Ash Kolodner
Seattle: Lucia Marquand, 2023.

“From 2011 to 2015, Ashley Kolodner travelled across the United States photographing hundreds of LGBTQIA+ individuals of all ages. She made two consecutive portraits of each of her subjects, photographing them twice during the same sitting: once with eyes closed and then with eyes open. Through more than 180 colour portraits, along with subject interviews, this title reflects the beauty, intimacy and sometimes the pain of a community kept in the shadows for decades. Includes contributing texts by filmmaker Kimberly Peirce and Tony award-winning producer Jordan Roth. These diptychs symbolise the vulnerability many have felt at the outset of discovering their personal identities, and then the realisation and self-actualisation manifest in the intimate and profound process of coming out. Ultimately these pictures and this handsome volume represent a revelatory statement on the profound humanity we all s hare.” (publisher’s blurb)