Celebrating Transitioning
The news of the Supreme Court ruling yesterday is a step backwards for trans rights and all women’s rights in the UK.
To celebrate my trans neighbours, I’d love to offer a wee celebration in the form of some free portraits.
This can work either as a one-off 90 minute portrait session or as up to 3 half hour sessions to document part of your transition journey. We’d meet beforehand for a chat through expectations to make sure we’re both creating a safe space. We could shoot in my private studio at Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Leith or somewhere that feels safe or has particular relevance to your story. The offer is open to those based in Central Scotland.
So whether it’s just a portrait session to celebrate your personal style and affirm your self, to document transitioning with hormone therapies or gender affirming surgery, whatever works and makes sense and feels like a celebration of your autonomy is what we’ll be photographing. There doesn’t have to be a time limit on how long it takes to document the 3 sessions either.
So for example, it could be top surgery before, just after, then some healed scars. It could just be a banging outfit and new haircut.
I’ve spoken about my own experiences of breast surgeries here and here before and the pressures of societal views on my own feelings about my gender. I’m a CIS woman and I was born with a rare birth defect that causes asymmetry. As a teen I was offered a ‘corrective’ breast implant and after childbirth I got a breast reduction on the other side. You’ll see from these blog posts that I have photographed myself nude and I have posed for another photographer nude so I have some experience of both sides of the camera. You can see examples of the images I’ve taken of myself to celebrate my own autonomy here too. However, we can just shoot clothed portraits or we can shoot nude/semi-nude, whatever works best for you and the story you want to celebrate.
We’d be shooting digitally and we can also shoot 35mm black and white film which I have the equipment and chemicals to develop and print in a wee scabby cupboard at home so nobody else would have access to the negatives or raw files. It would be up to you if you wanted to keep them private and just for yourself or if you wanted to share them and show them off. There would be no pressure to do either.
If you’d like to chat about this more, please email me on hello@solenphotography.co.uk
Trans rights are human rights x