Nightlife to Daylight
With Bex Wade
From Protests to Pride, photographer Bex Wade takes us through their journey of capturing minorities within minorities. Discussing the joy of being able to document your own community and raising the question - what ethical role does a photographer take when representing communities?
Interview by Lisa Der Weduwe | 07.07.23
You didn't train as a photographer, so what was the impetus for you to pick up a camera and start documenting nightlife and club culture?
I was living in Brighton, but about to start university in Bristol as a mature student. I was starting to go out in the gay scene there and I kept spotting these photographers in clubs looking like they were having a lot of fun. Instead of having to make small talk, which I wasn’t a fan of, I thought I'd just pick up a camera and have a go too. I bought myself a little point and shoot - I think it was like a Kodak 5-megapixel - and then I just started taking photos in clubs.
I started taking photos on the scene for a website called RealBrighton.com, (kind of like an online Time Out magazine for queers and a few years before the days of Facebook and MySpace). They would publish photo stories and reviews of club nights and events. You could tag yourself in photos, you could message each other (even anonymously). It was really great, felt very progressive. They expanded the site to cover the rest of the UK, so when I returned to Bristol I was asked to set up and run a version there. I was out shooting across the queer scene of the clubs in Bristol for years until I graduated and took a holiday to New York. I accidentally ended up moving there for a while and jumped straight into queer life; documenting parties, female drummers, dyke marches and everything in between.
When did you first start calling yourself a photographer?
The funny thing is that when I first went to New York, people would say “what do you do?” and I'd say, “I'm kind of a photographer”. And then I realised that it was such a British thing to do, to say I was “kind of” anything. So I as I started to shoot more and more parties and pick up jobs I would just say I was a photographer. Looking back, it’s kind of ridiculous that I was I was unable to claim that identity despite the site I’d been running for years and having a load of images published. I guess it just took me some time to own it!
What kind of scenes were you capturing?
In Bristol, there were Queer nights like Wonky; I was their photographer for about five or six years and loved that crowd. There were nights like PUSH run by Shay Malt (who now dazzles on the current London scene with Adonis) and I used to photograph at the Queenshilling club once or twice a week. It meant that I was very well known on the scene and it meant that people were happy to be photographed by me. It was a way of them sharing their nights out and them claiming a sense of visibility. In contrast, New York exposed me to a scene that I could never even imagined. I remember going to Amanda LePore’s party, Bloody Mary, in Manhattan around 10 years ago. Everyone was dressed incredibly, so theatrical and like nothing I’d seen. It felt like my worlds were starting to collide, performance (I’d studied theatre) and photography. It was a performance art kind of scene generally. There were more radical nights, you know, sex positive spaces, a bunch of queers that would bring on a marching band in the middle of the club night alongside just as many more wholesome gatherings all over Brooklyn. So yeah, there was a real range. But the one thing that I stayed away from capturing was any kind of mainstream representation of LGBTQ+ people. I never have been interested in the big clubs, it's always the smaller ones, the much more interesting parties.
"My work would be nothing without the acceptance of my community. I'm seeking a sense of belonging as much as everybody else is, and I'm trying to capture that. So my journey photographically mirrors my own journey as a person; I hope that that comes across in my work”
What was the transition like from documenting nightlife to daylife, like protests and pride, and the similarities between those spaces?
Towards the end of my time living in New York, a lot of clubs and parties were shutting and closing down, and I felt I too was losing interest in documenting those spaces. I shot a lot of portraits (specifically of female drummers) and did a lot of street photography when I was living in NYC, it made me very comfortable on the streets and led me to fall in love with shooting in natural light. It also made me even more comfortable photographing strangers, which I think is something that people can struggle with. This I think is one of my greatest assets.
