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Body Alchemy: Transsexual PortraitsOther Selections By: Loren Cameron Cleis Press
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- Author(s): Loren Cameron
- Publisher: Cleis Press
- Release Date: 01 November, 1996
- Media: Paperback
- ISBN: 1573440620
- Sales Rank: 76,710
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Editorial
| The idea of gender is no long as fixed as it once was: Tootsie, La Cage aux Folles, and Milton Berle saw to that. But none of this has prepared us for Loren Cameron's amazing portraits of transsexuals. Beautifully reproduced and complemented with notes and short essays, these portraits of women who are now men may startle, but they will also make you marvel at the genuine complexities of life, sex, and desire. Body Alchemy might have been a curiosity, like Diane Arbus's photographs of those outside the physical and cultural mainstream, but Cameron's art is so empathetic, so precise, that we are left in awe and with a new understanding of the realities of being human. |
Top Customer Reviews
Phenomenal photographic record of ftm transsexuals
A seminal book - a powerful photographic record of ftm transsexuals in society. This is the book that first made me acknowledge my own transsexualism - the mirror I had been looking for all my life. Cameron's photography, both of himself and others, is stark black and white imagery of the anger, pain and emergent joy associated with transition. A wide variety of men of different ages, backgrounds, jobs, families, apperance, likes and dislikes, all sharing one common thread. Text in the book is minimal but well written and apposite, autobiographically topped and tailed by Cameron. Includes some pictures of genital modification - very well received amongst the transmen I know as no-one else has ever compiled a readily available book showing what the results of these surgeries can look like. Fascinating, triumphant, joyful - this is the book that shows the liberating experience of finally becoming oneself after years trapped in the wrong body. Well done, Mr Cameron ! ! and thank you.
Green with envy
I'm a minority. I am very much outside this book's intended audience, to say the least. I am a straight bio-male. And I can say without any homosexual tension, that Mr. Cameron you are built like a god. The photos border on Arbus-esque but offer a more compassionate less spectacle treatment of the subjects. I guess that's a point well demontsrated when the phographer spends as much time in front of the camera as well as behind. You are more inclined to look at these unusual subjects with reverence not repulsion. The book overall is beautifully put toether. Sparse and poignantly so. Now the "green with envy" part. Even if Cameron is 5'3", for me to stand next to him would be totally emasculating. There aren't a lot of "real" men out there who are willing to go out to the gym to look that ripped. I feel so flabby.
Empowering
This book was one of the greatest gifts I have ever gotten myself. When I finished reading and looking at the beautiful photographs, I hugged the book to my chest.
This book not only told me thru writings but also showed me that I wasn't alone. This book meant the world to me as a bigendered female. I had only read about others transgender people, but had never seen anyone besides myself.
Thank you Mr.Cameron. :)
I recomend this book to anyone dealing with transgender issues- whether they be trans themself, a realtive or friend of a trans person, or just plain curious.
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