…continue reading at VOGUE ITALIA.

PUR·SUIT by NAIMA GREEN

 
For too many, a central part of the queer experience is growing up feeling isolated or lonely, feelings that are only amplified by the fact that there’s no one like you in magazines, TV shows, or art galleries. These experiences are especially acute for queer and gender non-conforming people of colour — but that’s just what artist Naima Green is determined to change, building a visual archive from her studio in Brooklyn, with Black queer womxn and non-binary people in the spotlight.

“When I’m taking a portrait of someone, I will ask if there is a way they would like to see themselves. Or if there’s a way that they want to be pictured that they haven’t been pictured as before,” she says. Her project Pur·suit is an embodiment of this collaborative and incredibly empathic approach. Its core elements are portraits of queer womxn, trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people — striking poses or effortlessly relaxed; alone or with their loved ones and chosen families. Shooting her subjects against a backdrop of softly draped fabrics, Naima documents them in all their diverse beauty and excellence, shining a light on the people most marginalised within the LGBTQ+ community, and showing the potential to heal and uplift that coming together has.

 

…continue reading at i-D.

COACH PRIDE 2021 by Heather Glazzard

Queer photography has always offered an eye into the lives of the LGBTQ+ community. Whether it’s documenting the struggles of our oppression, the moments where we’ve edged closer to equality or capturing the joy of same-sex eroticism, there’s no denying the importance of the photographic art form. It seeks to dilute the sense of othering that queer people face, and lets cis-het individuals know that we, too, are human.

Since the Stonewall riots in New York in June 1969, a breadth of queer image-makers have made their mark. Work by the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe, Alvin Baltrop and Honey Lee Cottrell (to name a few) have stood the test of time in showing that queer individuals have a place in the past, present and future, and it’s a place worth fighting for.

As we kickstart this year’s Pride celebrations to honour our LGBTQ+ siblings, eight queer photographers share their hopes for the future, from the funding of trans healthcare to the building of new physical safe spaces.

 

…continue reading at VOGUE FRANCE.

“WHISPERING FOR HELP” by MARIE SMITH

Creativity can have a positive impact on one’s mental health. Never has this been more apparent than during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Whether it was singing from flat balconies, painting rainbows, or indulging in books, films and recipes, we have all experienced how creative activities not only provide respite from feelings of loneliness, stress and anxiety, but spaces for communication and connection.

On top of the potentially fatal consequences of the virus – which at the time of writing has claimed over 2.8 million lives – the pandemic has caused a surge in a less tangible threat, with global organisations reporting a significant increase in poor mental health, particularly among children and young people. With this in mind, we spoke to three artists who have harnessed photography as a tool to understand their own, and others’, mental health.

…continue reading at the British Journal of Photography.