Throughout Pride Month 2021, we’ve enjoyed being with community members who reflect and celebrate the diversity we have here in West Michigan. It’s important to recognize how far we have come while still understanding the work that needs to be done to be an inclusive community. 

Even though Pride Month has passed, we believe that Pride never ends. We invite you to learn a little bit more about Pride and how it’s celebrated here in West Michigan and across the country!

Grand Rapids Pride Center

West Michigan is lucky to have an incredible organization like the GR Pride Center. We have partnered with the Grand Rapids Pride Center since 2017, and it’s been a moving and powerful experience, working with them to photograph amazing several Pride events and portraits of board members.

The Grand Rapids Pride Center creates a safe and supportive environment for members of the LGBTQ+ community to gather, discover services and spread awareness. We encourage you to visit their website and explore the resources available, including 11 different support groups, education and training, a business directory, and so much more. We look forward to partnering with the Grand Rapids Pride Center for years to come to continue to help document their creation of a vibrant and inclusive community that supports all LGBTQ+ individuals.

A few other resources to learn more about the history of Pride Month include NationalToday.com and USAToday.com

Trans Day of Visibility (March 31, 2021)

In conjunction with our support for the Grand Rapids Pride Center, we also love to show our support for Transgender Day (or Week) of Visibility. Fellow Michigander and activist, Rachel Crandall, founded TDOV in 2009. This annual event is celebrated on March 31st to acknowledge and celebrate the living members of the transgender community. Rachel Crandall is often in our local Grand Rapids community taking time to support and inspire all!

Kayden’s Post Top-Op Experience

Our engagement with Pride is an expression of our belief that all people should be given the opportunity for dignity and respect.

I have worked with Kayden on different marketing related projects including the AMA board for several years, where he earned my respect for him, his judgment and his work. Before Kayden transitioned, he was quiet and reserved, reliably volunteering excellent. During that time together, I never really felt like I knew him well- he was quite shy and generally reserved. . After starting his transition, it was as if someone inside had woken up and started engaging with the world with a vibrance and enthusiasm that was new to me. I was reintroduced to my friend who has transformed into an incredibly engaging and gregarious man, growing in his responsibilities to his family and flourishing in his career. Now, he is unreserved in his demeanor, so easily a friend to all with his brightness and charm. He's the kind of man who carries the confidence that allows him to easily make friends and have a good time. THIS is who Kayden is, who he's been all along because this was always there, always inside, ready to emerge.

When I think about how well he's thriving in his new home with his career and his family, I always smile and my day becomes that much brighter. 

This history is why it was so rewarding to do a portrait session with Kayden. Together we had an opportunity to use my work as a photographer to explore and validate his identity as a fellow man. These portraits are not about who he was, but a demonstration and celebration about who he IS.

Because of how common it is, we forget that photography offers a powerful and important tool to help subjects discover or affirm themselves. When we look into a mirror, most of us interpret our appearance through the lens of our own biases, of ourselves. Most of the time we only really recognize our flaws, those things we don't like. We often focus on those flaws, to the exclusion of the things that make us unique and are worth cherishing. 

Without exception, photography is always an act of interpretation. Because a photograph is an act of creation, it is never objective. This truth is one of the things that makes the medium so powerful. When Kayden looks at a photograph I built with him, what Kayden sees is MY interpretation of him, as a man and as a friend.

When we see ourselves as interpreted by another, we are given an opportunity to share an external perspective, to see just a little bit how other people perceive us.

Kayden recently shared on #TDOV that this day is important, “Visibility is important. At least once a week I am reminded of the visibility that didn't exist when I was a kid, that could've saved me from so much pain and discomfort.”

All of us at the studio hope to see more people find the courage to embrace and share who they are with the rest of the world, to their benefit, but also for ours.