These Intimate Photographs Capture One Small Ounce Of What Pride Is All About
In the wake of the mass shooting at Pulse, we reached out to photographers whose work opposes silence and discrimination.
This is a time to stand up and fight back. A few hours after I heard the news about the shooting at gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, I felt the need to address this tragedy in some way. While mourning for the victims of this massacre, I simultaneously wanted to celebrate the LGBTQ community, especially people of color. As a photo editor and someone that identifies within that community, I wanted images that celebrated us because we need visibility — we can't fade into darkness and let these catastrophes define us.
I reached out to photographers whose work feels so relevant to me right now because they speak about people reclaiming their bodies and power. The work of these artists — Bryson Rand, Ian Lewandowski, John Edmonds, Laurel Golio, Matthew Papa, Richard Perez, and Zak Krevitt from New York, and Denmark's Freja Wold — opposes silence, oppression, discrimination, and hate. Through the subjects' gazes, subtle gestures, and quiet or loud moments in-between, we are confronted by their intimacy, complexity, and beauty. As Wold told me over email, "When politics fail, art often wins."