Arthur Tress

These are some recent portraits of several friends in New York and San Francisco.

I use a Hasselblad camera and 120 Tri-x film and natural light. I think it best to keep it simple, but sometimes I bring a prop that I think might open up the subject’s personality.

While I often try and reveal something about my models, I have found recently that my portraits are like mirrors reflecting different aspects of my own  personality and concerns, more then the people I am photographing, which is not surprising as I have been doing this for six decades.

www.arthurtress.com

Ruth Bernhard

These are some recent portraits of several friends in Explorer of form and light, the artist reveals her deeply personal vision which reaches beyond ordinary perceptions. Her images of nudes, still lives in common objects are seen as a new vision. Ruth made the ordinary extraordinary with her intuitive powers of perception. 

Robert Burrill

Trading his paint brush for a camera, Burrill learned photography along with his high school students while making a film with Ruth Bernhard. Capturing pictures at the edge of the light, composition is foremost while remembering the joys of childhood in the subject. Using intuition sparks the light of inspiration most evident in his photographs and filmmaking. 

rbarts.com

Hal Fischer

The inclusion of Hal Fischer’s photographs in Under the Big Black Sun: California Art, 1974-81 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 2011 generated new attention in Hal Fischer’s gay-identified art. Since then, his seminal photo text work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. Museums that have acquired Fischer’s work include the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The J. Paul Getty Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow. Hal Fischer: The Gay Seventies, a comprehensive monograph, was published by Gallery 16 Editions in 2019.

www.gaysemiotics.com

Daniel Nicoletta

Daniel Nicoletta is a freelance photographer who began his career in 1975 as an intern to Crawford Barton, who was then the staff photographer for Advocate Magazine. Nicoletta also worked in Harvey Milk’s camera store in the heart Castro district and he was involved in Milk’s victorious election as one of the first openly gay elected officials in the world.

Nicoletta’s body of work maps his long romance with San Francisco and its people, especially the lesbian, gay bisexual, and transgender communities.

https://www.dannynicoletta.com/

Dwayne Newton

I’m a San Francisco-based photographer and for me, it’s all about people; the who, what, when, where, and why. Photography is all about “being there,” and “being there” has allowed me to witness as a photojournalist the world through a viewfinder, documenting in all conditions and seasons the full spectrum of the human condition in 30 countries.

www.dwaynenewton.com

Preston Gannaway

Preston Gannaway is a Pulitzer Prize-winning documentary photographer and artist. Her work often tells intimate stories about American families and marginalized communities while addressing themes like gender identity, class, and our relationship to place. Gannaway is best known for long-term projects like Remember Me, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. Editorial clients include The New York Times Magazine, California Sunday Magazine, and ESPN. Her first book, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, was released in 2014. Her photographs are held both publicly and privately and have been exhibited widely. She is based in Sonoma County, California.

www.prestongannaway.com

JEB (Joan E. Biren)

JEB (Joan E. Biren), an internationally recognized documentary artist, began chronicling the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in 1971. She is the author of two groundbreaking books of photography Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians  (1979) and Making A Way: Lesbians Out Front (1987). JEB’s videos, including For Love and For Life: The 1987 March on Washington For Lesbian and Gay Rights and A Simple Matter of Justice: The 1993 March on Washington, are distributed by Frameline. JEB’s work, Being Seen Makes A Movement Possible, is currently installed on the façade of the Leslie-Lohman Museum in NYC. 

