One of the things I often get asked about is the setting of the photographs in my photo section. A typical letter would go something like this: “Pristine, you write about representing and going out and not worrying too much about passing. But we don’t see any pictures of you going out and about. Now why is that?”

First off, I’ve never really felt the need to answer those mildly accusatory questions. I pretty much come from the attitude of “believe what you chose to believe, I know what I do, and that’s enough.”

But after thinking about it a little, I started wondering myself, “Hey! How is it that I don’t have that many pictures of me gallivanting about town?” I guess the most obvious answer stems from sheer unadulterated embarrassment. I’d wince whenever I see a self-absorbed woman (or transperson) endlessly posing in public in front of a camera. I can understand if it’s for keepsake, but I’ve never come to a full understanding of the whole “Out and About” photo section in many trans-websites. It may not be easy, and to this day, I am still aspiring to some aesthetic quality of the self-portrait. A part of me sees it as a timestamp, while the other part sees it as a visual diary of form.

Also to tote along a camera (in my tight too superlow jeans or little purse) kills the silhouette. Not to mention the fact that it’s a horrendous interruption on the craft of merry-making to halt all activities with a “here’s a camera, take a picture of me! me! me! dressed up out and about.”

This explains another reason why I don’t frequent trans-friendly bars and nightclubs. If you do it everywhere you go, there’s really no event in going out on a special T* night, to do the same exact thing you do every other night out.

It would be like a librarian going to a bookstore on her day off!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 9:12 am and is filed under Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.