When I came back to the UK, I started to do more project work. I went to Cuba and then to Spain and photographed the LGBTQ+ Afro Cuban and LGBTQ+ Roma Gypsy communities there. I started to be more interested in photographing minorities within minorities. Then the Women's March in London happened, I photographed that and got a hunger for that type of photography. I realised that I shoot protests in the same style as I shoot clubs; I'm sort of hunting for an image. My understanding of the way that people move, how I anticipate things are going to happen: it brings it back full circle to my knowledge of theatre and performance. How to direct people with my physicality, as opposed to just my camera.
I think there was a period where we [queer people] were sort of basking in the delight of achieving more equal rights, especially in America. People were still campaigning for gay marriage for example whilst I was living in the states, and then they got it. Things then changed again. Recently, it's felt like there's been an unbelievable assault on minorities and on LGBTQIA+ rights. There's part of me that felt I had to leave behind parties, being called to photograph these moments, to be of use to elevate these voices and these fights and to utilise my own privilege in doing so.
It feels like during and since lockdown there's been that growing urgency to take to the streets and there's real attack on rights across the board. Can you talk about how you've experienced this or noticed this in your work?
When I started photographing protests there weren't that many trans rights and queer-specific protests happening, because I guess six or seven years ago, things weren't that bad. And as things have got worse, and as rights have started to be threatened, people have started to demonise certain communities. Especially what's happening in the media with how trans people are depicted, I feel like there's been a need to take to the streets. How I can use my work is to tell that story. So my work ended up moving more into journalism. For me, sometimes the most value that can come from an image is when it’s seen by as many people as possible.
You touched on what’s happening with the media and Trans people, what role do you think your photography and wider documentation play in counteracting that?
First of all, I think it's really important for a community to be photographed and documented from within. Because it's done, I hope, with sensitivity. And I know how images can be weaponised and I'm very, very conscious of it. Even within my photojournalist community, I find it very difficult to know that there are people shooting alongside me, photographing images of trans protest, and yet knowing that those images are literally going to be potentially used against us. That photographer may say, “Well, I made peace with that, you know. I'll send it to an agency, it's not my problem how it's used”, but I’d argue that actually, we do have an ethical role in how we represent people. I feel like having that knowledge that is really, really important in terms of integrity.
I think that it's really important to document this stuff. In a basic sense of, if you don't see it, did it even happen? I feel like some of the impact of the images that I put out is there is to galvanise, to inspire others to come to the streets and to not just moan at home or behind their computer.
People constantly ask me whether or not I think protest matters. And I say, yeah, it really, really does. I think that especially in the UK, we are so unaware of how our own rights were won, the link between protests and our rights. Women’s rights, weekends for workers, whatever. And people think, well, it doesn't do any good..They’ll just make these laws anyway. They will just shut us down, whatever. But it's an opportunity to try and make a difference. And I would rather making this work than being sat at home moaning about how terrible the situation is, probably behind a computer.
Do you ever consider how someone might see your work in say, 20 or 30 years?
I hope they'll see it as important. I think when I was in the exhibition at Four Corners last year, Photographing Protest. It showed the history of protest photography from women and non-binary people from the 1960s to today, and really helped me situate my work historically. The irony is that I was in that show to represent the new breed of current-day protest, and yet most of the stuff in that section of the show was being protested about and photographed 20 to 30 years ago. That is why it's really important to document activism and protest because we forget really quickly that we've been here before. You know, it wasn't that long ago that people were marching for the basic LGBTQ+ rights. And now we're back there again. I think why my work is really important is because it places trans rights as the central focus. Even within the community, it reminds LGBTQIA+ people of their rights and our rights. There's a whole backlash at the moment between LGB and the T. And it's like, have you got really short memories?! I think that having documentation ensures that people don't have as short memories as they might have otherwise.
So much of the past is still cyclical, placards from the Gay Liberation Front in 1971 are still so relevant today, we’re reminding ourselves where we got to but also that these discussions are still ongoing.
I mean, the government is literally trying to ban protests, full stop. And to me, that's a complete assault on our democracy. I think that if people don't show they’re standing up against that, it just increases the apathy.
