TSchapes
07-25-2008, 09:05 PM
Life sure is weird. My mom just passed away and it has left a big hole in my heart. It was truly one of the lowest days of my life. But just today I had a wonderful life affirming experience. Please bare with me as I set up how this came about...
As some of you know I took a photography class this past 12 weeks at a local community college. This is a little different than what I'm used to because they use black & white film instead of digital. We did the developing, enlarging and matting of the photos.
A number of weeks back I had to present a portrait for my second project. You may have seen the Geisha shots I had done. Well I did some in black and white film, two rolls in fact. I was able to get one to look really good and presented it. The teacher loved the composition etc. and the students seemed to like the subject matter. The question came up as to who was the model. I told them it was a self-portrait. The class was stunned. They loved it and asked who did the makeup, again I said I did it and they were having a hard time believing that. It was a great experience and was very positive.
Well because my mom was sick, I missed two classes. I wrote my teacher and told him I might have to take an incomplete. He said I was doing really good and if I were just to turn in anything it would be OK.
So after my mom's funeral I went to work getting three related pictures done for my final. I had planned on doing a couple of different things, but now didn't have the time. So I went into my negatives and I was going to do a series of buildings from the local small town. Well, they just didn't turn out right and I was frustrated.
I remembered I had a whole roll of me as the rocker chick and actually had already printed two 8 X 10's as backups in case the Geisha didn't turn out. So instead of the buildings, I added another rocker chick photo, matted all three and turned them in during our last class tonight. I really didn't want to do this as it makes me look like a one note photographer.
In a class of about 20, my pictures were displayed last. Again they really liked the pictures, but then one of them said, "Hey wait a minute <Tracy's other name>, is that you again in the pictures?" The cat is now out of the bag!
I said yes those are pictures of me and yes, I am a cross-dresser. I thought I was going to hear silence, instead they were all very impressed that I had the forthrightness to come out to them and express this. The teacher was really nice, he stopped the class briefly to ask me if it was OK to talk about this being personal and all. I told them it was OK and that I believed that educating people about transgendered people was very important to me. I told the class they may ask me any questions they wanted. There were the ones you would expect, like are you gay, why do you feel you have to do it, etc. But all was done with great respect and was absolutely lovely. There were no negative comments what so ever. And so many of my classmates afterwards thanked me and told me how much they liked my photos. They said they would have liked them even if I weren't in them. That they felt the photos could stand one their own.
Wow, I was so moved by the acceptance the class had shown me. And I thought, there are now 20 more people that know a little bit more about us CDers, that we are real people and I believe they came away with a very positive experience!
Isn't life weird and wonderful? :love:
Love, Tracy
__________________
As some of you know I took a photography class this past 12 weeks at a local community college. This is a little different than what I'm used to because they use black & white film instead of digital. We did the developing, enlarging and matting of the photos.
A number of weeks back I had to present a portrait for my second project. You may have seen the Geisha shots I had done. Well I did some in black and white film, two rolls in fact. I was able to get one to look really good and presented it. The teacher loved the composition etc. and the students seemed to like the subject matter. The question came up as to who was the model. I told them it was a self-portrait. The class was stunned. They loved it and asked who did the makeup, again I said I did it and they were having a hard time believing that. It was a great experience and was very positive.
Well because my mom was sick, I missed two classes. I wrote my teacher and told him I might have to take an incomplete. He said I was doing really good and if I were just to turn in anything it would be OK.
So after my mom's funeral I went to work getting three related pictures done for my final. I had planned on doing a couple of different things, but now didn't have the time. So I went into my negatives and I was going to do a series of buildings from the local small town. Well, they just didn't turn out right and I was frustrated.
I remembered I had a whole roll of me as the rocker chick and actually had already printed two 8 X 10's as backups in case the Geisha didn't turn out. So instead of the buildings, I added another rocker chick photo, matted all three and turned them in during our last class tonight. I really didn't want to do this as it makes me look like a one note photographer.
In a class of about 20, my pictures were displayed last. Again they really liked the pictures, but then one of them said, "Hey wait a minute <Tracy's other name>, is that you again in the pictures?" The cat is now out of the bag!
I said yes those are pictures of me and yes, I am a cross-dresser. I thought I was going to hear silence, instead they were all very impressed that I had the forthrightness to come out to them and express this. The teacher was really nice, he stopped the class briefly to ask me if it was OK to talk about this being personal and all. I told them it was OK and that I believed that educating people about transgendered people was very important to me. I told the class they may ask me any questions they wanted. There were the ones you would expect, like are you gay, why do you feel you have to do it, etc. But all was done with great respect and was absolutely lovely. There were no negative comments what so ever. And so many of my classmates afterwards thanked me and told me how much they liked my photos. They said they would have liked them even if I weren't in them. That they felt the photos could stand one their own.
Wow, I was so moved by the acceptance the class had shown me. And I thought, there are now 20 more people that know a little bit more about us CDers, that we are real people and I believe they came away with a very positive experience!
Isn't life weird and wonderful? :love:
Love, Tracy
__________________