The JEB (Joan E. Biren) papers are archived at the Sophia Smith Collection. You can find out more here:  https://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/ssc/pwv/pwv-jeb.html and here: https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/915 

JEB (Joan E. Biren) on Instagram: @jebmedia

Richard Renaldi

Manhattan Sunday is part homage to a slice of New York nightlife, and part celebration of New York as palimpsest—an evolving form onto which millions of people have and continue to project their ideal selves and ideal lives. Reflecting on my experience as a young man in the late 1980s and having embraced my gay identity, I found a home in the mystery and abandonment of the club, the nightscape, and then finally daybreak. each offering a transformation of Manhattan from the known world into a dreamscape of characters acting out their fantasies on a grand stage. Drawing heavily on personal subcultural pathways, I sought to capture that ethereal moment when Saturday night bleeds into Sunday morning across the borough of Manhattan. This collection of portraits, landscapes, and club interiors evokes the vibrant nighttime rhythms of a city that persists in both its decadence and its dreams, despite beliefs to the contrary.  

renaldi.com

Manhattan Sunday Book: 
https://aperture.org/shop/manhattan-sunday 
 
Representation:  
https://benrubigallery.com/artist/42/richard-renaldi 
 
Instagram: 
@renaldiphotos 

Rink Foto

The lesbian executive director of an arts organization told Rink Foto that he is a gay activist masquerading as a journalist. He is mostly self-assigned and covers 10-15 events a week, which are mostly LGBT centered, and over 500 events a year in the San Francisco Bay Area. Dozens of non-profit executive directors tell him that they depend on him to photograph their events.. His work involves the diversity of The City at Asian, African American, Latino, Native American, Transgender, and other groups’ community happenings since 1969. The Rink Foto Archive includes more than a half-million images.

Rink Foto is asked to consult about organizations’ media outreach strategy and event coordination because of his long time experience, and he has involved himself in what San Francisco Chronicle writer Randy Shilts called advocacy journalism.
He organized a photographers group that seized power with mostly women activists in a coup at the 1980 Gay Parade Committee for 3 years and changed its name to the Lesbian/Gay Parade Committee.

Rink Foto’s articles that were published in the San Francisco Bay Times can be seen at http://rinkfoto.blogspot.com, that
includes his witnessing an historic Black Panther Party/ Gay Liberation Front unity meeting in the early 1970’s. Rink Foto’s photographs are published in the San Francisco Bay Times (sfbaytimes.com) and in over 50 books and appear in over 2 dozen films. He has been honored by mayors, state legislators, city supervisors, and no-profit organizations.
Rink Foto is the most published bay area professional photographer, said a San Francisco Chronicle editor. An archivist said that he is the only person who was at every SF Pride event, since 1970. And he took photographs.

Rick Gerharter

Rick Gerharter is a San Francisco based photojournalist who has documented the queer communities of San Francisco and beyond for nearly 35 years. He is regularly published in the Bay Area Reporter of San Francisco and in a wide variety of periodicals, newspapers, books, films and exhibitions. He is a contributor to Getty Images. His work is in the collection of the Hormel Center at the San Francisco Public Library and the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco. 
 
The photographs are a selection from the 36 Pride parades I have photographed since 1982, missing only 1984 and 1993. 

José Alberto Guzmán Colón

I love working with well-known individuals – whether they be reality television, drag stars, famous club personalities or trans-culture-based artists – and deconstructing society’s views of those persons through photography. By taking subjects out of their comfort zones, challenging how others or even how they see themselves, the result is a reimagining of a public persona and a transformation of the traditional portrait. 

I am currently working on my new Photography table book which will feature 10 years of my favorite drag super stars from around the country. 

I could not be doing this amazing work without the support of all who have been donating towards my Gofundme campaign. 

www.gofundme.com/f/jagc-photography-tour 

My wish is to inspire and be inspired in the art of creative image making after all it’s all about the bigger picture.  

 -José Alberto Guzmán Colón 

Sean Black

The right for every individual to freely explore and express personal tastes and tendencies related to identification remains a constant battle. During this stressful period of COVID19, I have revisited my ongoing project Secretly Pretty which delves into the many faces and facets of my alternate persona, Violet Lillian. Drawing inspiration from self-portrait master Cindy Sherman and imbuing cinematic direction from touchstones of early childhood experience such as Creature Feature, Love Boat and Tigerbeat, I aim to stylistically unmask the rich details of a broader spectrum of being human.  
 
