Through a Woman's Eyes
I used to be a street photographer. Or at least, that’s what I called myself. I could never put my finger on exactly what I was doing, nor could I put my finger on what exactly “street photography” meant. “Public and candid,” I once read somewhere. That definition was satisfying enough.
I also used to be a man. I was able to blend in on the streets. I never attracted too much attention or suspicion. My presence in public was never a problem. Things have changed since then.
I’m still a photographer, I think, but sometimes I want to quit. I’m increasingly finding myself less satisfied with it. I’ve fled from multiple online photography spaces, first from Instagram when it started promoting videos over photos, and then from Twitter when I found it overflowing with NFTs. For a while I’ve been an artist without a home.
In fact, “an artist without a home” is how I’ve felt as a photographer ever since I started making changes to my gender. And I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. Many have pointed out before me that photography is dominated by white men. If, according to Dorothea Lange, “the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera,” the homogeneity of photography is suddenly a very serious problem. This whiteness and maleness means that we are only taught to see the world, and consequently each other, through a very narrow lens. After a while, every photo begins to look the same, and I start to ask myself if I really want to be a part of this. If photography is already not for women, how can it ever be for trans women?
It wasn’t until recently that I realized my disenchantment with photography was political. I still love being behind the camera. That hasn’t changed. What’s changed is my gender, my sexuality, the places I look from.
I think the places we look from are more important than the places we look at. A compelling subject is nothing without a compelling relationship to that subject. My relationship to most things is more compelling these days. My body is no longer an afterthought. My friendships are no longer so contrived. I laugh and cry more. Everything feels fuller. As my transition has progressed, I’ve only gotten better at photography while only feeling like less of a photographer.
What was I doing as a boy? I guess I was photographing my life. I took my camera to my cousin’s wedding in Denver. I took my camera to New York City with my friends. I took my camera on my college tours in Chicago and Saint Paul. I mostly used my camera as a nostalgic instrument, to freeze a moment in time. But nostalgia is strange as a trans person. It tells me that things were better back then, even when I know that’s not true. The bulk of my photos were taken before I transitioned, and so the thought of photography only conjures those memories.
This March, I took my camera to the Saint Paul skyways on a rainy day. I’d been on hormones for just over three months, and I wouldn’t come out as trans for another three. I don’t know whether it was the eery liminality of the skyways or the knowledge that from afar I appeared to be an unaccompanied woman, but after a couple hours I was overcome with paranoia. I looked over my shoulder to see a man a good distance behind me. All I could make out was his green shirt. A few minutes later I looked over my shoulder again, he was still there. I made a strange turn, sped down a hallway, and squeezed through a half-open door, hoping to throw him off. He was still there. Realizing I was being followed, I turned a corner and started to run.
It was the first time I had ever photographed the city through a woman’s eyes. My images of the urban landscape started depicting unease, paranoia, and vulnerability. I can still be afraid to venture into the city alone. I can no longer see it from the perspective of those men who dominate my Instagram feed. I can no longer see it the way I did as a boy. My relationship to that subject has gotten more complicated.
By virtue of being complicated, has my relationship to the city not become more compelling? Is my new perspective as a woman—specifically as a woman who used to be a man—not a refreshing one? Perhaps, but this does not quell my very real anxieties. My newfound fear of the streets, and my lack of connection to those photographers who do not fear the streets, has exiled me in part from the only genre I’ve known for so long. Where do I go now?
I do want to go somewhere. I want to keep capturing these memories. I want to lend my perspective to our collective ways of seeing. I may be in exile, but by living out this new chapter of my life with my camera beside me, I’m sure to find someplace new. “I sometimes feel the most within my body and the most within a queer community when I’m photographing,” says June Sanders. I may have lost a part of the city, but I’ve gained an entire world of queer and trans subjects. So much so that to call them subjects feels dehumanizing. They’re my friends, my family, my lovers, myself.
I know I have to get back on my feet. I know I have to stop waxing poetic about photography and just start doing it again. Literally and metaphorically, the first step is to stand up. This essay, ironically, is my attempt at getting there.