User:Joserocks

Bio Jose A Guzman Colon

I remember the first time I picked up a camera at about 16 years of age and how excited I was to capture images of natural and strange objects floating up onto the shores of Cape May, NJ. I have to say it is one of my fondest memories. After a few years of traveling and allowing life to happen I forgot all about my love for the camera. It was not until many years later that I partnered with the fantastic photographer Marianne Larochelle. I served as Art Director & Stylist on our Glam Gender table book and began to see that I was falling back in love with taking photos. I guess you can say it was a major leap of faith along with a new found teacher and master of photography that got me back on track. I have tremendous love for my community here in San Francisco and with that love I have had many doors open for me. My subjects include famous Drag Personas and sexy men and women from all walks of life. My wish is to inspire the subject, viewer, and of course, myself.

Glam Gender

Glam Gender is a collaboration between photographer, Marianne Larochelle and Art Director, Jose Guzman-Colon, a.k.a. Putanesca. The two talents have teamed up on this exciting photography project that explores and confronts the traditional concept of glamour. Glam Gender is an evolving body of work featuring many of the most exciting and talented artists and performers in San Francisco.

These musicians, dancers, singers, adult entertainers, and most prominently, drag performers have all been styled and directed by Guzman-Colon as fantastic characters and creatures in timeless vignettes for Larochelleís lens. Often in the portraits, the essence of the subject is amplified and made fantastical and at other times the subject is seen more as a blank canvas, cast for the teamís projected whimsy. At the outset of the project the two creators coined the title Glam Gender to describe both the project and it's milieu; a melting pot of drag queens and artists. The core group of subjects includes male and female artists, some transgender, each personally involved in public representation of a rich and wide spectrum of variations and orientations of sex and sexuality.

With these fascinating subjects, Larochelle and Guzman-Colon feel it appropriate to bring to light each individuals inherent personal expression of glamour and gender. Together they break away from archaic limitations and create an exciting combination of theatre, anthropology, fashion, and portraiture. What we are left with is iconic imagery and questions about the way in which the style and genre of glamour has developed, challenging tradition and proclaiming: "Anyone and anything can be glamorous."

www.glamgender.com http://twitter.com/GlamGender