 
Website www.seanblackphoto.com 
Instagram: @seanblackofficial  

Saul Bromberger and Sandra Hoover

Based in Alameda in the San Francisco Bay Area, Saul Bromberger and Sandra Hoover have worked together as a team for over 30 years on documentary photo-essay projects and as editorial and commercial photographers for a variety of clients such as Stanford University, Goodwill Industries, TechWomen, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The documentary projects they’ve completed include ‘PRIDE – Heart of a Movement: The San Francisco Gay & Lesbian Freedom Day Parade: 1984-1990,’ ‘House of Angels: Living With AIDS at the Bailey-Boushay House: 1992-1995,’ ‘American Portraits: Hopes & Dreams,’ and ‘Portrait of the AIDS Generation.’  

www.saul-sandraphoto.com

Skot Jonz

Longtime SF resident and HMPC member departed the Bay Area in late 2019. My entry in ART + PRIDE 2020 explores how my photography has evolved while adapting to major vision loss in a completely new environment. I find myself intrigued by the juxtaposition of humanmade objects and our fleeting existence against the enduring presence of Mother Earth. Evolution vs Extinction emphasizes the necessity of adapting ways of being, challenging our thoughts and beliefs — imperative for individual growth and the survival of humanity.

Website: http://www.skotjonz.com
IG: @skotshotz

Larry Perperl

I make black-and-white, silver-gelatin prints from analog (film) negatives. I find in this medium an opportunity to re-imagine the present through images that implicitly honor the past. I took this photograph in 2019 as the team completed the construction of the Pink Triangle on Twin Peaks, an annual commemoration during San Francisco’s Pride weekend for the past 25 years.  In the words of the organizers, “there is an ongoing need to still bring the message of the Pink Triangle to the world, the message being what can happen when hatred and bigotry become law.”

Website: https://www.lensculture.com/laurence-peiperl
IG: brightfog
Flickr: bright.fog

Fred Goldsmith

My common ground is character, whether of people or places and scenes. I see reality toying with artifice, especially viewed through the lens of a camera. I think photos are also a mirror in which you and I are reflected. It’s an honor and delight to be asked to exhibit and to share with all of you who come to look. In these days of “distancing,” the chance to connect through photos which offer glances and glimpses, and more is a welcome opportunity. I hope you enjoy yourself while here. 

Trix Rosen

Trix Rosen’s work can be found in many collections, including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Museum. In 2017, she was invited by MoMA New York to submit her original slide show “MAITRESSE,” along with two photographs for the accompanying catalog, to the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, “CLUB 57: Film, Performance and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983.”  In 2015 she exhibited photographs from her  HE-SHE  Portfolio for the 5th THESSALONIKI BIENNALE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, Main Program, “IDENT-ALTER-ITY, BUT STILL IN ONE PIECE” exhibition in Greece. 
 
Her photographs have been represented in over 50 exhibitions in galleries and in museums including the Ceres Gallery and Hebrew Union College Museum in New York City; the Sherwin Miller Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Reece Museum in Johnson City, Tennessee; New Jersey’s George Segal Gallery in Montclair and Pierro Gallery in South Orange; and the Kepco Gallery Museum in Seoul, South Korea 

https://trixrosen.com/ 
 
https://www.blurb.com/books/7347934-he-she

Max Koo

Rebel artist Max Koo has long sought God’s favor. He tried appeasement, with new interpretations of renaissance master works incorporating the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Yet he continues, hoping that accumulating evidence of his adoration will eventually compensate for past sins.

Bob Adler

Since I was a child, I have been fascinated by outlaws and villains. They knew the path of conformity and acceptance but chose to lead their lives down an alternative road, breaking with society’s norms and expectations. As a photographer I am drawn to these same people, especially the women who find themselves working in the adult “Underground” professions. I try to capture in the moment of my photographs their complex inner character with honesty as they pose for me in their provocative costumes and dangerous surroundings.