People: Portrait (PROFESSIONAL) - HONORABLE MENTION
ALL LOVE IS EQUAL
Photo © Braden Summers
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Beauty has been used for centuries to help sell lifestyles and to help sell clothes. My imagery intended to use this methodology to help sell the idea that gay love is just as romantic as straight love. We constantly view models illustrating romance for advertising for wedding and luxury tourism; these images have ultimately set the bar for what romance looks like. By excluding gay couples in this context, we are ultimately told as an LGBT community that our love and romance is not as beautiful because we don’t have this same representation, the fantasy. The stunning models that are illustrating straight romance in this context are not questioned if they are authentic, but we buy into the fantasy - literally and guratively.
The images that have notoriously been related to our community are largely sex-based or banal images of love that are shown in the form of journalistic photography, documenting our progress as a community. Where is the beauty? Where is the fantasy for our community? My work is a commentary that beautiful same-sex photographs should be included into
our mainstream advertisements and fashion magazines. As a community at large some- times we need help dreaming, especially when so many view our love as something that is sinful and disgusting. There is a fantasy of what beauty is that is perpetuated by the likes
of many photographers and largely with images alluding to heterosexual companions. My work strives to be the antidote, not simply providing a fantasy for the LGBT community, but mostly providing a relatable vision of gay romance by using the same tools that sell straight romance.
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Beauty has been used for centuries to help sell lifestyles and to help sell clothes. My imagery intended to use this methodology to help sell the idea that gay love is just as romantic as straight love. We constantly view models illustrating romance for advertising for wedding and luxury tourism; these images have ultimately set the bar for what romance looks like. By excluding gay couples in this context, we are ultimately told as an LGBT community that our love and romance is not as beautiful because we don’t have this same representation, the fantasy. The stunning models that are illustrating straight romance in this context are not questioned if they are authentic, but we buy into the fantasy - literally and guratively.
The images that have notoriously been related to our community are largely sex-based or banal images of love that are shown in the form of journalistic photography, documenting our progress as a community. Where is the beauty? Where is the fantasy for our community? My work is a commentary that beautiful same-sex photographs should be included into
our mainstream advertisements and fashion magazines. As a community at large some- times we need help dreaming, especially when so many view our love as something that is sinful and disgusting. There is a fantasy of what beauty is that is perpetuated by the likes
of many photographers and largely with images alluding to heterosexual companions. My work strives to be the antidote, not simply providing a fantasy for the LGBT community, but mostly providing a relatable vision of gay romance by using the same tools that sell straight romance.
About author:
Braden Summers is an artist and photographer, whose work alerts the viewer to the beauty in people and their environment. The undertones of his portraits are appreciative of diversity and acceptance, ideas that are fundamentally supportive of a more positive lifestyle. His work has been featured in Marie Claire UK, on the sites of French Elle, French Glamour, Advocate and The Huffington Post. Marriott International worked with Mr. Summers on their latest campaign #LoveTravels, depicting love and family in the LGBT community and beyond.BACK TO GALLERY
