From the earliest days of my career in art and photography, I have photographed people who courageously break taboos and re-define their cultural and sexual representation. Many of my images embrace the fluidity of gender identity and explore the possibility that we each hold a myriad of alternative selves within us. Using documentary and fictional storytelling, these non-binary gender images blur the boundaries dividing us into male and female sexes based solely on anatomy, hormones or chromosomal attributes. In the eighteen years that I have been photographing the French performance artist, Fréderic Koenig, we have collaborated on HE/SHE, my portfolio that explores his gender-fluid queer identity and reveals the spectrum of Fréd’s transformations into self-affirming portraits. In the final image, ‘Invisible Scars,’ Fréd is handcuffed to a fence, his figure standing in for the many homosexuals worldwide who have suffered pain and abuse for being their authentic selves.