The LGBTQIA+ community is facing assaults on our rights here in the UK and globally, and now is not the time for complacency. I grew up under that heinous Tory bill of ‘section 28’ and I have that worrisome feeling that we’re not far from going back to those days.
You’ve documented Trans Pride since its inception, can you talk about that space, how it emerged and why it's so important?
I've just watched it grow and it's been absolutely beautiful to see. It went from 3-5000 people when it started, to 25,000 people last year, and I've got a feeling this year will be even bigger. I think it's incredibly important to have a specific Pride focused on the trans community.
I've watched Pride as a concept change over the years. I first went to my Pride in 1999 and have documented Pride for 17 years, ranging from regional to global events. It was incredibly symbolic for my own coming out journey and I will always argue that Pride has a place in this community. I see the issues people have with Pride and I think it's a response to those issues which have made London Trans+ Pride so strong. They have no corporate sponsorship, it’s totally grassroots. In fact, it's anonymously organised so people don't even know who's at the helm. There's a duty of care for the community that I think suggests that trans people know how to look after other trans people. They even ask cis people to be stewards, to do the service to our community in that way, and it's very much trans people to the front.
I've never photographed a protest or a Pride where I've had so many goosebumps, I've cried, I smiled till my jaw hurt - it's incredibly important. I think that there's something about being a trans person, where you are such a minority - you know, you are one of 0.5% of the population - and yet on that day on the streets you feeling like you’re a powerful majority. That's something so powerful and so difficult to capture. I've always done my best to capture it though, but its a conflict: it's a day for me, it's a day for my community, but it's a day for me to do some good important work!
Photographing Trans Pride for British Vogue last year was a massive career highlight. I’ll photograph it for them again this year too. The feedback from my community was wild, you know, “we can't believe you put us on the pages of Vogue!” kind of sentiments. A lot of people found it very affirming. And it was really important too because I think it was the first time a trans person has photographed London Trans+ Pride for British Vogue. I think the tide is turning a little about how important representation is. It’s something that you can't necessarily articulate: how important it feels to be documented by somebody like you.
Where next for your work?
So I have just photographed the main Pride in London’s “Never March Alone” campaign, on behalf of Getty. That was brilliant, to not only photograph my community, but also the fact that the images will have been seen so widely, on billboards and screens all over London. Beautiful images of trans people beamed all day on the screens of Piccadilly Circus feels pretty iconic. I think that's just wonderful, just the very idea that so many people are going to see so many trans people being their best selves. One of my greatest loves and honours is to be able to photograph my community. So to be doing that in such a prominent way feels like such a privilege.
I'm also really excited that five of my images have just been acquired by the V&A Museum and will be going into their permanent collection. That fills me with so much pride and joy. Not only to have my work’s relevancy recognised but also to have trans people and queer nightlife in that museum forever! The V&A has over 800,000 images in its photography archive, so it’s such an honour to know that mine will be in there and it is also the first time images of trans protest are included in that collection. I started taking photographs 17 years ago not necessarily knowing why I was doing it, but just knowing that I had to. And so, you know, it feels really important and significant that my work is going into such a prestigious institution.
If you could put any object into the Museum of Youth Culture, what would it be and why?
I would donate something from my own LGBTQIA+ archive. Probably the tube ticket took me into London to my first Pride in 1999. I still have it! Because it felt like, as cliché as this sounds, it was a ticket to my freedom. It was a ticket to the rest of my life.
Is there anything else that you wanted to add ?
In a way it feels like I'm only just starting to accept that my body of work as a whole is important. I'm realising that it's not just about what I’m documenting right now. It's about what I've been documenting for so long, for almost 2 decades. All these subcultures I've been documenting, the lineage of all those images.
I've always wondered why I'm so interested in minorities within a minority. Looking back on it, I suspect I'm seeking a sense of belonging as much as everybody else is, and I'm trying to capture that. So my journey photographically mirrors my own journey as a person; I hope that that comes across in my work as well. My work would be nothing without the acceptance of my community.
You can follow more of Bex's work on instagram and their website
@bexwade
bexwade.com
