A remarkable self-portrait of a female-to-male transsexual.
Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits is photographer Loren Cameron’s intensely personal photo documentary of female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs). A transsexual himself, Loren Cameron brings a sensitive, sophisticated insider’s eye to his subject matter. Using documentary style, a series of before-and-after photographs of FTMs in Cameron’s transsexual community, his own striking self-portraits, and intimate autobiographical text, he invites the viewer to experience this transformational rite of passage. Body Alchemy includes intimate, narrative photographs of Loren and his partner, Kayt, a lesbian-identified woman whose relationship to Cameron affords her much to say about the fluidity of gender and queer identity. Finally, Body Alchemy includes photographs of genital reconstructions, accompanied by text from three anonymous FTMs who discuss how they feel about their surgeries. ³Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Dianne Arbus among many others have all trained their lenses on the transgendered figure. Never have the transgendered seriously photographed their own. Not until Loren Cameron, that is.² ‹ Kate Bornstein, author, Gender Outla