Chloe Aftel Q&A

My friend and LA roommate (we share a rental apartment in Silver Lake) Chloe Aftel has just released her first book, Outside & In Between. Since 2012 she’s been photographing people who don’t identify as either male or female, they consider themselves non-binary gender-wise. 

Chloe is a great photographer, with a reputation as a top lifestyle and portrait shooter, so it’s no surprise that these pictures are beautiful but this body of work takes on a richer quality because of the unique subject matter and the struggle that many of the sitters have gone through to get to where they are now.

She has kindly agreed to an email Q & A.

How is this work different from the other photography that you do?

This was a series I began out of personal curiosity, the need to understand more about it, and while doing so, it became a cultural hot point. It was strange because all of a sudden there was this huge and intense demand for imagery, which I just happened to have. This was work I not paid to do, spent months looking for subjects, building trust, working out themes, etc and it was something, when I began, I never thought people would really care to look at. It was initially shot just for me.

In terms of execution or intent, it is very much in line with all my other work - I sought the intimacy, emotion and authenticity as much in these portraits as I have in anything else.

When you started this project the ideas around people being non-binary wasn’t widely known or discussed, and now it’s one of the central social topics in the culture. How has this effected your approach to this project and the publication of the book?

Luckily I was already so deep into it. I had a visual style and I knew what I wanted so the cultural explosion didn’t impact me, it just made it easier to find subjects. 

The real challenge was always the older generation, which was a real effort to find subjects and build trust, as most of them had lived their lives in fear of being fluid or queer or non-binary and only did so in the privacy of their own homes. They lived two lives, which is heart-breaking, and often times, they could only be themselves when alone as their partners often judged or could not accept this part of them. 

Were there any photo projects of the past that were inspirational for this series, or your approach to it?

Not really, I just knew I wanted to do something that was individually focused and intimate. I wanted to capture a sense of each person as they are, as their most honest self. They are all so different and unique, I couldn’t approach it in a formulaic way; each image had to come out of who was in front of me.

A limited edition of only 400 pieces the book is available for purchase here: http://www.chloeaftel.com/shop/14713/outside-and-in-between-monograph

All images by Chloe Aftel. From the top: Edie (book cover), Rain, Jiz.