Nan Goldin

The article written by Nan Golden was wonderful.  I love how she describes how she came upon taking pictures of Queens.  She just found these people walking on the street and filmed them because she was ‘infatuated’ with them.  I feel that this is how a photographer should make their work.  An artist must find things they are drawn to, and should make art based on those things.  Nan Golden does just that.  She continues to photograph Queens and her other transgendered friends for many years, even though the Queen lifestyle wasn’t accepted in the 70s. Nan breaks down the walls of sexuality and intimacy in her images just by showing The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.

Although she never says it, I feel that the AIDS pandemic drives her to capture these people on film forever.  She never knows when a person might die because of the disease and taking their picture memorializes them.  Many of her models did in fact die of AIDS.  The impact it had on the gay community was great.  Using drugs and being self destructive lead to many people in the gay community to contract AIDS.  Nan mentions that some of her friends are now in recovery from drugs and alcoholism because of their past and the AIDS pandemic.