Bay Area queer photographers sharpen lens on ‘connection’

San Francisco Pride, the jubilant, colorful celebration of LGBTQ folx, is just around the corner. From the sea of rainbows, photographers will capture the splendor and joy of the iconic parade spectacle.

In honor of Pride, we are celebrating a handful of Bay Area-based queer photographers who work tirelessly to hone their craft, perfecting the art of catching moments, emotions, light and an array of people in unique and powerful ways.

Tristan Crane

43
Pronouns: they/them
Lives in: Oakland, Calif.
Camera equipment: Canon 5D III, 85mm f 1.2, 35mm f 1.4

Tristan Crane is a wedding and portrait photographer who has photographed more than 150 LGBTQ individuals as part of their project titled “Here.”

Crane told SFBay:

“I started to sort of notice that there was something really radical and empowering and really amazing about collaborating with my clients to create these really affirming images of their relationship and of themselves.”

Crane notes a rise in fine art photos of queer and transgender people but believes the photos tend to be more about the overall image — the message — and less about the subjects. Crane’s works focuses on people who identify as anything other than cisgender.

Talking about their process, Crane said:

“My side of (Here) is to create this really beautiful environmental portrait where (my subjects) are comfortable, they’re confident, they’re really in their power, they’re really in their space, and then what they bring is that energy, their willingness to be in the portrait, and then also their statement.”

Attached to each image is a statement from the photographed individual, ranging from a single sentence to a few paragraphs.

Crane’s work was featured at the Berkeley Art Center in a display called “All of Us All of Us.” The exhibit ran from April 16 to June 18.

Amira Maxwell

28
Pronouns: she/her
Lives in: Berkeley, Calif.
Camera equipment: Nikon 28mm, 58mm

Amira Maxwell has a keen and sensitive eye for photography. Her work incorporates soft light and natural poses. 

She says that while some people are camera-shy and need more direction, she prefers photographing clients just as they are.

Maxwell discusses her belief:

“[I]deally I really do believe that whatever you’re doing (in front of the camera) is fine.”

Maxwell recalls one of her favorite sessions, photographing a model in Los Angeles named Keylan.

Recounting the experience, she said: 

“I didn’t have to guide him too much and I didn’t really have any clear vision. I wasn’t trying to bring out any specific emotion; I just knew that he was right, and probably just the most direction I gave was just ‘look at me.’ … [I]t was like a really slow process.”

Maxwell also shared the story behind a session titled “May,” which is viewable on her website. The intimate maternity shoot involved a married couple whom she’d previously photographed for their engagement and wedding. Maxwell captured the two in a very small room using a wide-angle, 28mm lens just as evening’s golden hour light poured in.

Maxwell talks about the maternity shoot:

“They had already booked that cabin so I really like that they always came with a vision, they always came with a location and they just knew that I would thrive in it…I really wanted to utilize the light in that room and how small that room was and just focus on the intimacy in every little corner. It was a very small room – much less than 100 square feet.”

Kari Orvik

Pronouns: she/her
Lives in: San Francisco
Camera equipment: Tintype portrait studio

Kari Orvik, a photographer and photo educator, has a tintype portrait studio that serves her business and creative endeavors. Orvik explains tintype as a chemical process popularized in the 1850s that produces a unique look with light distorted lighter or darker than reality. 

Orvik speaks about tintype:

“So sometimes that’s kind of referencing the past, because it is a historic process, but sometimes, you know, it allows me to kind of experiment and that’s the part that’s exciting for me in my primary practice.”

Talking about how her path into photography, she said:

“I used to work in affordable housing and I was taking classes, photo classes at City College at the time and so I really became a photographer making portraits of the residents in the building where I was working, and really wanting to celebrate people and have a record and a way of remembering them. So portraiture was very like connected to how I became a photographer. … I still kind of missed the process aspect of being in the darkroom so the tintype process that I use now kind of allows me to stay in the darkroom and still have that interaction with people who show up to the portrait studio.”

Alongside her partner and filmmaker Vero Majano and DJ Brown Amy, Orvik participated in “The Q-Sides,” a series of photographs featured at the Berkeley Art Center that depict queer people. Orvik said the photos would not have come together without the trio’s collaboration. 

“The idea for the project came together where Vero and Brown Amy grew up listening to lowrider oldies on compilation albums, so they had the idea of restaging, reshooting the album covers… [T]hat’s where the project kind of started.”

Orik talks about collaborating on Q-Sides:

“You can have an idea, but when you bring three peoples’ kind of ideas together there’s something really exciting in that none of you know exactly what it’s going to look like at the end, and so that aspect of discovery in a creative process is why it’s special…”

Jamil Hellu

45
Pronouns: he/him
Lives in: Oakland

Jamil Hellu’s work consists of photos and gifs of highly planned and detailed scenes that express different aspects of queerness.

“There’s so much division, there’s so much separation in the world, there’s so much — especially when we think about queerness; there’s a huge lineage of erasure, oppression, rejection — and I think about making image and type of presentation that present something different. … [T]he idea of connection.”

Connection drives Hellu in his photography. He calls his photo subjects “collaborators” who are both the focal point and creators.

Hellu said:

“So I invited people to participate to be part of the work, to collaborate with me to show queer representations of queerness outside of ideas of otherness; now to think about the photographer to live in the space behind the camera to join the people in front of the camera as an example of connection.”

After finding people and working through many meetings and ideas, Hellu says that he and his collaborators forge a concept to be photographed. He also said that the scenes are created in a fluid motion, giving some direction but allowing his collaborators to be expressive.

On the topic of expressiveness, Hellu said:

“I think of photography as a means of self-expression and to say things which I feel are important…and that idea to say things that are meaningful.”