Loren Rex Cameron (born August 28, 1959) is an American

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

. His work includes

portrait A portrait is a portrait painting, painting, portrait photography, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, Personality type ...

s and

self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

s consisting of transsexual bodies in both clothed and

nude Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

form.

Biography

Loren Rex Cameron was born in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

on August 28, 1959. In 1969, after his mother's death, he moved to rural

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

where he lived as a self-described

tomboy A tomboy is a term for a girl or a young woman with masculine qualities. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and actively engage in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men. W ...

on his father's farm. By the age of 16, Cameron identified as a

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

and encountered

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitude (psychology), attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, h ...

in the small town where he lived. At this time, Cameron quit school and left home to seek work as a construction worker and other

blue collar A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...

employment. In 1979, he moved to the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

where he identified socially with the lesbian community until the age of 26, when he confronted his dissatisfaction with his body and was excluded from the lesbian

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

. Cameron's interest in

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

coincided with the beginning of his transition from female to male, which he documented photographically. In 1993 Cameron began studying the basics of photography and started photographing the transsexual community. Since 1994, he has given lectures on his work at universities, educational conferences and art institutes. By 1995, Cameron's photographs had been shown in solo exhibitions in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, and

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Photography

Cameron's photography and writing was first published by

Cleis Press Cleis Press is an American independent publisher of books in the areas of sexuality, erotica, feminism, gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, fiction, and human rights. The press was founded in 1980 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It later moved to S ...

in 1996. His first published works ('' Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits'' and ''Man Tool: The Nuts and Bolts of Female-to-Male Surgery'') consist largely of self-portraits, and portraits of other female to male transsexuals. ''Body Alchemy'' documented Cameron's personal experience of transition from female to male, his life as a man, and the everyday lives of

trans men A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that incl ...

he knew. The nude figures' poses in the artist's photography often portray moments of action and performance. In many of his self portraits, he includes the shutter-release bulb that he used to take the photograph. The choice to work alone and feature the bulb serves as a commentary on the self-made aspect of being transsexual. His photography shows how the issues of queer bioethics come up not only in clinical sites but also in public art and museum spaces. His work was intended to remove the clinical view of transsexual bodies and redefine them as not in need of a cure. Body Alchemy became a double 1996

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

winner. It remains his most well-known work to date, though he has since published other photographic works. More recently published work includes representation of both female and male transsexuals, portraits and classical nudes (Body Photographs by Loren Cameron Volume 1 and 2. Cameron's work was first shown as part of a 1994 exhibit in San Francisco. His images have also been exhibited in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, in Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in Mexico City. They have been published in numerous books such as ''Constructing Masculinity: Discussions in Contemporary Culture'' and Leslie Feinberg's '' Transgender Warriors''. He has also posed for photographers such as Daniel Nicoletta, Amy Arbus, and Howard Shatz. Cameron has lectured at universities across the United States, including Smith College, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

, and the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

. In May 2008, Cameron presented his work at the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He was profiled on the

Discovery Health Channel Discovery Health Channel was an American subscription television channel. Launched in July 1998, it was owned by Discovery Communications as a spin-off of Discovery Channel, focusing on health and wellness-oriented programming. In the beginning ...

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

-themed special '' Sex Change: Him to Her'', and on the

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television television network, network and flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel owned by the National Geograp ...

's ''

Taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

'' "

Sexual Identity Sexual identity is how one thinks of oneself in terms of to whom one is romantically and/or sexually attracted.
''Sex ...

" series. He was also interviewed in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' magazine.

Reception

Cameron's work is controversial among critics. Many praise his photographs as compelling and informative, while others criticize it for being sexually explicit. In 2012, The

University of Minnesota-Duluth A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

invited Loren Cameron to campus to present his photography. The University paid Cameron $4,000 from student services to cover his speaker’s fee and travel expenses. This decision was met with a backlash, due to him and his subjects' identity as transsexual individuals, as well as the nudity in Cameron’s work. Despite the objections, Cameron delivered his presentation on September 26, 2012. ''Body Alchemy'' is considered by some to be influential for bringing attention to the social and medical issues that transsexual people face.

Books

*'' Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits''. 1996,

. . *Cuerpos fotografiados por Cameron: fotografías. Volume 1. 2009, Taller Experimental Cuerpos Pintados. . *Cuerpos fotografiados por Cameron: fotografías. Volume 2. 2009, Taller Experimental Cuerpos Pintados. .

Awards and recognition

, Inaugural Transgender Category, 1997 * Lambda Literary Award, Small Press Category, 1997 * Lambda Literary Award Nominee, Best Photography Category, 1997 *1997 FTM International Pride Award

References